You guys blew my mind

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jay_mcc2

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Jul 1, 2018
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Friendswood, TX
Ok, TFP Team a quick introduction. We are putting in a pool in Houston, TX. This will be our first pool and the first time that I have ever had to take care of one. I know next to nothing about pools, equipment and chemistry but I am learning quickly.

I have been scouring the web for information about pools and found your site to be one of the best so far. Thanks for being here.

I am intrigued by the method of pool maintenance that is proposed here. It fits right in with my style, do it yourself and against the trend. I also like to be very involved and knowledgeable about all of my projects and hobbies.

From what I understand so far in reading through the Pool School and the forum posts the recommendation is for liquid chlorine bleach (Clorox) to be my primary (only?) source of pool sanitizer. I think this is in place of the 3" tabs that it seems like everyone else is using. Please let me know if I am understanding this correctly.


Ok, so now for a couple of questions. First, Really I should bleach my pool!?? :p When I first started going down this path I imagined a shed filled with white bottles of pool chemicals that had mysterious names and purposes. Now I am imagining a shed filled with Clorox, Borax and Arm & Hammer, just not the same vision.

Second, how much bleach should I expect to use on a daily or monthly basis? I know that this is a relative measurement and that every pool is different, but just an estimation or high/low number is fine.

Third, should I consider putting in a SWG? I have been steered from this by every pool builder I have talked to so far. One said that the travertine coping we are considering would be harmed by the salt in the water. Others said that a chlorine pool is just better. I know that opinions differ and honestly I was not considering putting in a SWG when I started the process. But it seems like it might be a good alternative source of chlorine vs bleach.

I have a lot more questions but that is enough for now.:) I appreciate your input and thoughts. All opinions are important.
 
How much bleach you will use depends on your cya level, how much direct sun the pool gets, the concentration of the liquid chlorine, and how big the pool is. For 15000 gallon pool half a gallon a day isn't that uncommon in Texas heat.

As far as salt water pools, most of the pool builders rhetoric is false. But some of it is true. SOME kinds of stone do deteriorate faster even at the 3000 to 4000 PPM level of salt in a saltwater pool has. That is simple fact. Unsealed natural limestone is one example, and common in my area.

However most common pool building materials can hold up at 4000 PPM salt just fine.
 
Welcome to the TFP pool! :splash:

You have a good bit right about our methods, but some of the misconception also.

Your thought of having "a shed filled with white bottles of pool chemicals that had mysterious names and purposes" is exactly what the average pool store wants you to have. Unfortunately the pool industry has evolved into sales by scare tactics, misdirection, misinformation and marketing hype. Go in to the store and tell them your TA is low and they are going to sell you baking soda in a fancy package at four times the cost of WalMart. Do they have a right to make a profit, yes - but lets be reasonable. Heck, even their definition of "low" can many times put you on a pH roller coaster that's hard to get off of. Is that lack of knowledge or a sales technique to sell you more chemicals to control your pH????

What do we propose? We base our pool care system on accurate testing and only adding what the pool needs, when it needs it. Which leads to

TFPC tenet - Never put chemistry in your pool when you do not know the outcome

For almost everything the pool store sells, there is a generic "twin" that you can get at your grocery store or big box store. Alkalinity low? you can go to the pool store and buy Alkalinity Up in a fancy bottle or you can stop by HEB and pick up baking soda.

So, to control your pool you need to know what is going on. many folks have a Saturday morning ritual, dip a bottle of water out of the pool and take it to the pool store (they give you the bottle for free). They test it and sell you what they say you need to "fix" what ails your pool. But, you will find not much credence is given to pool store testing around here. While you would think that a "professional" would be the best, unfortunately in most cases it is quite the opposite. Between employees who blindly trust the word of chemical sales representatives and high school kids working in the pool store for the summer you end up with poor results from their testing. Plus, the results of their "testing" is used to convince you that you need to buy things. Why do you think that testing is free?

But, what can you do?? You need your own accurate test kit! Order a TF100 test kit. The only other real option for a test kit is a Taylor K-2006-C. Be careful comparing prices because the K-2006 comes in sizes, designated by a letter. The basic K-2006 has .75oz bottles. You need to get the K-2006-C to get the larger bottles that you want. Even then it is a little short on the reagent & powder for the FAS/DPD test.

While entirely optional, I also have the SpeedStir and Sample Sizer. They speed testing and accuracy.

