Got my Taylor Test (K-2006) - Yikes?

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kundderek said:
You are correct, but I'm still training up on the pool chemistry aspect and don't want to drop him until I am comfortable with all of it.

For the $125/mo that I'm paying him - which some have noted is pretty cheap for my area - I'm still sorting out whether it's 'worth it' to have him do his once per week 10 to 20 minute visit where he skims, brushes, and checks the equipment. I still need to learn about the equipment maintenance side of the equation as well (ie pool filter, pool pump, swg cleaning, etc). He's a bit of a safety net for me at this point on some of those items I suppose.
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I'm 100% where you are. But I'm paying $275 a month and for that they don't clean filters or the SWG. Had enough but wanted to make sure I was there. They'll prob be fired this week before their visit on Thursday. Things I've done:
Purchased the Aiper Scuba S1 Pro that scrubs all of the pool including the water line tile.
Ordered a betta skimmer to keep most items out of the skimmer.
Added skimmer socks to keep stuff out of the filter basked/filter cartridges.
I have salt, MA, a bottle of conditioner and something else. Can't remember.
I've been studying his test results, have been using Leslies home test Accublue, and now a Taylor 2005C. Built a spreadsheet. Things I've observed:
Accublue doesn't test salt or cya very accurately
With a salt water pool, it seems salt and muriatic acid is going to handle most of your issues (I know this depends on hours of sun, etc)
With resources like this, I don't think it's going to be very hard to maintain.

So I agree your guy is treating your pool like a chlorine pool which is not good. As you get it on salt, I think you're going to see it be a lot more steady and any fluctuations easily treatable. SW pools are, I have gathered, MUCH easier than chlorine to balance. I'd get your water balanced, ban chlorine from the pool guy, and then fire him. Good luck, sir.
 
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Spencer2024 said:
I'm 100% where you are. But I'm paying $275 a month and for that they don't clean filters or the SWG. Had enough but wanted to make sure I was there. They'll prob be fired this week before their visit on Thursday. Things I've done:
Purchased the Aiper Scuba S1 Pro that scrubs all of the pool including the water line tile.
Ordered a betta skimmer to keep most items out of the skimmer.
Added skimmer socks to keep stuff out of the filter basked/filter cartridges.
I have salt, MA, a bottle of conditioner and something else. Can't remember.
I've been studying his test results, have been using Leslies home test Accublue, and now a Taylor 2005C. Built a spreadsheet. Things I've observed:
Accublue doesn't test salt or cya very accurately
With a salt water pool, it seems salt and muriatic acid is going to handle most of your issues (I know this depends on hours of sun, etc)
With resources like this, I don't think it's going to be very hard to maintain.

So I agree your guy is treating your pool like a chlorine pool which is not good. As you get it on salt, I think you're going to see it be a lot more steady and any fluctuations easily treatable. SW pools are, I have gathered, MUCH easier than chlorine to balance. I'd get your water balanced, ban chlorine from the pool guy, and then fire him. Good luck, sir
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Thanks for the comments.

Regarding the SWG, I'm having a new one installed this week. My currently Jandy PCL 1400 is 7+ years old and hits service codes at anything above a 20% setting. Until I replace / renew my water in the offseason I'm going to have to be vigilant about maintaining it. Pool guy des check it periodically and acid washes it if too much calcium has built up. With the CH in our water supply at 350 to 400 out here (pool at CH 925 currently - was 1200 before a 25% replacement last week) the bigger issue for me will be sorting out how frequently to check and clean it.

His recommendation for the new one was more frequent power washing vs acid baths as he commented that too much acid can "wear away the metal blades".
 
kundderek said:
Thanks for the comments.

Regarding the SWG, I'm having a new one installed this week. My currently Jandy PCL 1400 is 7+ years old and hits service codes at anything above a 20% setting. Until I replace / renew my water in the offseason I'm going to have to be vigilant about maintaining it. Pool guy des check it periodically and acid washes it if too much calcium has built up. With the CH in our water supply at 350 to 400 out here (pool at CH 925 currently - was 1200 before a 25% replacement last week) the bigger issue for me will be sorting out how frequently to check and clean it.

