1st pool all kinds of questions!

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Wow. I'm blown away by all the responses! It is good to see an active pool forum folks can turn to with questions. Makes life much easier. So I called the pool store this afternoon and voiced my concerns. Of course they say the frog system will not drive the CYA up or put enough copper in to turn hair green or stain the liner. Time will tell. And I fully believe in your alls expertise as your not trying to sell me a thing. They on the other hand want me there for many years to come
I ordered the Tf100 kit. Ill update my signature as soon as it arrives. As far as the deck the picture with only 2 screws was only temporary. Many many more 3" decking screws were used on those beams. The joists all have hangers when the angle was close enough to do so. Joist hangers were only sold in 90 degree and 45 degree so against the pool was very limited on how many joist hangers were used. On the other side of the joists hangers were used on every joist. 16" centers. 2x8. 3" #9 screws used on the entire deck frame. 2.5" screws on the deck boards and hand rail. I also asked about my pool warranty and back filling is a no no. Oh well. Need to find somewhere to put this dirt. A gravel walk path is about the extent of what i can do and meet what the salesman said about the warranty. 2" high with gravel is the highest i can go. Not liking that one bit. He even said the gravel might have to be pulled back for liner replacement.
 
Glad to hear on the deck! For your extra solid, do you have anyplace you could do a small (or however big you need to eliminate the soil stockpile) decorative landscape berm?

Love your approach on the other topic!
 
When the guy was here excavating for the pool he started closer to the house than what I wanted. 2 reasons caused him to back the pool up about 5 feet. I cut down 4 trees and then rented a stump grinder to ready the area for the pool. He was hitting decent size roots and when i seen how far below the current deck the pool was gonna be i had to have more room for steps. So he sorta over done things. My fault really. Im wondering if i cant use some of that dirt to fill that back in. Of course now that would mean doing so under a deck. I have a huge flower bed i could have used some of the dirt but right before the pool idea struck i switched from mulch to 1/2" river stone. That would mean removing around 2 tons of stone to add dirt then put the stone back. Not happening. I gave several pickup truck loads of dirt to a neighbor in need of fill dirt. He only needed about half of what i have though. Its been a busy Summer. Hopefully ill find time to really enjoy the pool before closing time.
 
I updated my signature with a few more details. It's a speck pump. Single speed that to be honest i wasnt happy about after it was installed. No on/off switch on the pump and the installer was telling me it only costs a few dollars a month to run the pump on low speed 24/7. What he failed to mention is that i have a single spped thats gonna cost me a fortune to run 24/7. And ill have to unplug it or flip a breaker for the time being to do any work on the filter etc. No switch was wired in for the outlet but i guess thats cheaper than upgrading pumps. I've read an awful lot about hayward pumps and was dissapointed to see a speck. Any info on this brand of pump?
 
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Finally found that latest pool store water test results paper. This was not from the pool store where the pool was purchased. I'm roughly an hour and a half away from there so purchases will be made closer to home. 7 lbs of calcium hardness and 3 lbs of Ph minus were what we took home and went into the pool. I'm pretty clueless on all of this but thought you guys could see where i stand.
 
Oh well. You obviously did not need the Calcium Hardness product with a vinyl pool. And the pH minus is sulfates so try to use muriatic acid in the future. But with your Frog the trichlor in it should keep your pH down.

The copper is already up -- green hair here we come!!

Take care.
 
Lol. My oldest son has bleach blonde hair. My wife is a cosmotologist. She literally colors hair every day. I wonder how she's gonna react to her own son having green hair? Maybe thats what it'll take to convince her the trips to the pool store are useless.

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I just did my little ph test. Ph is in the ideal range today. I never get consistent readings on anything. Hopefully a good test kit will change that.
 
If you a mildly handy which you seem to be if you made that deck instlation of a timer for your pool pump is the simplest thing you can do to save you time and money to stop that pump from running 24/7.

Your local home depot or lowes should have this on the shelf. Make sure to get the 120v version and not the 220v. Also get the one with the outdoor enclosure.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Intermat...tch-with-Outdoor-Enclosure-T101RD89/100024879
 
In my opinion, any pool store salesperson/store that trained them that sold you CH (you have vinyl with no heater) or PH down (your frog adds ph down acid 24/7) is not seeing you but seeing a cash cow they can milk each time you visit. Great for them! Not so great for you!