Please don't go back to the pool store for a test kit. To effectively practice the TFPC methods, the FAS/DPD chlorine test is essential. The TF100 test kit and the K-2006 have this test while very few other kits do. The kits sold at the pool store generally won't won't cut it, but be careful pool store employees are known to say “it's the same thing”. Generally it's not!

You mentioned 3" tabs. We really are not against their use. We are against their uncontrolled use. The pool store tells you that they are the easiest way to get chlorine in your pool. They are. But, they don't tell you (or really don't understand) that the 3" tabs also add CYA (also known as stabilizer or conditioner) to your pool. In Texas you need stabilizer, but not too much. Others here can give you the scientific details if you want, but lets just say CYA locks the ability of chlorine to sanitize. The more CYA you have the more chlorine you need to keep in the pool to keep algae at bay.

While talking about chlorine understand, chlorine is chlorine is chlorine. The chlorine in bleach is the same chlorine in the 3" tabs and is the same chlorine that is produced by a salt water chlorine generator. They are just different methods of adding the chlorine to you pool water.

So, TFP is not "against" anything - it's "for" knowledge. The knowledge is condensed in the Pool School link at the top of every page.

How much Pool School have you read? Start with these:
ABCs of Water Chemistry
Recommended Pool Chemicals
How to Chlorinate Your Pool

So again, welcome to TFP!!
 
Let's try again, since someone messed with your duplicate post and my reply looked like nonsense after....

Yes, bleach it. If you ever see a pool cleaner's truck in the neighborhood, take a look in the bed. Betcha he's got jugs of liquid chlorine in there next to the buckets of pucks. Around here, yellow crates are bleach, orange are acid.

Answer two: I use a quart of 12.5% bleach every day in a 16000 gallon pool. Since I buy mine four gallons at a time in returnable refillable jugs, it means I only have to go by the pool place a couple times a month during the season.

My shed has a plastic crate with bleach, another with acid, and a small bucket of pucks for vacations. That's it. That's all I've ever fed my pool. Never needed borax or baking soda, and I wouldn't stockpile them if it did, because they're so readily available.

As for SWG, no idea if that stone is soft enough to be damaged by salt.

I don't have a SWG for a simple reason: I have extraordinarily high CH so several times during the summer I have to replace water. I'd lose salt then, too, and I wouldn't be able to dump the water on my lawn. I'd love to have one.

There is one thing to consider, living where you do: rain. If you get massive amounts of rainfall even during the summer, where you might have to drain off the excess, then a) CYA buildup is less of a worry so pucks might work and b) you'd lose salt if you were running a SWG.
 
Hi Jay

I’m up in Spring and had a pool built last summer. Ours has full sun and is a bit bigger than yours but in the summer last year I was adding 3/4-1 gal of chlorine a day. By the fall was on a gallon every few days and in the winter it was about a gal a week.

I just converted to a SWCG and it was worth it. I left for 12 days and didn’t have to worry about having someone add chlorine or use pucks and get the cya rise (which I could have managed with not adding cya earlier this year because of the rain we had this spring.). I had researched the swgc’s last year but as you mentioned the PB’s don’t want to install them which I find ridiculous. If you properly balance your water everything should be fine.

Once you have a design start a construction thread. https://www.troublefreepool.com/forums/10-Under-Construction

I’ve received some great advice before and during our build that way.

As for your pool shed with chemicals consider the fact chlorine should be kept indoors as high temperatures breaks it down and it will be less effective. Also look at the date code on the bottle. The newer it is the more potent it is.

Starting in about March here Walmart sells a 2 pack of chlorinating liquid in the pool section for about 6.50 and it’s 10% chlorine. I’d stay away from the stuff at Home Depot and Lowe’s as it’s stored outside.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I'll try and respond to each of your comments.

@Tim5055
I absolutely will be getting a test kit for my pool. No worries about that, my need to know and understand what is going on would drive me to do so. From what I have read so far everyone seems really helpful and friendly, even if stern from time to time. I understand the "not against" but "for knowledge" comment. I am the same way. It is what makes me skeptical of everything else (other than this site) I have read. There is a lack of specifics and direct cause/effect relationships in other guides and recommendations. I like the TFPC methods of precise measuring and precise chemical application to get a precise result.

