Going out of town for 5-6 days

[Bille]

I will be out of town for 5-6 days with no one to watch the pool. Im thinking my plan is 3 chlorine pucks in a floater, pump on 24x7 and no filter cartridge, so the pressure doesn't get too high.
Will that work?

 

[HermanTX]

I looked at your Pool Math logs but they are dated over a year ago. The best method is to determine how much FC ppm you lose a day due to UV. If it for example 3ppm, then you know you will lose 18ppm over 6 days. How much does the 3 pucks add to your PPM, also do you think they will fully dissolve over the 6 days? Do you plan to add any LC?

Not sure what you mean by no filter cartridge. Do you get so much debris that your filter clogs in 6 days? Agree it is best to run your pump 24 hrs to keep your pucks dissolving.

I recently was out for 10 days, I added 2 gals of LC before I left and loaded up my floater with 5 pucks. I then had a neighbor add another gallon of LC mid week or later (whenever it was convenient for him, it wasn't necessary but he offered so I agreed). So basically I brought it up to SLAM level on departure and let it dwindle down over the 10 days.

 

[setsailsoon]

What is your CYA level right now? I used to do this often for business travel and it worked great but I prepared by letting the CYA level fall to give me room for the CYA that would be added. Here's what I did and it always worked:

• Adjust pH to 7.5
• Thoroughly clean the pool
• Raise FC to high end of target or even a few ppm over
• Clean the filter
• Use pool math to determine how many tablets are required assuming 3ppm/day and put them in floaters right before departure. Make sure your starting level of CYA will accommodate the CYA addition from temporary use of trichlor tablets
• Clean the pool asap.

I never had any issues running the filter the entire time. Worked fine and one nice thing is the tablets maintain pH with no muriatic acid. As soon as I got back I'd remove any floater tablets plus check filter pressure. It was never a problem in my case. Then I would use 100% liquid chlorine until my CYA dropped to mid range or lower. I used this method multiple times for up to 2 weeks. I returned to a TFP perfect pool every time.

Travel safe and I hope this helps.

Chris