I'm not a huge fan of pool stores and now that TFP has armed me with information, I have been able to find most of the pool chemicals I need either online or at Ace Hardware. However, after church, the pool store (I'll leave the name out) was the closets venue for me to pick up some bags of pool salt that I needed to up my salt levels after doing a series of water drains lately.
It was a sad sight to behold - in line in front of me were about three different sets of customers all holding bottles and bottles of the ridiculous chemicals they try to sell you - PhosFree, GreenClean, BacksideUp, Dead-Man's Float...(ok, those last two I made up, but you get the drift). All the while the two guys working the counter are spouting out the biggest bunch of nonsense you could ever imagine. This exchange had me shaking my head -
[Customer] - So this GreenClean stuff will get rid of the stains I'm seeing and I just brush it around but will it mess up the other chemicals in the pool?
[Pimple-Faced Clerk] - Naw man, no way. It's basically 99% crushed sea shells. Can't harm anything and the best part is you don't even really need to brush it, it cleans all by itself.
[Customer] - Awesome. Thanks...maybe I should buy 2 bottles since one bottle treats 15k gallons and my pool is exactly 15k gallons?
[PFC] - Yo, can't hurt it, right?
I mean, what malarkey!?!? If the stuff is truly made only out of seashells and you don't have to do anything but pour it in your pool, then why even buy it?? I can't believe people believe this stuff...sad.
The best part of the story though was the couple in front of me who had a picture on their phone of a BIG GREEN MONSTER. Their pool was hosed, it was a nasty dark green and black toxic stew. Listening to them talk to the clerk, they basically said that their pool service guy gave up trying to help them after spending weeks dumping in shock, flocc and every kind of algaecide imaginable. The service guy basically sent them to the pool store for help (after taking $300 of their money). The pool store clerk was even worse in my opinion. He basically shrugged his shoulders and told them that, in his "expert" opinion, they should just completely drain the pool and start over. Once they refilled it, he'd be happy to sell them the $500 worth of chemicals the store says you absolutely need to start up a pool. The couple walked away thinking that was their best option....even though the clerk never even bothered to understand what kind of pool they had and if you could even fully drain a pool (which for IG vinyl I think is a big no-no).
That's when I couldn't take it any longer. I left the line and let the guy behind me go ahead. I then rounded behind the big stack of solar covers and headed off the couple at the door. I stopped them and told them not to do anything drastic with their pool (it was already a swamp anyway) and to go to Trouble Free Pools and start there. I told them that I had nothing to do with the site as I was only a new user to it and I told them that draining the pool and starting over might be the right thing to do but that they should at least research their options before doing anything drastic. They thanked me for the info and left.
I really hope they check out this site as it has been a HUGE help to me in understanding my pool....and I really hope they join and show off pictures of their sparkling water someday!
It was a sad sight to behold - in line in front of me were about three different sets of customers all holding bottles and bottles of the ridiculous chemicals they try to sell you - PhosFree, GreenClean, BacksideUp, Dead-Man's Float...(ok, those last two I made up, but you get the drift). All the while the two guys working the counter are spouting out the biggest bunch of nonsense you could ever imagine. This exchange had me shaking my head -
[Customer] - So this GreenClean stuff will get rid of the stains I'm seeing and I just brush it around but will it mess up the other chemicals in the pool?
[Pimple-Faced Clerk] - Naw man, no way. It's basically 99% crushed sea shells. Can't harm anything and the best part is you don't even really need to brush it, it cleans all by itself.
[Customer] - Awesome. Thanks...maybe I should buy 2 bottles since one bottle treats 15k gallons and my pool is exactly 15k gallons?
[PFC] - Yo, can't hurt it, right?
I mean, what malarkey!?!? If the stuff is truly made only out of seashells and you don't have to do anything but pour it in your pool, then why even buy it?? I can't believe people believe this stuff...sad.
The best part of the story though was the couple in front of me who had a picture on their phone of a BIG GREEN MONSTER. Their pool was hosed, it was a nasty dark green and black toxic stew. Listening to them talk to the clerk, they basically said that their pool service guy gave up trying to help them after spending weeks dumping in shock, flocc and every kind of algaecide imaginable. The service guy basically sent them to the pool store for help (after taking $300 of their money). The pool store clerk was even worse in my opinion. He basically shrugged his shoulders and told them that, in his "expert" opinion, they should just completely drain the pool and start over. Once they refilled it, he'd be happy to sell them the $500 worth of chemicals the store says you absolutely need to start up a pool. The couple walked away thinking that was their best option....even though the clerk never even bothered to understand what kind of pool they had and if you could even fully drain a pool (which for IG vinyl I think is a big no-no).
That's when I couldn't take it any longer. I left the line and let the guy behind me go ahead. I then rounded behind the big stack of solar covers and headed off the couple at the door. I stopped them and told them not to do anything drastic with their pool (it was already a swamp anyway) and to go to Trouble Free Pools and start there. I told them that I had nothing to do with the site as I was only a new user to it and I told them that draining the pool and starting over might be the right thing to do but that they should at least research their options before doing anything drastic. They thanked me for the info and left.
I really hope they check out this site as it has been a HUGE help to me in understanding my pool....and I really hope they join and show off pictures of their sparkling water someday!
I them tried to explain that my FC levels were too high for that because I was doing a SLAM to which I got the predictable response of, "why the heck are you using liquid chlorine?!?!" Followed by all the most idiotic assertions as to why bleach and shock are not the same. 
