What kind of pool do I have? Plus, opening weekend results!

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C

chjade84

0
Apr 2, 2014
106
Indiana
I got the pool opened this weekend and for the first time since I bought the house, have been able to get more familiar with it. It's a concrete?-fiberglass? hybrid - installed sometime between the 60-70's. I did my best modeling it in Autodesk Inventor from a Google Earth shot and I get about 21,000 gallons. Does this seem right?

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Note: This is after the pool had been filling for a bit. It was drained down about 4" below the returns all winter. And yes, I got all the worms out! :)

I heard you shouldn't drain fiberglass pools without reinforcement but this is only fiberglass for a few feet and I had it drained all winter with the top half of the fiberglass empty. Surely it wouldn't collapse with only another foot or so of water gone? There is a white plug over a pipe that seems to extend pretty far down by the deep end. Is this to pump out the ground water if you are emptying the pool? Will this plus the pool's construction let me drain it and get rid of the stupid brown staining that won't come off?

I got the cover off and filled it up the rest of the way. I took this opportunity to "upgrade" the electrical work from "not at all outdoor rated" to completely waterproof.

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After the pump ran for a day I tested the water and got these results:

FC: 6
CC: 0
TC: 6
PH: 7.6
TA: 66
CYA: 50
CH: 300

Is this the luckiest new pool owner opening or what? No algae, no cloudiness, no... stuff floating in it. Water is clear and ready to go! ...if it wasn't still only 55 degrees.

I did add 48oz of baking soda to get the TA up. Haven't re-tested yet though. I have bleach ready to keep the FC where it is. Is there anything else I should have on hand?

I sat outside last night, happy with the weekend's efforts and my new mood lighting. :)

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Looks great! I am jealous that your previous homeowner had maintained the pool to what seems pretty good health. (I was not so lucky last year) I live in the South Burbs of Chicago and I would bet $ that your pool was built by the same builder as mine. Your old electrical setup was the same as mine and the pool style being half concrete half fiberglass is the same. I am tackling the electric this upcoming weekend to properly install conduit and outdoor boxes with a timer.

Question: On your stairs is there a logo of sorts? Perhaps 2 Seahorses with the lettering "HP"? (I believe mine says HP) If so, there use to be a builder in our area called Hallmark Pools who did pool work during that period.

As for draining it, I feel your better off using other methods of removing stains then risking the integrity of the fiberglass walls. You might want to search on what stains you have then go from there. I plan on doing an AA treatment to help get rid of some pesky metal stains before the season starts. Take a look here for more info.

http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/2129-Ascorbic-Treatment-to-rid-Pool-of-metal-stains

BTW your new electrical setup looks great!
 
I too would suggest you look into the hydrogen peroxide and ascrobic acid treatment for stains before draining, is you do go this route I suggest doing it soon, since you must drop you FC to zero for the process to work, and that is best done when the water is still cold to avoid algae blooms. FC only has to be kept low for 24-48 hours while this stain lifting reaction runs its course. I did it on my pool a few months ago and the results were impressive (I had rust blow into my pool while having the metal roof replaced year before last which left blotchy stains), a single Hydrogen Peroxide followed by ascrobic acid removed 90% of the stains, a few were left behind in the deep end, and I had planned to do another course of treatment, but did not get around to it before the water started to warm up). Note this process may require scrubbing to lift the stains, it did in my case, stains were much lighter after the treatment, and lifted off when my robot passed over them afterward.
 
BNighGrow said:
Question: On your stairs is there a logo of sorts? Perhaps 2 Seahorses with the lettering "HP"? (I believe mine says HP) If so, there use to be a builder in our area called Hallmark Pools who did pool work during that period.
Click to expand...

Nope... just plain concrete.

As far as the stains go, they seem to be neither organic or metal as neither chlorine tablets or vitamin C have any effect. I haven't heard of the hydrogen peroxide treatments. I will search when I get home from work but any links would be appreciated!

You can see my progress in trying to diagnose the stain in these threads:

http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/72127-First-time-pool-owner-what-is-this-stain

http://www.troublefreepool.com/thre...istry-Set-Unremovable-Stain-Update-(with-pics!)
 
Lucky, lucky! Wish my electrical looked as good. Mine is attached the siding of the house... my last choice if I had been the one to decide at install time.

Northern MN here... going to peak under the cover again today, see if that 3-4 inches of ice has thinned...

Enjoy the pool!
 
Well it turns out vitamin C does have an effect, just not in "set a tablet on it for a few minutes" form. I took a couple PVC rings and put crushed tablets (8-10 500mg tables in each) in and let them dissolve over 30 minutes or so.

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Red circles are from the two Vitamin C tests using different sized rings and the green is where I sanded away the top layer using a 200 grit diamond file leaving a very smooth and beautiful finish!
 

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Vette said:
Sounds good, let us know how it goes!
Click to expand...

It didn't go well... lol. It didn't seem to have any effect, even though I added a couple tablespoons of 3% to only a soda can-sized portion of the pool, isolated with a PVC pipe with clay on the end to provide a water-tight seal.

On the up side, it seems the Vitamin C areas have improved fairly drastically over the past couple days... maybe that is the solution after all! (I forgot to take a picture this morning... :()
 
One bonus of using the hydrogen peroxide before the somewhat more expensive (or at least harder to find) ascorbic acid is that it will insure that all chlorine is removed from the pool prior to treatment. This detail alone makes me think it is worth adding a few 39 cent bottles of hydrogen peroxide from the dollar store.
 
Isaac-1 said:
One bonus of using the hydrogen peroxide before the somewhat more expensive (or at least harder to find) ascorbic acid is that it will insure that all chlorine is removed from the pool prior to treatment. This detail alone makes me think it is worth adding a few 39 cent bottles of hydrogen peroxide from the dollar store.
Click to expand...

I may do that. I've got 5 lbs of AA coming (for what I guess is a 15,000 gallon pool) and 64 oz of Jack's Magic Pink Stuff. I just added bleach last night to get up to about 6ppm but I loose 1ppm/day. By the time the stuff arrives I should be close to 0ppm but I'll try to keep the chlorine low so I won't have to neutralize as much.

It's still only supposed to be in the 40-60's for the next several days and the water is still cold so I shouldn't have much too worry about when it comes to algae, right?
 
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