Do you drain your pool yearly if you are in Arizona or other super hot places?

[thrashej]

Just wondering, if you have a smaller pool, like a play pool, how often do you drain and "start over"? I don't recall it being too expensive for us to drain and fill our 12,400 gallon pool so........

Also.....in that same size pool, how long would it get to reach 100 CYA throwing pucks in? I guess for us that time period was 1 year, 3 months. LOL

If that is really all it takes, why doesn't every one of my "pucking" neighbors have this problem? I mean, I barely know anyone in real life that actually never uses pucks and only liquid chlorine! Strange.

 

[JohnT]

You'll add about 9 to 15ppm per week with pucks, so somewhere between 6 and 11 weeks to reach 100ppm.

 

[jblizzle]

In AZ, the evaporation rate is very high and the tap water is typically high in calcium. So, it is not unheard of to require replacing water every 3-6 years just to keep the CH level in check.

If all you are using is pucks, then you could easily have very high CYA levels within a year.
Some math,
Assume an average of 1ppm of FC required daily (this might be a little low, the loss will certainly be higher in the summer, but maybe lower in the winter) ... trichlor will add 0.6ppm of CYA.
Over a year that is adding 219ppm of CYA.

If you are "shocking" the pool weekly with Dichlor, that will raise the CYA even higher.
If you have a lot of splash out or backwash a lot or happen to get a lot of rain, those will lower the CYA in the pool.

 

[thrashej]

Wow, interesting how quickly CYA builds up.

I'm a believer, for sure, about using the liquid chlorine, thanks to all here. But my neighbors think I am totally crazy.

 

[cyberalien]

in phoenix. about 3 years ago i got to this site and learned a lot. got the taylor kit and learned cya was so high i couldnt test it... because i had been adding nothing but pucks prior. my calcium was also like over 800.

decided to drain and start over. 10,500 gallons. bill for water was only about $40 higher that month.

so now i start every season (early may) by draining pool completely. go around edges where any scaling and spray with muriatic acid and wash off (dangerous). drain out this run off. then refill. gets ph around 7.8, calcium 200, TA 120. then i add liquid chlorine and adjust as needed.

by end of season, calcium usualy back in the 400-600 range. only way to get lowerr is to drain. so after swim season (mid/late sept), i just stop chemicals and stop checking pool levels. it never greens or cloudy. i do this to avoid spending money on chlorine when im not using it.then i just drain and refill in may again next year. i figure for $40, thats about what i spend in 2 weeks of chlorine in summmer, so a good deal to just start over.

(of course clean filter before each season and during as needed)

also edit.... after draining i do add stabilizer (cya) otherwise the sun destroys the chlorine. literallly going from like 40 FC at 8am to 0 by 6pm. aim for 40 cya and add more if needed.

 

[triptyx]

I'm starting to think I may have to do this due to skyrocketing CH levels. My long term plan will likely involve a drain/fill every two years.

 

[thrashej]

Cyberallen,

Thank you so much for adding that input. Good to know someone else in Az has determined it most logical to just drain every year. This was why my original post was saying who cares maybe I should just use pucks forever then if every year I am draining. Hmmm. Maybe I should just ride out rest of summer dumping in the pucks. Does the CYA hurt the pool equipment at all? So.....you don't put ANY chlorine in your pool over the winter, not even pucks??

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Triptyx...

I think so too. In some ways it seems easier, with a busy life, to just throw pucks in and drain every year in Az because we have the calcium problem as well.

 

[jblizzle]

I tried pucks this year, they duo not dissolve fast enough in my floater. If I had more floaters or an inline chlorinator, they might keep up.

My water is dirt cheap and I still do not want to drain it that often.

 

[cyberalien]

Cyberallen,
Thank you so much for adding that input. Good to know someone else in Az has determined it most logical to just drain every year. This was why my original post was saying who cares maybe I should just use pucks forever then if every year I am draining. Hmmm. Maybe I should just ride out rest of summer dumping in the pucks. Does the CYA hurt the pool equipment at all? So.....you don't put ANY chlorine in your pool over the winter, not even pucks??

id prefer not to drain. it wastes water wastes money. and it takes awhile to complete. it just happens to be most practical overall.

id avoid using pucks. it is basically a mixture of chlorine and CYA. something like every 1 FC of chlorine from puck also adds 0.6ppm CYA. i think a puck is like 6-8 FC each equivalent, so thats like 3-6 CYA. it wont take many pucks before CYA is excessive.

you need CYA to stay reasonable. the more CYA, the less effective chlorine is. imagine that CYA is 'locking up' chlorine. too much cya, and you get to much chlorine locked away. see chart below. lower 30ppm cya requires at least 2 FC... any less and algae and such will grow. but if you were at 100 cya, you would need to maintain atleast 8 FC. pucks are just a vicious cycle.
Pool School - Chlorine / CYA Chart

 

[chiefwej]

Most all pools in my immediate neighborhood are salt pools. I do have one neighbor who has been successful using pucks here in Tucson. He has a sand filter and when it does rain over half of his entire roof drains into the pool. So he does a lot of backwashing that apparently keeps the CYA down. Due to CH buildup, I drain every two years. I tried going longer, but found it wasn't easy to manage a pool when the CH gets up around 1200.