So I have been a pool owner for a year and I have never had to SLAM my pool. However, my brother just bought a house and his pool is a mess. It needs a full re-plaster and new deck but he is waiting till fall for that. It is not a full on swamp but here is the story so far:
He took possession of the house last Saturday. I came over with my trusty test kit. Pool was murky and greenish even though it was being 'maintained' by a $150 a month pool company. Went over to the equipment pad, filter reads 0, pump basket was half full of air, nothing coming out of the returns, puck chlorinator turned to max and polaris running around in circles with the tail on the pool floor and one wheel on the deck.
So, Impeller was completely clogged with debris. Now we have flow! Chlorinator gasket leaking, fixed that. Bought some screws and tail clamp for the polaris = working like a champ now. Backwashed filter and now it was time to test the water.
I am sure you can tell what was coming next. I tested FC first - that was a big fat ZERO! Then CYA... This is the fun part. The dot disappeared instantly so I diluted 1:1, still disappeared instantly, then I diluted 1:1 again and it read right at about 90. So I figured the CYA was 400+!!!! Tested the CH and it was 700! This is going to be fun.
He lives in a part of town with very soft soil with lots of foundation problems and it's been raining a lot, so I didn't want to do a full drain. So over 3 days I did 3 x 50% drain and refills. Now the CYA is still 80-90 and the CH is 250. Looking better. I know the CYA is still fairly high but I started a SLAM anyways this morning. I am having to backwash every few hours so I am hoping the CYA will come down some more with the long backwashes. It is killing algae fast, pool is much more blue now but it's still cloudy. CC is only 0.5.
One question:
How can I run the filter overnight if it is clogging this quickly? In a few hours it goes from 19 to 28 psi.
Here is a couple days ago (top) vs about 6 hours after SLAM start and refills (bottom).
He took possession of the house last Saturday. I came over with my trusty test kit. Pool was murky and greenish even though it was being 'maintained' by a $150 a month pool company. Went over to the equipment pad, filter reads 0, pump basket was half full of air, nothing coming out of the returns, puck chlorinator turned to max and polaris running around in circles with the tail on the pool floor and one wheel on the deck.
So, Impeller was completely clogged with debris. Now we have flow! Chlorinator gasket leaking, fixed that. Bought some screws and tail clamp for the polaris = working like a champ now. Backwashed filter and now it was time to test the water.
I am sure you can tell what was coming next. I tested FC first - that was a big fat ZERO! Then CYA... This is the fun part. The dot disappeared instantly so I diluted 1:1, still disappeared instantly, then I diluted 1:1 again and it read right at about 90. So I figured the CYA was 400+!!!! Tested the CH and it was 700! This is going to be fun.
He lives in a part of town with very soft soil with lots of foundation problems and it's been raining a lot, so I didn't want to do a full drain. So over 3 days I did 3 x 50% drain and refills. Now the CYA is still 80-90 and the CH is 250. Looking better. I know the CYA is still fairly high but I started a SLAM anyways this morning. I am having to backwash every few hours so I am hoping the CYA will come down some more with the long backwashes. It is killing algae fast, pool is much more blue now but it's still cloudy. CC is only 0.5.
One question:
How can I run the filter overnight if it is clogging this quickly? In a few hours it goes from 19 to 28 psi.
Here is a couple days ago (top) vs about 6 hours after SLAM start and refills (bottom).
