Hello from Australia
A brief History:
I purchased a house with a pool in December 2017 and I've had a relatively trouble free experience to date, although I have nothing to measure this against. I always wanted a pool so was stocked to get the house.
When I purchased the property, I initially paid the local pool shop to run an education session and to check my equipment, this did not prove to be a wise investment, but I would not realise this until later. I spend the first 5 weeks testing water using strips, and going into the local shop for a detailed test each saturday morning. This would usually result in me walking out with a new chemical. Concurrently with this I started jumping around forums and reading up on matters, which definitely aided in my understanding of how thing work. I also decided I wasn't satisfied with the pool shops inspection of my equipment, so I spent some time checking and repairing various items. I dug up and repaired some plumping that was damaged by tree routes, I discovered that the weir door did not have floaters on it, and replaced with a new one. I also checked and repaired the solar heating system including cleaning the sensors and calibrating to the correct temperature. Finally, I decided to remove two big trees adjacent the pool that would fill it up with leaves each night.
While the first few weeks were relatively trouble free, I did notice a few things that concerned me. The first was that the skimmer would only work when the water was at the perfect point, just above the bottom bottom of the skimmer opening. I eventually, through research on this forum, discovered that weir doors where supposed to have floats attached to them. I replaced and now have a very well functioning skimmer box.
4 weeks in, I let the water get too low (before I realised my weir door was faulty) and the pool failed to filter for a few nights, this resulted in my first green experience. I rectified with shock using non stabilised chlorine (too much). It worked by I could use the pool for a week and a half.
I've since been educating myself by absorbing copious amounts of data from his brilliant forum, and thought it was time to join up.
Over the coming months / years I would like to raise several discussion on this forum from some short term goals around better control of my water chemistry, such as how to really dial in my chlorine usage (which seems to rise between SLAMS) and how to minimise my acid usage (I am currently on about 1L / 0.25 gallon per week), to some long term goals like replacing my filter medium, and replacing my pump to a variable speed to gain some efficiencies with power usage.
I would also like to take back control and purchase my own detailed testing kit (as recommended on this forum), but am wanting to speak with some other Aussies about how it goes in Australia.
Finally, thank you all for the advice to date, the forum has been a really great resource for me and helped me get a good understanding of all matters concerning my pool. While I love the maintenance side of the pool to date and have taken interest in it, I also work a reasonably demanding job so would like to get a good system in place that hopefully prevents the need to constantly battle the variables.
Thanks again
Tom
A brief History:
I purchased a house with a pool in December 2017 and I've had a relatively trouble free experience to date, although I have nothing to measure this against. I always wanted a pool so was stocked to get the house.
When I purchased the property, I initially paid the local pool shop to run an education session and to check my equipment, this did not prove to be a wise investment, but I would not realise this until later. I spend the first 5 weeks testing water using strips, and going into the local shop for a detailed test each saturday morning. This would usually result in me walking out with a new chemical. Concurrently with this I started jumping around forums and reading up on matters, which definitely aided in my understanding of how thing work. I also decided I wasn't satisfied with the pool shops inspection of my equipment, so I spent some time checking and repairing various items. I dug up and repaired some plumping that was damaged by tree routes, I discovered that the weir door did not have floaters on it, and replaced with a new one. I also checked and repaired the solar heating system including cleaning the sensors and calibrating to the correct temperature. Finally, I decided to remove two big trees adjacent the pool that would fill it up with leaves each night.
While the first few weeks were relatively trouble free, I did notice a few things that concerned me. The first was that the skimmer would only work when the water was at the perfect point, just above the bottom bottom of the skimmer opening. I eventually, through research on this forum, discovered that weir doors where supposed to have floats attached to them. I replaced and now have a very well functioning skimmer box.
4 weeks in, I let the water get too low (before I realised my weir door was faulty) and the pool failed to filter for a few nights, this resulted in my first green experience. I rectified with shock using non stabilised chlorine (too much). It worked by I could use the pool for a week and a half.
I've since been educating myself by absorbing copious amounts of data from his brilliant forum, and thought it was time to join up.
Over the coming months / years I would like to raise several discussion on this forum from some short term goals around better control of my water chemistry, such as how to really dial in my chlorine usage (which seems to rise between SLAMS) and how to minimise my acid usage (I am currently on about 1L / 0.25 gallon per week), to some long term goals like replacing my filter medium, and replacing my pump to a variable speed to gain some efficiencies with power usage.
I would also like to take back control and purchase my own detailed testing kit (as recommended on this forum), but am wanting to speak with some other Aussies about how it goes in Australia.
Finally, thank you all for the advice to date, the forum has been a really great resource for me and helped me get a good understanding of all matters concerning my pool. While I love the maintenance side of the pool to date and have taken interest in it, I also work a reasonably demanding job so would like to get a good system in place that hopefully prevents the need to constantly battle the variables.
Thanks again
Tom
