Just a tiny rant on lessons learned for myself opening a pool for the first time.
I purchased my home in April of 2013, with the pool already clear and good to go. I managed it the rest of the year with the BBB method, and everything went great. We winterized, and attempted to put a pool cover on the pool, but decided not to because our dogs and cat immediately tried walking on it, and we didn't want something bad to happen.
As you can see in this image, we have a very large number of trees in the back:
In the spring when it was time to open the pool up, I took a large net to the bottom trying to rake up what seemed like every leaf from those trees. Days later, I was still fishing the stuff out. Not knowing that it was necessary to remove all of this BEFORE shocking, I eventually said screw it and decided that I would just bleach the **** out of it so I could actually see what I was scooping up. I also went ahead and dumped all the salt I needed to get my SWG up to the correct levels to have it aid in the bleach dumping.
As you may have guessed, other than turning from DARK green, to a medium green, no real progress after a week or so of constant shocking. I tried the leaf removal again, unloading trash can after trash can, and finally thought I had gotten it all. Water was not a lighter green, but still no real progress after yet another week. Went back to leaf removal, then back to shock and so on. We finally had the pool turn blue eventually. However this was after more bleach than I would like to admit. I just boiled it down to me working from before sun-up to after sun-down and not being able to get to it as often as others do (that work normal hours).
I finally got over that STUPID mindset, and realized that I really had been wasting time and lots of money without having ensured all the leaves were out. And on top of that, with all the backwashing to get the algae that DID die, the salt level had dropped right back to where it was BEFORE I added all the salt.
Needless to say, my assumption that it was just taking longer because I couldn't get to it as much as someone that works normal daytime hours ended up wasting lots of time and money. However, the experience has ensured that in the future, it NEVER happens again. And I do imagine that new owners all learn through trial and error and mistakes like mine, or maybe not and I'm just trying to make myself feel better about it!
The dumbest thing about it, is with hindsight I don't see how it could have been any more obvious I was taking the wrong steps. I guess when you're as busy as I was at the time, it was easy to overlook those things. So now, I'm finally close to completely finishing the pool... After I started trying to open it about a month ago.... I can openly admit that for that time... I was a complete IDIOT!
I purchased my home in April of 2013, with the pool already clear and good to go. I managed it the rest of the year with the BBB method, and everything went great. We winterized, and attempted to put a pool cover on the pool, but decided not to because our dogs and cat immediately tried walking on it, and we didn't want something bad to happen.
As you can see in this image, we have a very large number of trees in the back:
In the spring when it was time to open the pool up, I took a large net to the bottom trying to rake up what seemed like every leaf from those trees. Days later, I was still fishing the stuff out. Not knowing that it was necessary to remove all of this BEFORE shocking, I eventually said screw it and decided that I would just bleach the **** out of it so I could actually see what I was scooping up. I also went ahead and dumped all the salt I needed to get my SWG up to the correct levels to have it aid in the bleach dumping.
As you may have guessed, other than turning from DARK green, to a medium green, no real progress after a week or so of constant shocking. I tried the leaf removal again, unloading trash can after trash can, and finally thought I had gotten it all. Water was not a lighter green, but still no real progress after yet another week. Went back to leaf removal, then back to shock and so on. We finally had the pool turn blue eventually. However this was after more bleach than I would like to admit. I just boiled it down to me working from before sun-up to after sun-down and not being able to get to it as often as others do (that work normal hours).
I finally got over that STUPID mindset, and realized that I really had been wasting time and lots of money without having ensured all the leaves were out. And on top of that, with all the backwashing to get the algae that DID die, the salt level had dropped right back to where it was BEFORE I added all the salt.
Needless to say, my assumption that it was just taking longer because I couldn't get to it as much as someone that works normal daytime hours ended up wasting lots of time and money. However, the experience has ensured that in the future, it NEVER happens again. And I do imagine that new owners all learn through trial and error and mistakes like mine, or maybe not and I'm just trying to make myself feel better about it!
The dumbest thing about it, is with hindsight I don't see how it could have been any more obvious I was taking the wrong steps. I guess when you're as busy as I was at the time, it was easy to overlook those things. So now, I'm finally close to completely finishing the pool... After I started trying to open it about a month ago.... I can openly admit that for that time... I was a complete IDIOT!
For the future, you might want to check out a safety cover so if the dogs and cats walk on it, no harm will come. I think one of the best investments we made for our pool was getting an automatic cleaner. When we first open the pool, we put it in to get up all the gunk that somehow got in under the winter cover.