His recommendation for the new one was more frequent power washing vs acid baths as he commented that too much acid can "wear away the metal blades".
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Thanks. And that seems like a high CH for municipal water. Guess I need to check our tap water. And I'm not knowledgeable enough to speak authoritatively, but I can't believe a few gallons of muriatic acid in a 15K pool is going to do more damage than the CH is doing, but maybe I'm wrong. And again, I think you'll see less fluctuations of all chemicals once you're running on the SWG. Just play around with the aquapure percentage vs run times. I bumped my pump from 8 hours to 16 and dropped the SWG from 100% to 60% to 50%. Trying to get mine dialed in too.... Thus far it seems like pH, chlorine and salinity are the main 3 I'll be tweaking/testing for/tracking.....
 
mknauss said:
Your municipal water supply is primarily Colorado River water. The CH will be around 250 ppm, TA about 130 ppm.
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Huh. Those are good numbers. Wonder how his water is getting up to the crazy levels he's seeing. And if his pool guy had been running it as a SW pool would he be dealing with this CH issue?
 
mknauss said:
Your municipal water supply is primarily Colorado River water. The CH will be around 250 ppm, TA about 130 ppm.
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My water co (BWP) in their annual water quality report - last published for year 2022 - had Alkalinity at 208 and Hardness at 296. You're about spot on with your numbers - with BWP being slightly higher. My tests over the past couple of weeks using the Taylor K2006 kit had CH at between 300 and 350 and TA (this am off the garden hose) at 200.
 

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Rancho Cost-a-Lotta said:
Too many acid baths will also wear away your plaster finish. It's best to control CH rise by using softened water for top-offs.
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Definitely. For what it's worth, the acid bath I was referring to was for the salt cell ie bathing it in a bucket of diluted muriatic acid. I haven't done an acid bath on the pool since filling it in July 2017.
 
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Spencer2024 said:
Thanks. And that seems like a high CH for municipal water. Guess I need to check our tap water. And I'm not knowledgeable enough to speak authoritatively, but I can't believe a few gallons of muriatic acid in a 15K pool is going to do more damage than the CH is doing, but maybe I'm wrong. And again, I think you'll see less fluctuations of all chemicals once you're running on the SWG. Just play around with the aquapure percentage vs run times. I bumped my pump from 8 hours to 16 and dropped the SWG from 100% to 60% to 50%. Trying to get mine dialed in too.... Thus far it seems like pH, chlorine and salinity are the main 3 I'll be tweaking/testing for/tracking.....
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Ya, I was off earlier with the up to 400 reference from tap. BWP's own report from 2022 has their hardness at 296. I test anywhere from 300 to 350 using the Taylor Kit on a garden hose sample. I will offer that I don't know a thing about this aspect of chemistry but i wonder if the initial increase in my pool could have / would have occurred during the initial fill of the plaster pool back in 2017 with the plaster dust causing the increase and then just rising over the years. My pool guy has historically been very loose with dropping a floater and chlorinating tabs in. I've asked him to no longer do that.

When I recently started using Pool Math, I found that I had used it at one point back in August 2018. Back then I logged CH of 775 and CYA of 40. Means in 6 years (never drained) the CH rose as high as 1200 until i did a partial drain last week after which it now reads at 925. CYA was recently off the charts (200) until the refill and while still high is now at 100 - manageable until I can do the offseason refill.

Regarding CH, I've seen some folks on here from Texas and Arizona say they too have high CH at or near 1000 and just manage it as part of the overall CSI. I'll look to get mine down but not until November or so.

Re SWG - Once the new cell is in I look forward to finding the right seasonal SWG % so that I can maintain FC with the SWG.
 
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kundderek said:
Definitely. For what it's worth, the acid bath I was referring to was for the salt cell ie bathing it in a bucket of diluted muriatic acid. I haven't done an acid bath on the pool since filling it in July 2017.
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Ahhh. I saw Acid Bath and went the other direction. Your pool guy is right. You do want to limit cleanings with muriatic acid. Here are some alternatives...

SWG How It Works - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
 
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