Foreclosed pool - Semi drained pool - Acid Wash first? What to do?

[Pool_Bob]

Greetings All,

I just purchased a foreclosed house with a pool. About 2-3 weeks ago I noticed they covered up the pool with permeable tarp. However what I found out yesterday that the pool was drained, and looks like it has been partially refilled by rain.

The pools is approx 30x14. It is 3 feet in shallow area, 6 in the deep (according to the markings)

The first half of video below is of the pool before it was drained/tarped:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SprPTOQSniw

Here are pictures of it now:
http://imgur.com/a/jT4DN

It looks like it has pebble tec finish or something similar?

Now onto the questions:
- Should I drain the pool and have it Acid washed? - does it really need it? Was quoted $500 to do it, $650 if it needed to be drained
- I am unable to put the tarp back on the pool - can I pour bleach into the pool to keep away the mosquitoes, algae, etc?
- If so, how much bleach?
- After I put in the bleach it should be safe to jump in and start cleaning out the gunk? Is there an easie way to do this?

Refilling
- Should I pay $1,600 to have water delivered by truck (pre chlorinated, pool ready) or
- Pay $250 for a guy to bring charcoal barrels to filter the well water (water has .08 ppm iron) and risk burning out the well motor ($1000) and or dying up the well and needing to drill another ($1000)


Pool Rail
- whoever drained the pool, also cut off the pool rails -- Luckily I see they go for around $115 on Amazon
- To install a new rail, would I have to drill the remaining rail out of the concrete?
- Anyone can tell me the process to install the rails?


Have a bunch more questions about the pool - but these are probably the most time critical

Thanks in advance!,

Bob

 

[Swampwoman]

Bob, I don't know a lot about your kind of surface, but I recovered a foreclosure swamp and I have well fill water with iron.

I can't tell what your surface is supposed to be like, but if you acid wash then you're gong to want to truck the water to preserve same. If you're content to skip the acid wash for now, and try less expensive methods, the following would be my approach:

A) put some liquid chlorine in right now after you estimate pool volume the reduce by half or third using the pool calculator on this site...to shock level, though you might get iron precipitating...if so, don't panic, you'll be doing a treatment anyway...

B) truck the water to keep iron as low as possible and put a filter on your fill hose for when you top up...maybe have them connect your outdoor facet to the water softener that I presume you have or will have soon (look into greensand)

C) let the pump run and filter do its job for a few days, SLAMming for good measure to kill anything that's starting to grow from disuse...have a good read through pool school on this board (look in navigation bar) for instructions.

D) Add two bottle of metal magic or jacks magic pink as soon as you're up and running...this is a start up dose. You may need more, and you will want to maintain throughout your season as it wears off

E) once you're comfortably sanitized and functional, and if you still have staining (I couldn't tell from quick peek at pics) then read up on the Ascorbic Acid treatment and try you hand at same. I suspect that will clean 'er up

Best wishes. You have no idea how lucky you are that yours isn't a vinyl swamp that looked like mud, smelled like sulfur, and had a high water table that meant it couldn't be drained !!!

 

[smforte]

Can't answer any of your questions but wanted to say welcome. I can relate to the foreclosure .... Bought one too. Your set up looks good. It's a shame they drained. The pros here will around shortly to get you up and running in no time with great words of wisdom. You'll need a good test kit and lots of bleach! Good luck!

 

[one_knight4u]

Getting a good test kit is one of the first steps in taking control of your pool. The best bang for your buck kit is the TF-100 which can be ordered here. Order the XL option because it gives you extra of the most needed regents for a S.L.A.M. I would recommend the speed stir as an extremely nice option but it is optional in that you wont have to swirl the sample after each drop which can be a lot during a SLAM.

An option on the rails is to go to the tool rental center and get a Hilti Drill. Inform the rental place what you intend to do and they can set you up with the right bits for the drill/demo hammer. Ive used them before and it should go quite quickly with that. If you do not want to remove the old pipe from the concrete, you may be able to use some stainless steel concrete anchors (get them at a construction supply store) and bolt a new rail bracket down next to the old pipe and anchor to that.

Adding your equipment to your signature would help everyone out that offers advice being they wouldn't have to read through the whole post each time to find out what equipment you have. It would be at the bottom of each of your posts. General instructions are found here.

As far as how much bleach to add, until you get a reliable test kit, a gallon of unscented plain or concentrate laundry bleach a day to keep the alge at bay would be a good place to start. Setting the pump to draw from the main drain only if you can and turning on the pump for 30 mins to get the bleach mixed in would not be a bad idea. I would be very cautious in running the pump very long without the pool being full. If you cannot select to draw water from the main drain only, mixing with a small sub pump is another option. Monitor your filter pressure closely to keep it from getting too high. 25-30% over normal pressure is reccommended before backwashing.

 

[Pool_Bob]

Thank you everyone for your quick replies!

I ordered a Taylor Technologies K-2006 along with 16oz bottle of Cyanuric acid from amazon a few days ago - I think it will arrive today - meaning I can hopefully test the water tomorrow evening

According to the pool calculator - The pool should be around 11K gallons - guestimating from the pics - it looks to be 1/5 - Assuming I use 6% bleach - how much would I pour in for 2K gallons? Would it be safe for me to just dump an entire bottle, as I wont be running the pump until the water has reached all the ports? - I do not know how to set the filter to draw from the main drain only.

I am thinking I can skip the acid wash and just scrub the walls with scuba gear on an empty weekend?

I have a water softner - but it is an older Kinetico - from a water guy who came to do a test - he said its not filtering iron too well - .03 ppm after the softner. If going the well route - I would be bringing in a guy to rent 6 barrel of carbon to run the water though first to remove the impurities.


I have no idea what equipment I have. All I know is that it has a DE filter - all other inscriptions on the pump have been worn away with age - perhaps some good Samaritan could identify what I have by looking at it? - Skip to 3:25 in the video to see the equipment :-D For your convenience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SprPTOQSniw#t=209

Speaking about the filter - when I ran it last time (when the pool was a swamp) - the psi held steady at 50psi. Is this the normal pressure? when the pool is full again - should I first backwash the filter and refill it? Any idea how much DE I am suppose to refill with?


Thanks again!,

Bob

 

[one_knight4u]

Add a whole gallon, you have some green going on there and you need to take care of that, you need someway of mixing it in, that is the reason for suggesting a sub pump.
I dont know what your well situation is so i cannot comment on how to fill.
50 psi sounds extremely high, but that is not something i am familiar with, as i have a sand filter that runs at 5 psi.
When you get your test kit, post your results so we can go from there...

Take the time to read Pool School for starters.
Oh and BTW.. looking at your setup, once you get things cleaned up,, its going to look spectacular....