Hello and Help!

[WhitB08]

Hello all! My husband and I bought a home last September and are preparing to hopefully enjoy swimming in the pool that was existing in the home when we bought it. However, we have a few issues that are concerning us. We paid for a seminar from the installer when we bought the home, but it was not informative at all. We were only shown how to backwash the pool and turn on our deck jets bubblers and slide. We have so much to learn. I am familiarizing myself with the site and The threads have been very helpful so far. The previous owner told us he only spent $30 on chemicals last year. We kept the pool up and running over the winter, but the pool company told us not to worry about keeping the water balanced. When I went for the first water test and to get the chemicals we needed to get ready for swim season, I was shocked that my bill was almost $300. We needed nine bags of salt! Is that normal? That raised our salt level to 3200, but I just checked our aqua pod and less than a month later it has dropped to 2800 - we are not heating the pool and have not begun swimming yet. It has been backwashed once since the salt level was at 3200. We do feel like we have to put water in the pool quite frequently and I was concerned that there may be a leak. I did conduct a bucket test and the levels had almost and unmeasurable difference. I'm just so surprised that it needed nine bags of salt in March even though it was balanced in September, and now even though it was within the normal range I may need to add another bag just three weeks later.
I also noticed about a month ago that the pool was getting dirty on the bottom very quickly after running the automatic cleaner. There seems to be dirt collecting on all of the liner seams throughout the pool even the day after running our Tigershark. After doing some reading, I was worried that it could actually be sand from our filter. I asked the pool shop owner about a possible broken lateral, and she was dismissive and said we would have a huge pile of sand directly below the return Jets if that was the case.
And just in case we didn't have enough to learn about, a pair of mallards nested in the landscaping in front of my home and the female has laid eggs! The local wildlife authority has instructed us that we are not allowed to disrupt them in any way and we should plan on sharing our pool with the ducklings for 4 to 6 weeks. ? I'm afraid we may be in over our heads with everything!
Thanks for any input!

 

[Texas Splash]

Hello and welcome to TFP! You have a lot going on there, but we can certainly help ... with the water anyways, not the ducks. Priority #1 - the testing. Do you have a TF-100 or Taylor K-2006? If not, that must be your first order of business. With that kit, post a full set of test results and we can help you from there to ensure your pool is balanced properly.

As for your sand filter, watch your pressure gauge. If it goes from a starting (clean) pressure to 20-25% higher, then it's time to backwash. As for the birds, we just had a family of Barn Swallows start building their nest under our front porch - protected by TX of course. Cute but very messy on our front porch right now.

Please take a few minutes to review the pages in our Pool School section (link below) and let us know if you have any more questions.

 

[WhitB08]

We have been taking it to the pool builder's store to be tested. I feel like we are not ready to be completely independent. After our first water test and adding all of the different recommendations, we returned a week later and these were our results. Not sure if you can see, but the only adjustment we have done since then was to add the 4 pounds of GLB pH down. Also, we were instructed to turn in the chlorinator down to 10%.

Regarding the pressure gauge, it's broken. It never function. The pool builder told us to backwash weekly during swimming season and every 2 to 3 weeks over the winter. I guess your recommendation would be to replace the gauge and backwash only when the gauge indicates??

 

[jblizzle]

Welcome to TFP!!!

I must urge you to stop having your water tested at the pool store. They are notoriously inaccurate, and not repeatable. Plus they will try to sell you stuff you do not need.

You will have FAR better luck biting the bullet and learning to test for yourself and learning the TFP methods from us.

 

[WhitB08]

Ok. I'll go back to the pool school boards! I'll order the recommended tester kit and go from there. Thanks!

 

[censored]

Whit, I was in the same boat as you. I just got my test kit in and started the TFP SLAM procedure. I will tell you when I saw all the tests and especially when I opened up my test kit, I thought there is no way I am doing this by myself. But I sat down and read the test procedures and after 10 minutes I was running tests and jotting down numbers. It was actually fun! Once you get the numbers the Pool Math calculator will do almost everything else for you short of dumping stuff in your pool I'd say if you feel like you are not yet ready to be independent, at least start with the kit and try running a few tests. I bet after that you will change your mind! Even if in the end you decide to use the pool guy, you should still have a test kit on hand, so you won't be out anything you shouldn't have already purchased. Good luck!

 

[kimkats]

Whit I was SO sure I could NOT do the tests that I ordered the test kit BEFORE me pool to make sure I could! Well look at me now! A MOD hehe................I guess I learned how to do the tests!

I listened to the pool store with out first pool and it got ruined so bad that the liner "rotted" out and I took the whole thing down and sold it.

Now with my own test kit my pool is REALLY trouble free and cheap!

Let us know when the test kit gets there and we can/will walk you through the tests AND there are videos of each test as well.

We got ya and your pool will be SO easy to take care of now!

Kim