Hi Everybody!
My wife and I bought a home with an in-ground vinyl pool last summer. I've never owned a pool before and my wife thought we should just hire a company to take care of it for us. But, this is our "forever" home and I wanted to become an expert at managing our pool myself, so we'd know and understand what's going on with it. It's an old pool but seems to be in decent shape. It's got pentair whisper flow, sta-rite system 3, hayward auto-chlorinator, and a kreepy krauly. I believe it's about 20k gallons, but not totally sure. The local Leslie's pool store had the old owner in their system and they told me it's 20k, and I measured it and as best I can figure that's about right (the walls of the pool are very sloped, so it's an odd shape).
I had a green algae problem last summer, but I fixed it with the help of the people at Leslie's...but it was expensive. I somehow maintained the pool pretty well after that, although I spent a ton of money. I got my own Taylor 2006 test kit, but my results are always different than what Leslie's told me.
I sort of neglected the pool over winter time, and again battled algae this last week. I've been online a lot refreshing my knowledge and learning new things, and it's clear to me that the "Trouble Free Pool" community is the best resource out there, so here I am joining you
. I've decided not to have Leslie's test my water anymore, and just trust my own results from now on. Anyways, I've got the latest algae problem under control and plan to stay on top of things now, as it's so much easier to give my pool the time and attention it needs vs. battling major issues.
Here's what I've done so far as I prepare my pool for summer:
-Got new filters. The old ones were filthy and cracked. I cleaned them several times and squeezed as much life out of them as I could while battling the algae this last week, but now that the pool is clear I dropped the new ones in. The pressure was 30 on the old filters, and now down to 10 with the new ones. The pump is humming along, and I can literally see a current in the water now...much better circulation. I hope running the pump at 30 PSI this last year didn't cause too much wear & tear damage?
-Ordered new fins & bumpers for the Kreepy Krauly. The old ones were disintegrating and bits were in the filter. The Krauly itself looks really old, but it still picks up a lot of debris so I'm not sure I need to spend the money on a whole new vacuum this year. My question is should I leave the Krauly plugged in all the time or just put it in periodically? It seems to work better when I turn the valve so the krauly is 100% on and the skimmer is off. I can also do a 50-50 split and have them both going. Any advice would be appreciated.
-I removed the Hayward auto chlorinator, for now. It leaked terrible all last summer, so I replaced the ring and that helped. Because of where this thing is mounted, the tubes have to be bent to the point where they kink and leak, and last week a valve blew. It's just been a pain. And now I've learned that the tablets I put in there push my PH down, and I'm trying to bring my PH up right now. I feel like things would just be simpler if I manually added bleach every day or two.
Here are my test results from this morning:
-FC: 3.6 (I've been using cal-hypo this week...I just learned about using Bleach so plan to switch to that).
-PH: The test has been showing yellow all week, which I think means it's as low or lower than the Taylor 2006 can tell me. I dumped in 4 pounds of 20 Mule Team Borax last night and I thought the cal-hypo would've helped raise it, too. Maybe all the Trichlor pucks that were in before are causing it to stay low? I also ordered new reagents in case my have gone bad. I'm also planning on adding more borax.
-Alk: 80. I added some baking soda earlier this week.
-CYA 40
-Calcium Hardness...does this matter in a vinyl pool? I tested it last week, I think it was like 200
Leslies also tested for metals and phospates, which my kit doesn't test for. Should I get tests for these as well?
Cheers!
Mighty_P
My wife and I bought a home with an in-ground vinyl pool last summer. I've never owned a pool before and my wife thought we should just hire a company to take care of it for us. But, this is our "forever" home and I wanted to become an expert at managing our pool myself, so we'd know and understand what's going on with it. It's an old pool but seems to be in decent shape. It's got pentair whisper flow, sta-rite system 3, hayward auto-chlorinator, and a kreepy krauly. I believe it's about 20k gallons, but not totally sure. The local Leslie's pool store had the old owner in their system and they told me it's 20k, and I measured it and as best I can figure that's about right (the walls of the pool are very sloped, so it's an odd shape).
I had a green algae problem last summer, but I fixed it with the help of the people at Leslie's...but it was expensive. I somehow maintained the pool pretty well after that, although I spent a ton of money. I got my own Taylor 2006 test kit, but my results are always different than what Leslie's told me.
I sort of neglected the pool over winter time, and again battled algae this last week. I've been online a lot refreshing my knowledge and learning new things, and it's clear to me that the "Trouble Free Pool" community is the best resource out there, so here I am joining you
. I've decided not to have Leslie's test my water anymore, and just trust my own results from now on. Anyways, I've got the latest algae problem under control and plan to stay on top of things now, as it's so much easier to give my pool the time and attention it needs vs. battling major issues. Here's what I've done so far as I prepare my pool for summer:
-Got new filters. The old ones were filthy and cracked. I cleaned them several times and squeezed as much life out of them as I could while battling the algae this last week, but now that the pool is clear I dropped the new ones in. The pressure was 30 on the old filters, and now down to 10 with the new ones. The pump is humming along, and I can literally see a current in the water now...much better circulation. I hope running the pump at 30 PSI this last year didn't cause too much wear & tear damage?
-Ordered new fins & bumpers for the Kreepy Krauly. The old ones were disintegrating and bits were in the filter. The Krauly itself looks really old, but it still picks up a lot of debris so I'm not sure I need to spend the money on a whole new vacuum this year. My question is should I leave the Krauly plugged in all the time or just put it in periodically? It seems to work better when I turn the valve so the krauly is 100% on and the skimmer is off. I can also do a 50-50 split and have them both going. Any advice would be appreciated.
-I removed the Hayward auto chlorinator, for now. It leaked terrible all last summer, so I replaced the ring and that helped. Because of where this thing is mounted, the tubes have to be bent to the point where they kink and leak, and last week a valve blew. It's just been a pain. And now I've learned that the tablets I put in there push my PH down, and I'm trying to bring my PH up right now. I feel like things would just be simpler if I manually added bleach every day or two.
Here are my test results from this morning:
-FC: 3.6 (I've been using cal-hypo this week...I just learned about using Bleach so plan to switch to that).
-PH: The test has been showing yellow all week, which I think means it's as low or lower than the Taylor 2006 can tell me. I dumped in 4 pounds of 20 Mule Team Borax last night and I thought the cal-hypo would've helped raise it, too. Maybe all the Trichlor pucks that were in before are causing it to stay low? I also ordered new reagents in case my have gone bad. I'm also planning on adding more borax.
-Alk: 80. I added some baking soda earlier this week.
-CYA 40
-Calcium Hardness...does this matter in a vinyl pool? I tested it last week, I think it was like 200
Leslies also tested for metals and phospates, which my kit doesn't test for. Should I get tests for these as well?
Cheers!
Mighty_P
Welcome to TFP!!!
