Test Strips

[RobbieH]

The pool startup guy came today for the first chemical additions after the replaster. He tested the water with test strips. Keep in mind, nothing has been added to the water at all at this point. Test strips show CYA of 100. I told him there was no way that was accurate, and he insisted it was.

This is why I don't trust pool maintenance people or test strips.

 

[jblizzle]

That certainly does not help their reputation

 

[duraleigh]

Unfortunately, your story is not at all unique.

 

[RobbieH]

You just have to love being able to do this stuff on your own. He even mildly pitched taking over the maintenance of my pool after start up. No thanks!

 

[Speedo]

Tell him he better alert the city that their water has CYA in it.

 

[Smykowski]

I told him there was no way that was accurate, and he insisted it was.

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that conversation! Maybe we could get Ashton Kutcher to do a TV show for us - "You've been TFP'd!!"

 

[Patrick_B]

So, did he say how you got Cya in there? I'd have been pressing them hard for answers and scared them off even thinking of servicing mine. That is just crazy talk.

 

[laprjns]

Test strips show CYA of 100. I told him there was no way that was accurate, and he insisted it was.

Have you done your own test? This would be a perfect way to refute the "cya sticks to the wall" argument of of another thread

edit:
duh, " after the replaster"

 

[RobbieH]

I haven't, because we haven't had any sun at all since the pool was filled. I'm going to take a stab at doing the CYA test today as best I can. There's no way there was 100ppm CYA in the fill water though, and he's using CalHypo to chlorinate the pool and bring the CH up (I looked at his bucket), so no CYA is going in. Besides, he was testing before a single thing went in the pool anyway.

I'll say this too, he doesn't know how to do the tests properly. I did the right thing taking control of my pool from almost day one. The short story is this: when I first bought the house I had a company come out. He dumped chlorine in and swept the pool, never tested anything. He told me the maintenance costs were going to be 2x the quoted amount since I had a sand filter. I found this site, asked some questions, then told them to never come back.

 

[Leebo]

It's been a few years that we switched to chlorine from baquacil. Our baquacil levels are still almost perfect using their strips however.

Funny, cause when using the Baqua system, we never could get those levels correct!!

 

[RobbieH]

Well, I can't measure CYA today. He just dumped 2 lbs of powder CYA in my skimmer. I asked him about it and he said he did the same thing yesterday, so my CYA measurements aren't going to be accurate for a long time.

I did just run a CH test. He said I was at 250 before adding any CalHypo. I just measured 180. FC is only at 4, CC is at 1. pH is 7.5, so at least that's good.