New to pool maintenance...

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Re: New to pool maintenance...about to give up

Yeah I was only using the floater cause my old pool guy used it. Which brings me to another thought. I'm leaving in 2 weeks for a 10 day vacation. My wife had arranged for the old pool guy to service it for 2 visits. Now I'm worried he's gonna mess up what I'm trying to fix. What do you all normally do if you need to be away that long?
 
Re: New to pool maintenance...about to give up

Generally we recommend people raise the FC up to SLAM level and put a cover on the pool and sometime float some tablets if the CYA is not already too high. BUT, 10 days is a long time and likely you will need to do something else.

You could try to leave VERY explicit instructions for the the pool guy on what to do. Like just get him to add liquid chlorine only. Or ask a friend to swing by a couple times and add bleach for you.

Worst case, you get back and need to SLAM, but at least the CYA will not be too high.

BTW, a long term option is getting some kind of chlorine automation. I use a SWG (and also take 10 day vacations), but you could also get a peristalic pump to automatically add bleach for you.
 
Re: New to pool maintenance...about to give up

So the sump pump didn't work nowhere near as fast as they said. I ran it for about 6 hours and thought I was close to halfway drained. I used a model I created a while back in Realtime Landscaping of my pool and adjusted all the depths until it looked like 50%. So I started filling with 2 hoses at midnight and I've got at least 6 inches to go so its frustrating the sun is on the water now and I can't run the filter yet. I took readings just now to get an idea but I realize there is very little circulation happening right now.
FC 3.45
TC 4.31
pH 7.6
ALK 100
CH 202
CYA 71

The CYA number has dropped but nowhere near as much as I was hoping...I don't think 6 more inches of water will drop it to 50 like I hoped.
 
Re: New to pool maintenance...about to give up

Ok the water level is back to normal and filter has been running an hour. Tested again:
FC 3.63
TC 3.75
pH 7.5
ALK 99
CYA 67

So after reading everything I'm not sure what to do immediately. Do I shoot for FC of 8 for now or bring it up to the SLAM level and do the overnight test? or something else?
 
Re: New to pool maintenance...about to give up

Your numbers look pretty good cept pool Math says to drain and refill 25% to get to 50 CYA. What does your water look lik now?It puts your fc goal at 5-10. to get it to 10 would require 198 0zs of 8.25% bleach. 26 is shock level at your cya. You might want to do the drain and then put in some bleach
 
Re: New to pool maintenance...about to give up

Yeah I don't know if you read everything but I drained out around 10,000 gallons last night and refilled which got it down from 108 to 67. The pump wasn't pumping out as fast as I had hoped or I would have drained a little lower. I had to start re-filling at midnight to keep the sun off the walls today. Guess I'll just deal with it being where it is for awhile...it should begin to lower now that I won't be using stabilized chlorine anymore. The pool was still cloudy so after the last post I decided I should go ahead and SLAM it.
 
Re: New to pool maintenance...about to give up

It wont lower simply by not using tabs or dichlor. Backwashing and splashout may lower it marginally, but 5,000+ gallons will take a long long time. all that time will require increased fc levels. Its your money.
 
Re: New to pool maintenance...about to give up

You can stick with the higher CYA and see how it goes. The main thing is that it will require a lot of bleach to get to your SLAM level. Since you're having to start with a SLAM (because your water is cloudy) you'll find out how much you'll go through and you can always decide later to do the drain/refill to get it lower.

At least you're not starting with a green mess so hopefully you won't be going through tons of bleach every hour.

Don't forget to keep your FC at SLAM level (the M is for maintain!) by testing it as often as you can. It's recommended to test every hour if possible at the beginning until you find out how much it's going to drop then you can spread out your testing if your FC isn't dropping that much.

When your K-2006 arrives be sure to double check your results especially the CYA since that is what is going to determine your maintenance and SLAM level for your FC.

Just in case you haven't read this, here's the instructions for the SLAM --> http://www.troublefreepool.com/content/125-slam-shock-level-and-maintain-shockingl

Here's hoping for a quick SLAM! :)
 
Re: New to pool maintenance...about to give up

Thanks...just a little while ago realized I didn't think this through. I can't measure the FC level above 10 till the K-2006 gets here. The ColorQ kit just says "Hi". I remember that was mentioned earlier. So I think I'm stuck for a couple days. But yeah after buying some bleach I was already thinking it seemed cheaper to just pay the pool guy $60 a month. He seemed to keep it clear last summer.

- - - Updated - - -

By the way Beens I notice you're in VA Beach. I grew up in Portsmouth, VA and my summer job during college was working for a pool builder D & R Pools in VA Beach. That was in the late 80's
 
Re: New to pool maintenance...about to give up

Buying bleach to maintain an adequate SLAM level is no indication of how much the pool will cost to maintain once you get it clear, especially at your high CYA level. I run a SWG and my maintenance costs are less than $100 a year. Your pool guy is costed you $60 a month and the headache and additional costs you are experiencing now.

