Hello from Sacramento!

[raleighmoyher]

Hi all, I’m a new home owner with a hot tub in Sacramento, CA. I grew up with my father maintaining our pool and hot tub. I’m a bit overwhelmed but attempting to get up to speed with initially steps to take, chemicals to buy etc.

I’ll be looking around the forum for first steps. I’m the most concerned about the fact that the spa has been sitting for who knows how long. Previous home owner was a nice older lady who had her husband pass away a few years ago. Spa looks clear so hopefully no Algae growth, but I’ll be attacking this thing comprehensively.

I’m a mechanical engineer by trade, working for my county.

 

[raleighmoyher]

 

[raleighmoyher]

Hi everyone, I found these chemicals from the previous home owner. Any concerns about using them for their listed approach? I know the forum verbally prefers to keep it simple and buy more raw ingredients. With that said, the chlorine granules are the most suspect for me. I can’t see on here the percent of chlorine but my wife sent me this from our house so I’ll have to investigate more.

 

[Texas Splash]

Any concerns about using them for their listed approach?

Yes, do not use the "Blue" stuff, and the pH Down is dry acid which in a pinch is okay once in a while, but better to use muriatic acid. Below is the link you want to look over. Very helpful. Also bookmark our Pool Care Basics page.

How do I use Chlorine in my Spa or Hot Tub?

If you have a question about any information within this Sticky, please start a new thread for yourself where you will receive very quick responses to your specific questions. Thank you! Introduction There are two main things to consider when maintaining your hot tub water, Water Balance and...

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[Texas Splash]

I would also avoid the oxidizer at this time.

 

[raleighmoyher]

Wow thank you so much! I just read that entire thread you posted from Nitro/Chem Geek. Really good stuff and totally distilled down quite a bit for me.

The summary of what I will pick up for chemical is then:
PH balancing: Calcium, Baking Soda, Muriatic Acid
Sanitation: Dichlor, Bleach and MPS (can wait on the MPS I think)

I will definitely do a drain at this point and start from scratch with my municipal city water. Some questions:

1. Where do you normally go for the large quantities of baking soda to raise TA?
2. Where do you normally go for the calcium chloride/calcium increaser?
3. Is there any reason initially to get something to raise pH? Seems like you are more often than not seeing pH drift up and lowering Muriatic acid. That paired with the fact that you raise pH with aeration.
4. Are there any articles that list minimum time between all these activities? I’m assuming you need to wait a bit before adding each different chemical. NEVER MIND FOUND IT, ITS 10 MINUTES FROM THE BASICS PAGE
5. Is the MPS what you’re referring to as the oxidizer? That’s called pool shock right? I would agree it seems like I wouldn’t need that at first.
6. For when I eventually get there, what product do you usually get for the MPS/oxidizer? Like there a generic listing I can reference from Home Depot just to get me started? I’m a bit concerned of finding once that’s MPS but having a bunch of other stuff in there I don’t actually need