Re: 18 years of Baqua..UPDATE! Swapped 8/15 NOW WITH PHOTOS
Sorry for my "mood" last night. Just finished up my ruff 3 day work week, and computer was being a MAJOR Baqua!
Anywho.....The in-laws know that I spend a TON of time reading and posting on various forums. In fact I by far spend more time on the computer reading up on stuff than watching TV. It really flips them out sometimes, but I'd rather at least learn something than just watching something. Not saying TV will fry you, it just doesn't grab my attention. Besides, with the Crud that's on....are you shocked? I've been a member on the ExplorerForum for over 10 years now, and one of my favorite posts was when a member from the a small poverty stricken middle east country posted just how lucky we were to have access to parts. He showed "photo's" of his Explorer and the "fixes" they have done to it. If my memory serves me, his SUV had around 500k miles and still with their "fixes" was going.
I showed the chart to my wife for a quick read. She chuckled at the "naked swimmers" line, but it did reassure her some on the liner fading. I honestly am not sure if they're just "anti-bleach" as much as they were just "I don't want to swap" type of people. They were recommended to use Baquacil 20 years ago, and were 100% full force with it until about a three years ago. This is when I started reading up more and more on chlorine and using it for a pool. My main reasoning wasn't the clarity, however the price. The local pool store had a 30% off all chemical sale each year, and I started stocking up on Baquacil for them and saw the price-tag each season. Screw that!! Here's a qucik breakdown of the prices....not including stuff like DE, PH reducer, and the so forth.
2009
Baq Algicide 4 Bottles at $13.56 each. $54.24 total
Baq Sanitizer 7 Bottles at $29.59. $207.13 total
Baq Shock 10 bottles at $13.56. $135.60 total
Total for the year ran $396.97. This was the year we drained and refilled the pool, and had good luck with it. Nothing amazing, but we were pleased.
2010
Baq Algicide 6 bottles at $13.56 each. $81.36 total
Baq Sanitizer 7 bottles at $29.59 each. $207.13 total
Baq Shock 12 bottles at $13.56 each. $162.72
Year total......$451.21
This year all we had was horrid water. After seeing the price go up I started to read some on swapping, and finally convinced them to switch. Come the April pool sale I admit however.....I got schooled.

I got to talking to the pool store owner, who really was a nice guy. I had NO clue on what chemicals chlorine used or nothing. He started showing my items such as the tabs, the Frog, Super Shock, non-chlorine Shock and so on. We still had 3 bottles of the Sanitizer left over, so even though my in-laws said they'll try Chlorine, I talked them back to staying with Baquacil. My bad! He had told me that they're finding that algae became immune to the algicide, and to switch back and forth between the regular version, and Baquacil's new "Performance Algicide". Ya.....guess who fell for it.

2011
Baq Algicide 3 bottles at $13.56. $40.68 total
Performance Algicide 2 bottles at $25.56. $51.12 total
Baq Sanitizer 4 bottles at $31.19 each. Keep in mind also that we had 3 bottles from last year in "stock". $295.92 total
Baq Shock 15 bottles at $13.56 each. $203.40
Year total.....$591.12
Total for all three years......$1439.30! Let's pretend that we spent $475 a year for the last 18 years they used Baquacil, which honestly I'd guess is a VERY low number, but one we'll go with. $8550 in those three chemicals alone. Honestly also, I'm not sure if once they had water that looked this good, and I know the amount of work my father-in-law had to do each day was WAYYYYY more than I'm seeing using Chlorine.
Now I'm off to shower, and then to check the pool. Then gotta do some shocking, vacuuming, trip to the dentist, buy more bleach...and maybe a light, then back to shocking.
