Foreclosure Swamp in Pensacola, Florida!

Came home to see that none of the brown water has seeped through the tarp during the day! Good news!

A little concerning, though, was the water level - it had dropped by about a foot since I shut everything off last night. At first I was thinking a problem with the liner, but I remembered that I had left my multiport set to waste. The water had actually siphoned itself through the pump, filter housing, and out of the pool over the course of the day and it stopped draining at the height of my waste outlet. Won't be doing that again! :hammer:

Things are looking up for the tarp idea! I'll be staying up late with it tonight, as well as getting up early tomorrow to make sure the water level doesn't shift on me again. We're excited!!!
 

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Over half-way there. The new water is about three feet deep and has nearly found the bottom of the shallow end.

I used my external pump to pull some dirty water from the bottom of the deep end and will try once more in a few hours, but working the pool pole under the tarp is starting to be problematic. It worked great for pulling up some of the remaining sediment that was at the bottom.

Also, I zip-tied a sock-full of CYA to the end of my garden hoses and put about a gallon of 12% chlorine in the new water.

Will take another picture as night falls tonight - Looks like the pool will be completely filled with fresh water by some time late tonight. We'll be getting out the spotlights!

On a side note, it looks like I'll be waiting until the water change is finished before trying to remove the staining that we have. Looks like the old water will be gone before the night is out, so we'll worry about them once we pass OCLT. Planning to start vacuuming and shocking as soon as we slip the tarp through the water.

Anybody have any thoughts or suggestions? I'm hoping I've got everything covered :mrgreen:
 

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What is your plan for removing the tarp when you are done filling? If there is still debris down there you don't want to drag it with the tarp - can you get enough help that you can lower one side into the pool and slowly remove it from the shallow end first?
 
That sounds like a good idea! I'm wanting to let the tarp sit against the walls to get rid of as much of the brown water as possible.

We'll probably roll up the edges and drop them below the surface all the way around the pool to let as much new water behind the tarp as possible. Once I can tell that I've got enough new water under there , we'll slip it out and hope for the best.

Shallow end is pretty much filled up as of right now. Still a few feet to go in the deep end...
 

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Update Time!

Sorry it's taken so long to post - between my job and the pool I've been going non-stop!

We pulled the tarp out on Sunday just after night-fall. I let the pool pump run (draining water from beneath the tarp) until the tarp found the main drain. I wasn't able to use the suction line from the skimmer, as the tarp kept stopping it up and I didn't want to babysit it. Once the tarp got down close to the main drain, I stayed right next to my pump controller to wait for the tarp to suck down onto the drain. And I'm glad I did! The waterflow stopped almost instantly when the tarp fell down on it, and I immediately turned the pump off.

Getting water behind the tarp was actually pretty easy. With an extra set of hands, I rolled the edges of the tarp up and dipped them below the surface of the water to let the new water mix with what was under the tarp. To get the tarp out, we pulled it gently from one side once we had enough water behind it that it would move easily.

Something that I probably should have done but didn't - I should have set up my vacuum pump and had it running while pulling the tarp through the water so that I could vaccuum sediment to waste as soon as it was revealed from under the tarp. I thought that I had messed up big time by not doing this as the sediment from under the tarp clouded the pool within about 5 minutes.

I then turned everything off and gave everything a few hours to settle while I went to the store for sink & sweep. I added it when I got back a few hours later to see that the water was still cloudy and let it sit overnight, which worked great to get the heavy sediment down to the bottom. I gave it a good vacuum to waste with my external pump and that made a big difference! The water is now clear and I can see bottom all over!

3 lbs of CYA and 8 lbs of baking soda (poolcalc says I need 4lbs more) were added to the new water per pool calculator's numbers and my test kit. TA was at 40, FC at 8, CC at 0, and pH at 7.2 last time I checked. Will post a full set of numbers this evening once I get to the house.

From here we will be brushing and filtering / vacuuming to finish cleaning things up. We did discover a few places on the floor of the shallow end that are seemingly damaged - will post pictures of them soon. We do have some pretty significant staining from the high iron content, but will be waiting to pass OCLT before tinkering around with an ascorbic / citric acid treatment.

The pool looks great I can't wait to go swimming in it! Too bad that it isn't warm enough at the moment, but we'll be ready by when it is!!!
 

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I'm VERY HAPPY to be the guinea pig. Thanks to everyone for all the help! :whoot: :party: :cheers:


I don't know if you still keep up with this thread, but I live in Pensacola myself and I have taken over the job of getting my mom and dad's pool back into service now that they are getting to the point that they can't do it anymore. I was wondering if you still have that tarp and if it's in good shape. Would you be willing to sell or loan it to me if it's still in good shape? My mom and dad don't have the funds they used to and it's hard to justify a $150 purchase for a one time deal.

Thanks and I've enjoyed reading your process and progress!
 
:wave: Welcome to TFP, chavisc!!!

The added expense and the elevated danger involved is why we generally do not recommend using a tarp anymore.
You can simply do multiple partial drain / fills or drain and fill at the same time.

I also suggest you start your own thread to start discussing what you need to do to fix up your pool since you will get more attention.