So it's been a couple of weeks since I've been on here. Life got very busy!
What I can say is that we have had one terrible swimming season this year in Western PA. Just yucky... probably one of if not the wettest summers we have had in about 100 years. That leads to about 5-6 total swims if I can recall correctly. Not worth the effort of even opening the pool, but I digress... no way to know how good or bad the upcoming swim season is going to be... you know?
I dealt with my first "green" pool! The cover had been on for about two to two and a half weeks. I had been adding bleach and testing. The problem is that I couldn't really see too well with the cover on. I find out later on that my pool pump timer goofed on me and wasn't kicking the pool on and off... probably didn't run for a few days at least. This was when the daylight hours were pretty sunny... temps in the high 80s to low 90s. She was nice and green... not solid green but the bottom was green and getting in to stir it up reduced visibility to a little less than 2 feet or so.
So I tested and ... 0 chlorine. Whelp.... I dumped in 4 gallons of 6% bleach, bypassed the pool pump timer, and let er rip for an hour. That got me to about 18 ppm FC. I kept it there for about four days by feeding it about a half a gallon of bleach per day.. maybe a bit more. In about 4-5 days it was pretty clear again. I've since kept it at a FC of at least 6 PPM.
So then in comes the winterizing question. Are those kits just pure snake oil? IMO, they sure do seem to be... but I'm not expert by any means so I figured I'd ask if they do have any real benefit to them. The ones my parents use, and are going to buy, cost about $25 or $30. I'm thinking raising my FC to about 20ppm (CYA of about 45), giving the pool a good brushing and vacuuming, and after about 2-3 days at 20 ppm just tossing the cover on it, plugging the skimmer and the return, and disconnecting the pump. Thoughts on the winterizing kit vs just dumping bleach in?
What I can say is that we have had one terrible swimming season this year in Western PA. Just yucky... probably one of if not the wettest summers we have had in about 100 years. That leads to about 5-6 total swims if I can recall correctly. Not worth the effort of even opening the pool, but I digress... no way to know how good or bad the upcoming swim season is going to be... you know?
I dealt with my first "green" pool! The cover had been on for about two to two and a half weeks. I had been adding bleach and testing. The problem is that I couldn't really see too well with the cover on. I find out later on that my pool pump timer goofed on me and wasn't kicking the pool on and off... probably didn't run for a few days at least. This was when the daylight hours were pretty sunny... temps in the high 80s to low 90s. She was nice and green... not solid green but the bottom was green and getting in to stir it up reduced visibility to a little less than 2 feet or so.
So I tested and ... 0 chlorine. Whelp.... I dumped in 4 gallons of 6% bleach, bypassed the pool pump timer, and let er rip for an hour. That got me to about 18 ppm FC. I kept it there for about four days by feeding it about a half a gallon of bleach per day.. maybe a bit more. In about 4-5 days it was pretty clear again. I've since kept it at a FC of at least 6 PPM.
So then in comes the winterizing question. Are those kits just pure snake oil? IMO, they sure do seem to be... but I'm not expert by any means so I figured I'd ask if they do have any real benefit to them. The ones my parents use, and are going to buy, cost about $25 or $30. I'm thinking raising my FC to about 20ppm (CYA of about 45), giving the pool a good brushing and vacuuming, and after about 2-3 days at 20 ppm just tossing the cover on it, plugging the skimmer and the return, and disconnecting the pump. Thoughts on the winterizing kit vs just dumping bleach in?
