How soon after filling pool can you use it?

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Vital Signs

Well-known member
Jul 27, 2020
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Portland OR
Hey I'm a new pool owner...bought a house with a 30yr old concrete/plaster 38k gallon pool with sand filter, gas heater and automatic cover. We moved in about a week ago. Pool needed some waterline tile replaced and I opted to have a new pump (upgraded from single speed to VS Intelliflo) installed as well in order to save some money on electrical bills. Decided to have the work done as soon as we moved in and before using the pool at all. The water was drained for them to do the tile work. Work should be done tomorrow and then I can start filling from a garden hose (we're on city water) which I figure will take like 4 or so days to fill. Problem is I'm having a small birthday party for my kid in 6 days (a handful of family members) and everyone is excited to use the new pool. The guy doing the tile/pump work said that it'd probably take 24-36hrs to get the water heated to a good temp which means I'm maybe just barely gonna have enough time to have a pool full of heated water in time for the party.

I just found this site this week and I'm trying to learn as much as I can about water chemistry. I ordered a TF100 testing kit yesterday. Not sure how long it's going to take to get delivered but there's a decent chance it won't be before the party.

I guess my question is that in the event the kit doesn't get here in time to test my source water and hence determine which/how much chemicals to add to hit recommended CYA/FC/PH levels what should I do?

Is it safe to have people in it a day or so after it fills without putting anything in it or am I just asking for trouble with that thinking? Or is there a generic amount of bleach (and CYA?) I can add just to make sure it's safe for that party day and then once I have the kit I can start balancing things the proper way?

The pool has an auto chlorinator but I wasn't planning on using it after reading up here about the issues with trichlor....but maybe just in this instance I should use it just to get water ready for the party? How quickly would it get water to safe levels?
 
Welcome to the forum!
Since you are filling the pool with tap water, that you bathe in, there should be no big issues. You can dissolve 30 ppm CYA (even do that during the fill) and add 3 ppm FC worth of liquid chlorine each day. Maybe 5 ppm the day of the party.
If you want, you can get a cheap TC/pH drop test at Home Depot or Walmart. That will tell you the pH (though I suspect it will be fine in the short term) and at least tell you that you have chlorine in the water for the party.
I suspect you might get your test kit pretty quickly. TFTestkits ships quickly.
I suggest you read ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry.
 
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No public groups in untreated water, please. If it were just you and your kids you'd know if someone were ill or had a funky wound infection to share, right? But when you bring others into the stew you need to be prepared to prevent person to person transmission of cooties. So make sure to get some chlorine in there pronto.

Next idea- sure it will cost a bit but you could either have bulk water delivered or offer up $20 bucks to a couple of closer neighbors for the use of their hoses and water too. The faster you get things up and running the happier and less stressed you'll be closer to party time.

Using PoolMath (at the bottom of this page) I see that for a 38k gallon pool - 40 ounces of 12% liquid chlorine will give you 1ppm of FC. Just keep that in the back of your mind for when you want to add x ppm of chlorine to the water.

So for the party you're going to want to have 30ppm of CYA Stabilizer in there (3 jugs of liquid stabilizer or 152 ounces of the granular stuff) and at least 5ppm of Free Chlorine (FC). (read Pool School on how to put chemicals in pool) One thing to note with using Liquid CYA is the stuff is really viscous and you need to shake it WELL and rinse the bottle out and pour into pool too. But for me the advantage is its in there working immediately and I don't have to wait for the granules to dissolve.

Being that you're on a time crunch I mention these expensive alternatives (Liquid CYA, trucked in water) because they're the fastest. Normally we here at TFP are all about saving money but in a pinch...... <shrug>.

We'd love to see pics of the pool :) Good job getting the primo test kit on order.

Maddie :flower:
 
Thanks for the responses. So it sounds like I probably won't have to worry about pH or TA for the party and can tackle that afterwards which is good.

I looked up the price for water delivery and I can't bring myself to pay that much...really wish my pool wasn't so deep (9.75') since we'll be removing the diving board and then I'd have less water to take care of. A 6.5' deep pool seems plenty.

I am going to use liquid CYA though to hopefully speed things up on that end.

The only liquid CYA I could find on Amazon with two day shipping was Natural Chemistry brand Instant Conditioner. Product number 7401. About $25/gal
Natural-Chemistry-Instant-Conditioner.jpg


Not sure if this is what I want though since the label says that it's 35% monosodium cyanurate monohydrate with a note that it's equivalent to 30% cyanuric acid. The other 65% it lists as "percentage of constituents ineffective as spray adjuvants". I have no idea what this means. Is this the stuff that I want? Or do I need to find a liquid product that's 100% cya? Would I need 3 times the volume of whatever the pool calculator tells me since this stuff since it's only 30% cya?

On the other hand on the label says that 1 gallon will raise cya to 30 PPM in 10k gallons of water which sounds kinda correct given what Maddie suggested? There are a couple pool supply stores in my area that I can check out too today.

Also I'm assuming I have to have my pump running when adding this stuff? Since I'd like to get a head start and put this stuff in as I'm filling as opposed to waiting till pool is completely full, how much water needs to be in the pool to safely run the pump? Above the side return port? Seems like once there's enough water (a foot or so above the drain?) that your plumbing isn't getting air in it should be ok but I'm not sure.

Also once I do start the pump (assuming I do before pool is full) is it smart to start running the heater too at that point or should I wait till pool is full for that?
 
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Oh yeah and here's a picture as it was almost finished draining. Had a sprinkler set up as I was told I didn't want the plaster to dry out in the summer sun. The pump was sucking out water much faster than the sprinklers were putting it in.

Another downside to the rushed timeline due to the party is it would have been nice to have some other stuff done while pool was drained like acid cleaning but I guess that will have to wait for sometime in the future
 

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You need to wait until the pool is full to run the pump. Mid way up the skimmer.

You can add the liquid conditioner once the pump is running. All three gallons. Be sure to really wash out the bottle as there will be a heavy sludge that has settled in the bottom of the bottles.

Add the liquid chlorine/bleach once you have the conditioner in the water. A gallon of 10% or 12.5% is good. Add that every day. Add two the day of the party.
 
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I recently used that same liquid CYA. Do you have any pool stores in your area? I bought 2 gallons from local pool store. It took me about 10 minutes each bottle to empty. I would pour some in the pool until it got thick, then I would fill it back up with pool water and put the cap on and shake. Keep doing that until the bottle is empty. When I just let the thick stuff pour out of the bottle it would settle to the bottom of the pool and I had to brush the bottom a little to break it up.
 

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Rhanna said:
I recently used that same liquid CYA. Do you have any pool stores in your area? I bought 2 gallons from local pool store. It took me about 10 minutes each bottle to empty. I would pour some in the pool until it got thick, then I would fill it back up with pool water and put the cap on and shake. Keep doing that until the bottle is empty. When I just let the thick stuff pour out of the bottle it would settle to the bottom of the pool and I had to brush the bottom a little to break it up.
Click to expand...

That's good to know....I was worried that it was some weaker version of CYA that I should be avoiding. I looked up some other brands though and they all seemed to have similar 30% cya content so I guess that's just normal?

We do have a couple pool stores, I'm gonna check them out this week and just buy the CYA locally. And I saw online that our local Walmart carries 10% chlorine for 3.65/gal which seems like a good deal. Just don't know how concerned I need to be about shelf life with those higher concentration bleaches
 
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