A water sample that aged for 90 minutes is not a valid indicator of FC/CC or PH any longer.

I'm really curious to see what your CYA really is. Excited actually.
 

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High CH can be an issue as it might cause calcium scaling. Low CH is not an issue.

Both chlorine and pH can change during transport. More accurate to do your own testing.

Take care.
 
Water samples should be taken immediately before testing. CYA is probably the least likely to be invalidated by time since it doesn't break down, but PH and FC certainly can change in 90 minutes and during travel and with exposure to sunlight/heat. I would not worry about your levels. You've ordered the test kit. You're learning to use it. You'll test. You'll adjust what needs adjusting. You have your plan. Trust in it and have confidence you got this.

CH (calcium hardness) in a vinyl pool:
1. too much CH can put you at greater risk of calcium scaling (pending other water balance variables)
2. If you have a water heater for your pool, too little CH for heater can lead to damage and release of metals causing liner staining

So without a heater, adding CH does absolutely nothing helpful for you. It inconveniences you because you have to be more careful in regards to CSI/future calcium scaling risks. For people who like the alternative of being able to use CAL-HYPO solid shock from time to time, it reduces the number of times you can use before reaching your max safe CH level. Lastly, it was an avoidable expense.
 
Another point i should add is that the pool store has me shocking the pool once a week. Chlorine shock one week. 3 pounds. The next week it will be non chlorine shock. The schedule they gave me has this listed for 4 weeks. Not sure if they want me to continue this way or change after the 4 weeks is up. Thought I'd throw this out there. Again I'm all for saving money and making things easy by switching to the BBB method however my wife is dead set on going to the pool store to get the water tested and buy whatever they may recommend. I tried stating all of the points made on this post. Didn't sway her opinion. Time and symptoms and money spent eventually will.
 
Sounds like you will be following the pool store methods. When the water in the pool turns green or hair turns green or the liner turns funny colors, you will have the knowledge as to why that occurred. And the test kit (and your testing results) to be able to fix it.

Good luck.
 
So... couple things...
1. Chlorine shock one week. 3 pounds - which active ingredient? cal-hypo, tri-chlor, di-chlor, lith-hypo %?
2. The next week it will be non chlorine shock - active ingredient? Potassium Monopersulfate? potassium peroxymonopersulfate? something else? %?

Thoughts:
If you were to secretly (with your test kit, PoolMath, and bleach) you will be able to make sure that the FC will pool store test as "VERY HIGH" and they may suggest she stop shocking, or at least reduce shocking, saving you money :) If they keep advising it, you can, causally, ask why you need to shock if the print out says VERY HIGH.

You will also be able to make sure the PH is always in range, the water is clear, and they have minimal opportunities to sell her stuff. Whatever happens beyond that...you can live with.

Note: We prefer "TFP" to "BBB" now please. :cool:

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Bonus info about non-chlorine shock from another thread (there are many):
Richard320 said:
Be careful with that stuff. If it's Potassium Monopersulfate, it will mess up your chlorine test results unless you buy another reagent to neutralize it. https://www.taylortechnologies.com/ChemistryTopicsCM.ASP?ContentID=24
Click to expand...

JoyfulNoise said:
Non-chlorine shock is typically MPS (or potassium monopersulfate). The thing to realize about MPS is that it is an oxidizer (although not as strong as chlorine) and it's not a very good sanitizer. It will also create false readings of both CC and FC (depending on what CC's are present in your pool) when you use your FAS-DPD test kit.

So, at the end of the day, there is no need to use MPS shock if you have adequate chlorine around as it's likely to cause more problems than it will fix. As for what to do with it....would a local Pool Store take it from you in trade for some store credit?
Click to expand...
 
We used the last of the non chlorine shock this week. So knowing the ingredients etc is unknown at this time. She's supposed to call the pool store we bought the pool from and ask what we've been using. Ill update you all on that as soon as possible. Let me see if i can find an empty packet but im not sure i will be able to do so.
 

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