Once you clear your pool and learn the simple methods taught here, your maintenance costs will be very low. After following the methods taught here last summer and closing the pool based on the advice here, I opened my pool to crystal clear water and nearly perfect water chemistry. Took a day to bring everything in line and clean out the small amount of debris from the pool and am now enjoying a maintenance free (practically) pool again. With the SWG, I test every couple days in the evening to ensure that adequate CC levels are being maintained and adjust Ph with Muriatic acid as needed.
 

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Re: New to pool maintenance...about to give up

Pool is looking better....got a more blue color now but still a little cloudy. Looks clear in the shallow end and can just make out the bottom drain at 6' in middle. Since I don't have the new test kit I'm not sure what to do. FC is still above 10 but no idea by how much. I haven't put any bleach in since yesterday and it's been over 100 today. I'm thinking of just letting it drop back to 8 since otherwise I'd be guessing. Anyways here's a couple pics to show the progress:

Yesterday:
Pool_053114.jpg

Today:
Pool_060114.jpg
 
Re: New to pool maintenance...about to give up

I was just reading on another thread that you can dilute the water for an estimate for higher test results but I'm not sure if that would work with your test kit. :-\
Obviously that's not very helpful! :(

Maybe someone else who is more familiar with that kit can suggest something? (anyone?)

I'd just keep it at the top of what you can test and we'll hope your kit comes in really soon!

Technically if you know you're at 8 you can dose up to SLAM level and then just test like you would until it shows up at 8 again. Not the best method as it will allow you to drop below SLAM for a while before you know how much to add to get back up. You can only do what you can do. As long as you're sticking to liquid chlorine and staying away from anything that will add CYA hopefully you can at least keep it at bay and then you can pick it up quickly as soon as that kit gets in.

I've been in Va Beach since I think early 90s..ish lol Father was in the Navy so we've been all over. My younger sister was actually born at Portsmouth Naval Hospital when we were stationed here in the late 70s. :) I'd rather be in Florida..lol
 
Re: New to pool maintenance...about to give up

Update: So end of the day Sunday my ColorQ FC test displayed 8.43 finally showing something below "Hi". PoolMath said I needed like 5.5 containers of bleach but I only had 4 handy so I put them all in. Monday morning I left for work it was too dark to see the condition of the pool. When I got home from work yesterday I was surprised to see a crystal clear looking pool along with my new Taylor K-2006 kit sitting on the doorstep.

So I only did 2 tests: FC measured 15.5 and CYA measured 65. Out of curiosity I used the ColorQ kit to test CYA and its now reading 48. The sun was not completely down so I retested FC again a few hours later and got FC 14.5. So I left the pool alone and tested again early this morning and FC measured 17 so apparently I can't do the test accurately. I see several ways it can go wrong. Human error viewing the water level on the 10ml line. Human error having exactly the same amount of powder in that little scoop each time. Also since the pump was not running I may have been too close to where my fill line was trickling new water into the pool. Also when the test says to put in drops till the color does not change. So if I get to the drop where it looks clear what happens if I put in one more drop just to make sure it's really the same color....doesn't that mess up the CC test to follow because it already has one extra drop of reagent in there? When I did the CC test each time I think I got 1.5, 1.0, and 0.5 respectively. It went down each time I tested although I haven't put new chlorine in the pool since Sunday night.

Anyways I decided to not get too hung up on the test results and leave the pool alone until FC drops back to 8 and I'll try to maintain it there.

It's not as easy to see due to the late day shadows but the water is really clear now and you can see that bottom drain whereas it was not visible in the last photo I posted:

Pool3.jpg
 
Re: New to pool maintenance...about to give up

You can not use too much powder, but too little can affect the result. For all the tests you need to add drops until the last one causes no further color change and not count that drop.

You need to pump running at least 30 minutes before you test and after adding chemicals.
 
Re: New to pool maintenance...about to give up

Check your CC's and if they are .5 or lower, perform the OCLT. I would not worry so much about the CYA of 65, if that's what it is. You can lower that through back washing, splash out, rain (if it does) and evaporation with normal pool care. :goodjob:

Your pool is coming along. I would encourage you to read Pool School to learn how to care for your pool when you have the time to do so. It really helps to know how everything works together. :cool:

Welcome to TFP! Hope you enjoy the site and what we have to offer to pool owners! You're on your way to taking control of your pool.
 
Re: New to pool maintenance...about to give up

jblizzle said:
You can not use too much powder, but too little can affect the result. For all the tests you need to add drops until the last one causes no further color change and not count that drop.

You need to pump running at least 30 minutes before you test and after adding chemicals.
Click to expand...

So I guess I don't understand how that test works then. I would have thought a little extra powder would take more drops to bring it back to clear which would increase the FC number. I agree it shouldn't affect the CC number. Yeah my problem is I leave for work around 5:15am so the pump isn't running yet. I could move the timer but I had it set to start closer to when the sun starts hitting the pool. I normally could just test in the evenings but I was only doing this morning test to try to determine overnight loss.

- - - Updated - - -

Casey said:
Your pool is coming along. I would encourage you to read Pool School to learn how to care for your pool when you have the time to do so. It really helps to know how everything works together. :cool:
Click to expand...

Yep believe me I've done plenty of reading there the past several days. Sometimes it doesn't sink in immediately and I try to go back and review it.
 

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