NEWCOMER: Pool Company to Self-service Clean/Maintenance

Jump to latest Follow Reply
eap2313

eap2313

0
Apr 3, 2013
37
Lewisville, TX
Greetings TFP,

I am new to the site and recently inherited a pool with my recent home purchase. I'm gathering all the information for my pool still and have been doing a lot of reading on the site over the past couple days. My question is, when is a good time (average) to try and start maintaining the pool myself? I have spoke to the owner of the company that cleans and maintains my pool now as well as a technician that comes out weekly on a few occassions. They have been extremely helpful and seem like a respectable company, but I'm not really sure if they are telling me "everything" I need to know simply to keep my business. I will attend a pool school class next month and continue to read through the large amount of information on this site. I saw in one post that managing the chlorine and pH are the main 2 items to monitor besides the water level and cleaning the skimmers. Of course, I don't have any manuals or information from the previous owner. Any basic tidbits anyone could share? I know my pool if 15K gallons, kidney shaped, DE filter, heater, spa, and I have a clorinator (will check brand).

Thanks in advance!
 
First I would generally skip the pool school class unless it concentrates on pool equipment maintenance, if it is sponsored by a pool store chances are it has about as much to do with educating you about pools as the typical time share weekend has to do with education about wise real estate investment.

Second I would say read the pool school link in the upper right corner of this page a couple of times, order one of the suggested kits, I like the TF-100 (see my signature), once you get the test kit in, practice with it for a few days, see what is going on, and then MAKE A CLEAN BREAK. DON'T try and follow their advice and ours at the same time it is almost certainly doomed to failure, as we strongly feel there is no way to manually dose a pool once per week and maintain proper balance.

Ike
 
All the thousands of folks on this site ended up here for a reason--------that mainly being what we refer to as being "pool stored". That translates into being sold every chemical under the sun to "fix" a problem caused by them. Those problems run the complete gamut of TOTALLLY inaccurate water testing and not properly understanding the CYA/Chlorine relationship. At the very least, buy yourself one of the test kits we recommend and compare your results against their computer. You WILL be amazed! Welcome to the site and we look forward to assisting you in any way we can. Just ask!
 
Agree with the others. I was in your shoes last June and I probably spent more money in the first 2 weeks employing "experts" and going to pool stores than I did in the final 3 months taking care of it myself. After spending time on this site, reading pool school a few times, and getting my own test kit, all I ended up buying was a few bottles of bleach each week, a solar cover, and a winter cover. Maybe I had to toss in borax once or twice, but I had total command and understood everything I was putting in. When I had questions, I posted them here and got quick and sound advice. '
 
5 minutes a day. It's that simple.

Let us Pool School you! :mrgreen:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply