Hello all. I am a retired engineer who recently moved to the Tucson area and a first-time pool owner. Always have been and always will be a do it yourselfer. I used a pool care service for a couple months until I could get up to speed on maintaining a pool. I found this site and like it very much - thanks! It has been very helpful and I am now maintaining the pool. I saw that one of the tenets of this site is to learn to test and maintain your pool chemistry yourself. I couldn't agree more. My pool maintainer was a nice guy but after a month of research and thanks to this site I felt I knew more about pool chemistry than he did. I bought a test kit and found that pool store test results were unreliable. So, I think the advice to learn to do your own pool water testing and maintenance is 100% correct. I have some issues to deal with (high CYA, extremely high calcium hardness, and a failed SWG but I have a plan of action and will add a separate post requesting critique of my short term and long-term plans. Looking forward to advice from the more experienced crowd and thanks in advance for any advice you can provide!
