Howdy from the bipolar weather capital of the US! (70 deg. F on Jan 21)
Having broken the ice (hopefully) with my sig line, I'd like to talk a little about my reality and perhaps a little about my goals moving forward with this venerable pool... it has served my family dutifully, especially when my 2 girls were little. Now that I'm down to one at home (almost 19 and in school) and both my wife and I aren't at home enough to give the pool the attention it used to get (she's now a realtor and I'm now a road warrior, since the kids are grown) I seem to have to fight the worst that my environmental conditions throw at me.
For starters... the pool now spends most of the day in full shade, as there is an unbroken line of hackberry / ligustrum / chinaberry trees on the western property line. Even in a Central TX summer, the pool can feel a tad chilly after 1PM! Clear water conditions during the summer can be maintained pretty well with a nominal (some might say minimal) amount of effort; CH shock, granular and pucks are what I have used, and have been mostly successful since the 2015 re-plastering. Occasionally the ligustrum will drop its glossy leaves in the pool, but they are usually pretty buoyant and whatever the skimmer doesn't get, a quick leaf raking does.
Challenge #1 is this particular time of year, when the hackberry drops its leaves... they are numerous and overwhelm the skimmer, so many of them sink. The cleaner bag becomes completely stuffed in no time, and typically there's no one around to make sure it gets emptied and returned to effective service. I'm out of town most of the week and it would take an act of Congress to get the wife or the youngest to do any pool maintenance, so I end up with a murky soup of dissolved organics. Clarifier solution is not up to the task when it gets this bad, so ultimately I'm probably draining down to the lower bowl (5.5 Ft level) and refilling... UNLESS- those of you who have had cartridge filters for longer than I have (I had sand up to this past year) can advise that cleaning the cartridges regularly (every week or so?) will help prevent drain/re-fill). Also, where proactive measures are concerned: I'm thinking about having a tree service top out the ligustrum to about 12 ft. (they are currently 40-50 ft), to return it to the shrub level they presumably were when initially planted. Ditto for the hackberry (whatever hangs over our property, it's the neighbor's tree) and chinaberry. Do I need to assume that I'll need to pay more attention to chlorine levels if I'm bringing more sunlight into the pool area during the hottest part of the day during the summer in Central TX?
Challenge #2 is my CYA problem. Pucks have been convenient, but I'd really like to maintain CYA at or below lock levels for the chlorine. If I were to eliminate pucks altogether, what would be an effective maintenance routine to keep the green monster away?
Challenge #3 - the cartridge filter paradigm shift. Once I learned there was no backwash cycle for cartridges, the honeymoon was largely over... even with my mother-in-law's DE filter, it was an infrequent occurrence to have to pop the canister open and clean out the baffles. With the cartridges, I had better plan on a monthly bath. Since LPS seems intent on opening a vein in my arm when it sells me its cartridge cleaner concentrate, I'd like to know if anyone has tested a cleaning solution beyond dishwashing detergent or TSP? How about a gallon jug of Simple Green or some comparable degreaser sold at the big box home fix-it stores, dissolved into 20 gal water in a plastic trashcan?
I realize I'm all over the place here, and it's my first post, but I gotta get a handle on expenses and the pool is my best place to start. Thanks in advance for your input/advice.
Having broken the ice (hopefully) with my sig line, I'd like to talk a little about my reality and perhaps a little about my goals moving forward with this venerable pool... it has served my family dutifully, especially when my 2 girls were little. Now that I'm down to one at home (almost 19 and in school) and both my wife and I aren't at home enough to give the pool the attention it used to get (she's now a realtor and I'm now a road warrior, since the kids are grown) I seem to have to fight the worst that my environmental conditions throw at me.
For starters... the pool now spends most of the day in full shade, as there is an unbroken line of hackberry / ligustrum / chinaberry trees on the western property line. Even in a Central TX summer, the pool can feel a tad chilly after 1PM! Clear water conditions during the summer can be maintained pretty well with a nominal (some might say minimal) amount of effort; CH shock, granular and pucks are what I have used, and have been mostly successful since the 2015 re-plastering. Occasionally the ligustrum will drop its glossy leaves in the pool, but they are usually pretty buoyant and whatever the skimmer doesn't get, a quick leaf raking does.
Challenge #1 is this particular time of year, when the hackberry drops its leaves... they are numerous and overwhelm the skimmer, so many of them sink. The cleaner bag becomes completely stuffed in no time, and typically there's no one around to make sure it gets emptied and returned to effective service. I'm out of town most of the week and it would take an act of Congress to get the wife or the youngest to do any pool maintenance, so I end up with a murky soup of dissolved organics. Clarifier solution is not up to the task when it gets this bad, so ultimately I'm probably draining down to the lower bowl (5.5 Ft level) and refilling... UNLESS- those of you who have had cartridge filters for longer than I have (I had sand up to this past year) can advise that cleaning the cartridges regularly (every week or so?) will help prevent drain/re-fill). Also, where proactive measures are concerned: I'm thinking about having a tree service top out the ligustrum to about 12 ft. (they are currently 40-50 ft), to return it to the shrub level they presumably were when initially planted. Ditto for the hackberry (whatever hangs over our property, it's the neighbor's tree) and chinaberry. Do I need to assume that I'll need to pay more attention to chlorine levels if I'm bringing more sunlight into the pool area during the hottest part of the day during the summer in Central TX?
Challenge #2 is my CYA problem. Pucks have been convenient, but I'd really like to maintain CYA at or below lock levels for the chlorine. If I were to eliminate pucks altogether, what would be an effective maintenance routine to keep the green monster away?
Challenge #3 - the cartridge filter paradigm shift. Once I learned there was no backwash cycle for cartridges, the honeymoon was largely over... even with my mother-in-law's DE filter, it was an infrequent occurrence to have to pop the canister open and clean out the baffles. With the cartridges, I had better plan on a monthly bath. Since LPS seems intent on opening a vein in my arm when it sells me its cartridge cleaner concentrate, I'd like to know if anyone has tested a cleaning solution beyond dishwashing detergent or TSP? How about a gallon jug of Simple Green or some comparable degreaser sold at the big box home fix-it stores, dissolved into 20 gal water in a plastic trashcan?
I realize I'm all over the place here, and it's my first post, but I gotta get a handle on expenses and the pool is my best place to start. Thanks in advance for your input/advice.
Didn't have our own pool growing up but belonged to Catalina Terrace SC and swam competitively from ages 10-17 (Summer League Champs many years running, yada yada...). After growing up and moving to TX it didn't seem much of a stretch to become a pool owner; probably would not have one put in, but it came with the house- worked for us 
. The lil' kidney ain't much for lap work but it has cooled me down (and cleaned me 