@Richard230
Thanks for the advice. I may very well peek in the back of a pool guys truck, I am that kinda guy!!! I appreciate the experience that you shared with your chemical usage. Now I just have to find some good locations where I can get the necessary chemicals.


@SpringPool
Howdy SpringPool, glad to see fellow Houstonian here. My pool would also get full sun for most of it, most of the day. I will start a construction thread once we get a PB selected. I will probably be reaching back out with some details on the quotes, just for a second set of eyes. Good to know about Walmart, I'll look into it. And be sure to consider the chlorine kept in outdoors and their effectiveness. The spring rain we had was really nice for a while, but with all the heat we've had I wish I already had it in!!!
 
I am certain that this has been a common thread on this site, but we are going through a household debate on the TFPC method and whether it is the right way to care for our pool. My much better half grew up with a pool and helped add chemicals and do testing for it. First the thought of pouring bleach into the pool is unsettling to her. We have discussed that bleach is nothing more than liquid chlorine and the same sodium hypochlorite can be found in commercial liquid pool chlorines as well as what is generated in SWG. Her reaction is "What is the benefit of not using the pool store chemicals?" or "why not go with what has worked for lots of people in the past?"

I am still looking into all of the details of the method here. Don't reply with explanations of why it works or is better than pool store chemicals. I will continue to read the forums and Pool School and ask specific questions as they arise.

Having said all that I do have one specific question now. Concerning the 3" tablets that are generally used by chorinators for putting chlorine into pools. My understanding is that the concern with using this form of chlorine is that they contain buffers in the form of CYA. And that CYA is necessary to be controlled in a certain levels so that the chlorine can do its job effectively. So continuously using 3" tabs will cause the CYA to build in the pool until the point where chlorine is ineffective. That is what I understand, I hope that I am right.

If chlorine tabs cause CYA to build, is there any way to lower it? What would a pool store recommend if my CYA measured high enough to cause the chlorine to be ineffective in the pool?
 
Only reliable way to significantly lower the CYA is by physically removing and replacing water. It does break down, but usually very slowly, like 5ppm per month.

You almost understand the FC and CYA relationship. If you do not raise the FC as the CYA builds up, then the chlorine will not be effective. If you keep the FC and CYA ratio the same, then the pool will be safe and sanitized, even at FC levels that will unjustifiably freak people out. See the [FC/CYA][/FC/CYA]
 
If chlorine tabs cause CYA to build, is there any way to lower it? What would a pool store recommend if my CYA measured high enough to cause the chlorine to be ineffective in the pool?
Click to expand...

The only proven way to get rid of CYA is to drain and refill with fresh CYA-free water.

The pool stores will try to sell you a product we had hoped worked, a biological, but it has failed more often than worked. And when it did work it was a minimal decrease in CYA so still not an entire cure.

Maddie :flower:
 
I like you already! GREAT questions!!! I can tell you have been doing a lot of reading already THANKS! :hug:

Okay-how to lower CYA-remove and replace some water is the only REAL way. The pool store might try to sell you some CYA reducer (I forget the name of it) BUT we have several threads where these were tried and FAILED. One thread the maker of the stuff gave it to the PO (pool owner) to try and it did not work :(

I get where your wife is coming from. It seems so "different" to what others do. Well it is. The TFP way is based on solid science. I can find and link to the papers that have been written as well as the experiments done to show it works if she needs me to. The other MAJOR reason to use the TFP way is the money, major money, you will save using TFP. Like stated above you can buy alk up ($14.99 for 5 lbs at pool store) or you can buy baking soda at Walmart ($7.57 for 12lbs). This is just ONE example.

Me? I like being in control of my pool and knowing what is what in it.

Oh and the pool guy way??? Come in once a week to "check the levels" and add what is needed.............well that sure is easy! BUT they don't always test. Just throw in chemicals and go to the next stop. They add so much of everything that it is sky high. They do this in hopes there will still be some in the pool the next time then come a week later. Most of them also use pucks/tablets that we talked about already.

Some people take their water to the pool store. The pool store does the tests and prints out a sheet of paper and tells you what to buy. Their "famous" parting line is "come back in a week and let us know if that worked" :shock: I can tell you from personal experience they get the tests wrong more than they get them right :(

Does this help at all?

Kim:kim:
 

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jay_mcc2 said:
If chlorine tabs cause CYA to build, is there any way to lower it? What would a pool store recommend if my CYA measured high enough to cause the chlorine to be ineffective in the pool?
Click to expand...

