Hello everyone –
We are having a continuing issue with our pool. I’m providing background for those who want to know if we have tried various options and in the last paragraphs will pick up from yesterday. We are in a rental house and utilized the pool here last year. We had multiple recurrences of metal issues, but for the most part we limped through the year and ran the water to get tested every few days and addressed what needed to be addressed. I have no idea how old the pool is.
We are located in Central New Jersey and needless to say the weather here the last month has been atrocious. It is either cold and raining, with thunderstorms or hazy hot and humid. When we first opened the pool the water was clear but there was a lot of debris in the pool (we were hard hit in our area by Sandy and multiple other windy storms). The company I hired the pool to open the pool did not clean it – lesson learned. We vacuumed normally not realizing at the time that there was a vacuum to waste option and within a day the filter was not doing it’s job and the water was getting cloudier by the day.
After giving it a few days (and not pushing it because of the horrid weather) we finally called a local pool service. He came and we started using things like stabilizer, shocking the pool and all in all attempting to get a handle on the levels. He came one day and shocked and within a day the pool was brown. We knew from our experience last year that was metal so we treated for that.
Still the pool would not get clear. Finally the pool service figured we needed to replace the sand and oh boy were they right (what came out of that filter was disgusting to say the least). Within a day the water was not crystal clear, but was much better than it had been.
Our lingering issue since then is that the pool will just not get clear. It seems like we are dumping a huge amount of chemicals into it. As of yesterday, the pool was cloudy with a nice shade of green. At no point through this whole process has the pool ever registered any chlorine on the test strips (AquaCheck) that we are using.
Yesterday morning, we dumped 5 lbs of Durachlor shock into the pool first thing in the morning. We also used 16oz of Ultra Brite clarifier. By late afternoon the pool looked no different. (Temps were in the 90s with blazing sun if that helps.)
Late in the afternoon I took the water to get tested by the pool service we are using. Here are the numbers that were provided to me:
Free Chlorine - .43ppm
Total Chlorine – 1.28 ppm
Combine Chlorine - .85ppm
pH – 6.5
Hardness - 39ppm
Alkalinity – 14ppm
Cyanuric Acid – 128ppm
Copper – 0ppm
Iron – 0ppm
If there are other test results that you’re looking for, I’ve included anything they provided to me on the printout that I’m looking at ?
They ‘prescribed’ the following – 12 pounds of alkalinity and 4 pounds of Durachlor shock. By this morning, the green tinge was mostly gone, but the cloudiness remained. I stopped at the store and had the water retested, and the pH and alkalinity looked good according to the woman there (I have no updated results, just from what she saw). She agreed that I could add more shock to the pool. She told me to go with 3 pounds (so I pushed my luck and did 4).
I also added earlier today about 12 ounces of clarifier. By this evening, there was maybe a slight improvement in the shallow end of the pool (3 feet deep on that side) but still obvious cloudiness in the bottom of the deep end and minimal improvement. Tonight, since we are looking at high temps all day today and tomorrow (90+ and blazing sun again), we added 5 more pounds of Durachlor shock. (A quick google tells me that Dichlor is the term on this site that is probably closest to what I’m using.)
Throughout much of this process, the filter was on a timer set to turn on at 6am and off at 6pm. Over the last few days, since we’ve taken a more hands on approach (and stopped waiting for the pool guy), I’ve had it running 24 hours a day for the last two days.
Outside of this, normal chlorination is taking place with tablets in a floater (we are keeping it as stocked as possible), and as of two days we started applying tablets directly into the skimmer to give it a boost. For the first time all season, I can actually get a whiff of chlorine when I walk out to the pool. Not that I want it over chlorinated by any means, but at least I know I’m not losing my mind and it’s actually going into the pool.
I know for a fact that I need to order a better test kit then these test strips, and plan to do that next. (It looks like there are varying test kits on the site in everyones signature here - any recommendations for my situation are appreciated.) I've seen one or two other posts similar to this and am hoping that someone can help me out or at the least get me in the right direction.