There's really only one way to lower it, and that is to drain a good chunk of your pool and refill with fresh water. A pool store may try to sell you expensive "CYA reducers", which have been proven over and over again in this forum to not work - just like much of the other magic dust pool stores seem to try to sell.

A sidenote, while you're still thinking through your pool designs: If your pool will get lots of sun (as does mine in Katy), you will be pouring in lots of bleach daily. I know I could never stick with that. I would highly recommend a SWG. Many builders will try to steer you away, and I can totally understand how a normal SWG pool subject to typical once-a-week maintenance would suffer over time. The pH would probably constantly be too high, resulting in high CSI. If you can manage the chemistry yourself and stay on it about twice a week, you should have no issues with a SWG and will avoid having to lug gallons and gallons of bleach on a weekly basis. The only thing I add to my pool on a regular basis is about 2 cups of muriatic acid every 3 days or so. That's purchased at home depot for around $6 / gallon, and a few gallons will last for months. With no SWG, you won't be adding much acid, but you'll be adding bleach EVERY DAY in the summer.
 
For some people just the idea of putting *BLEACH* in the water is enough to freak them out..........that is why I use the word "chlorine" instead. We had one guy go so far as to buy some "pool shock" from Walmart. He used that up then poured the bleach he bought into the "pool shock" bottles and recycled the bleach bottles. He did that for a while until his wife commented on how good the pool looked using the "pool shock". He then pulled out the bleach bottles to show her LOL It worked for him. (They lived quite a ways out of town and bleach from the Dollar General was his best bet for every day use.)

Some people do not even know about the CYA/FC ratio so anything over a FC of 3 is too much to them. S.L.O.W.L.Y the pool industry is coming around to the solid science instead of "this is how it has always been done".

Kim:kim:
 
Jay, the "how much FC is too high" can get into the deep end so to speak. There is a lot of scientific data in the Deep End forum about it. But the answer the question - Too High is when FC level is more than 40% of the CYA which is in the water. The data to back up my question is in some very lengthy and technically discussed posts, over there in the deep end.
 
Yeah, I got into the deep end here a bit, it was deep!

Not sure if y'all have had anyone without a pool ask so many questions but I appreciate the insight. Now I have some real decisions to make.

1. Decide on PB
2. Decide on SWG
3. Decide on filter
4. Decide on favorite beverage to consume while floating in my backyard oasis. (Might need some suggestions, :cool:)
 
Jay have you gone over the the "Under Construction" part of the forum yet? If you do you will see we are pretty good at looking over bids/quotes to make sure you get the best pool for you and your yard. We also love to watch a pool being built!

Do you have any bids yet?

Kim:kim:
 
OK, here is my favorite post from Richard. I copied it out and saved it, to give to people.


3" (7oz) puck for my pool one puck adds 3.5 FC, 2.1 CYA, PH -.19

Here's a little something I wrote last season. I still think it's one of my best pieces of writing.

We'll take a 16000 gallon pool, because that's what I have. On a fresh fill, prominent national pool chain recommends 2.5 pounds pf stabilizer per 10,000
gallons, which works out nicely to 4 pounds which brings CYA to 30.

With an average loss of 2 PPM/Day or 14 ppm/week, I'll have added 8.6 PPM/CYA if I used trichlor pucks perfectly. And they recommend a weekly "shock" of dichlor
between 5 and 10 FC.... 2-3 oz per 10,000 gallons. Split the difference; I'll add 4 oz. CYA went up another .9.
So..by the end of week one, I have added 9.5 more CYA. It is now 39.5. Mimimum FC for that is 3, so I'm probably okay.

Week two, up to 49 CYA.

Week three, 58.5. Minimum FC should be 5, but they recommend 3 as ideal, so the pool looks a bit hazy. So I'll toss in a little extra dichlor "shock" to jack FC up to 10. Which adds another 6.4 CYA. Keeping count? We're up to 64.9 now.

That caught the algae just in time.. we had two weeks of good luck. A steady diet of pucks and 4 oz. "shock" each week only added another 19, up to 73.9 now.

Week 6 it started looking funky, so we "shocked"it once again. CYA is up to 99.3. But minimum FC to keep algae at bay is 8, and we're still holding things to 3,
because prominent national chain's preprinted sheet shows that as ideal. So algae got a toehold and the pool has a bit of a tint. So we throw two whole bags of
dichlor in which jacks it another 7.6 by the time week 7 is over, we're at 116.4, because we had pucks in the floater the whole time.

So...in 7 weeks, from 30 to 116.4. Let's say there are no more algae outbreaks because they sold me a huge bucket of phos-free and another of yellow-out
monopersulfate "shock" Nothing but the pucks and the extra 4 oz of dichlor "shock" weekly. So the next 7 weeks added 66.5, which brings the total to 182.9 CYA.
Now if we didn't understand this and things looked a bit hazy, we might throw an extra puck or two in the floater every couple weeks, which will drive it over 200 easily.

And then next year when you try to open, you're whining here how you "shocked" it and it's still green. And then you get indignant at the cost and bother to drain 3/4 of the pool. Seen it over and over and over and over here. This is all based on a roughly 3 month swim season. If you run pucks year-round, it'll be even higher.
 
First, while people suggest bleach, I would stay away from Clorox brand that contains Cloromax. Some people have had issues with that additive.

Second, to answers these questions:

"What is the benefit of not using the pool store chemicals?" It is much cheaper. The grocery store chemicals are cheaper and are chemically the same thing. Sometimes you can find liquid chlorine for cheaper (by percent) in the pool section or at a pool store, but usually you can't. You will never find the baking soda marketed as Alk Up cheaper than the baking soda in the grocery store. If you want to pay $15 for 5 lbs of baking soda, you can do it at the pool store if you want. TFPC just requires knowing what it actually is.

"why not go with what has worked for lots of people in the past?" Because it doesn't work for a lot of people. That's why they come here. That's why Leslie's says backyard pools average at least 2 algae outbreaks a year. Why would you ever be ok with that?

However, this method has definitely worked for lots of people in the past, so you are indeed going with such a method. Look at the size of these forums and others. Read around here for a while, and learn the history. A guy named Ben who worked in the industry started the old "BBB method" back in the mid-90's, and it worked for a lot of people and saved them money. He created a forum, which is still out there, but he disappeared for a time. Members created this one as an alternative, and another guy started selling a test kit that was a better deal for forum members since getting the Taylor kits from Ben had become an issue. Using scientific understanding, they refined the methods taught by Ben to create the TFPC (Trouble Free Pool Care) methods (e.g., this uses the FC/CYA chart created by Chemgeek, whereas the old BBB used Ben's Best Guess Chart which was created by anecdotal experience).

Eventually the creators of this site sold it to the guy that sells the tests, but the forum has stayed pretty much the same. I've never purchased anything from TFtestkits (I like the Taylor kit). The methods work just the same.

Although the names BBB (appx 20-25 yrs) and TFPC (maybe 12 yrs or so) may be newer, people have been using these methods for much longer.
 
@kimkats
Do you have any bids yet?
Click to expand...
We have contacted 3 PB and have two designs and one quote. The one who gave us the quote already actually sat down at our kitchen table and drew up the design then provided the quote verbally. Afterward he went back and refined the design then detailed the quote and sent it, exact same price and equipment. We were impressed. The second design that we have is...interesting. I'll start a thread in the construction forum and share it. We are still waiting on the third design and quote.

@JoeSelf
Thanks for sharing that story. That was kinda what I was imagining from what I have learned so far, but to have it written and calculated out clears up the picture perfectly. I know several people who "know" a lot about pools and are not shy about sharing their opinions. It is difficult to overcome their experiences which are typical of what you shared but they don't remember the bad stuff, just that it all worked out ok for them. So this is something that I will keep to myself until I get the pool up and running and prove to myself that it is easy to maintain, with no algae outbreaks.

@GeorgiaPoolOwner
There is a lot of history in this small world.:D I did find the other guys website and it has some good information too. Don't worry though, I like TFPC better.

I am seriously considering getting a SWG for my pool. Just need to get some more information about how it affects the equipment to feel comfortable with it. I like the fact that when I come here with a question and read through posts or Pool School that I get specific and direct answers based on facts. When I watch videos or articles from traditional pool care companies there is a lot of vagueness in the answers that are give. Stuff like, "Just put this in" or "Add this and this and this, if that doesn't work come back and we will try something else." There is a specific youtube video from major pool company that really highlighted that for me, the guys provided solutions and even said they didn't need to know the pools chemistry beforehand.
 

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