Many thanks for your help,
Lorraine
We are having a continuing issue with our pool. I’m providing background for those who want to know if we have tried various options and in the last paragraphs will pick up from yesterday. We are in a rental house and utilized the pool here last year. We had multiple recurrences of metal issues, but for the most part we limped through the year and ran the water to get tested every few days and addressed what needed to be addressed. I have no idea how old the pool is.
We are located in Central New Jersey and needless to say the weather here the last month has been atrocious. It is either cold and raining, with thunderstorms or hazy hot and humid. When we first opened the pool the water was clear but there was a lot of debris in the pool (we were hard hit in our area by Sandy and multiple other windy storms). The company I hired the pool to open the pool did not clean it – lesson learned. We vacuumed normally not realizing at the time that there was a vacuum to waste option and within a day the filter was not doing it’s job and the water was getting cloudier by the day.
After giving it a few days (and not pushing it because of the horrid weather) we finally called a local pool service. He came and we started using things like stabilizer, shocking the pool and all in all attempting to get a handle on the levels. He came one day and shocked and within a day the pool was brown. We knew from our experience last year that was metal so we treated for that.
Still the pool would not get clear. Finally the pool service figured we needed to replace the sand and oh boy were they right (what came out of that filter was disgusting to say the least). Within a day the water was not crystal clear, but was much better than it had been.
Our lingering issue since then is that the pool will just not get clear. It seems like we are dumping a huge amount of chemicals into it. As of yesterday, the pool was cloudy with a nice shade of green. At no point through this whole process has the pool ever registered any chlorine on the test strips (AquaCheck) that we are using.
Yesterday morning, we dumped 5 lbs of Durachlor shock into the pool first thing in the morning. We also used 16oz of Ultra Brite clarifier. By late afternoon the pool looked no different. (Temps were in the 90s with blazing sun if that helps.)
Late in the afternoon I took the water to get tested by the pool service we are using. Here are the numbers that were provided to me:
Free Chlorine - .43ppm
Total Chlorine – 1.28 ppm
Combine Chlorine - .85ppm
pH – 6.5
Hardness - 39ppm
Alkalinity – 14ppm
Cyanuric Acid – 128ppm
Copper – 0ppm
Iron – 0ppm
If there are other test results that you’re looking for, I’ve included anything they provided to me on the printout that I’m looking at ?
They ‘prescribed’ the following – 12 pounds of alkalinity and 4 pounds of Durachlor shock. By this morning, the green tinge was mostly gone, but the cloudiness remained. I stopped at the store and had the water retested, and the pH and alkalinity looked good according to the woman there (I have no updated results, just from what she saw). She agreed that I could add more shock to the pool. She told me to go with 3 pounds (so I pushed my luck and did 4).
I also added earlier today about 12 ounces of clarifier. By this evening, there was maybe a slight improvement in the shallow end of the pool (3 feet deep on that side) but still obvious cloudiness in the bottom of the deep end and minimal improvement. Tonight, since we are looking at high temps all day today and tomorrow (90+ and blazing sun again), we added 5 more pounds of Durachlor shock. (A quick google tells me that Dichlor is the term on this site that is probably closest to what I’m using.)
Throughout much of this process, the filter was on a timer set to turn on at 6am and off at 6pm. Over the last few days, since we’ve taken a more hands on approach (and stopped waiting for the pool guy), I’ve had it running 24 hours a day for the last two days.
Outside of this, normal chlorination is taking place with tablets in a floater (we are keeping it as stocked as possible), and as of two days we started applying tablets directly into the skimmer to give it a boost. For the first time all season, I can actually get a whiff of chlorine when I walk out to the pool. Not that I want it over chlorinated by any means, but at least I know I’m not losing my mind and it’s actually going into the pool.
I know for a fact that I need to order a better test kit then these test strips, and plan to do that next. (It looks like there are varying test kits on the site in everyones signature here - any recommendations for my situation are appreciated.) I've seen one or two other posts similar to this and am hoping that someone can help me out or at the least get me in the right direction.
Many thanks for your help,
Lorraine
) ), we are continuing to vacuum to waste and to run the hose to replace the water as best as we can.