Every spring now, I begin to clean up my 24 ft AGP. Every year I pull all my equipment out of my garage and test my water and purchase a couple dozen gallons of liquid chlorine from Wally World. This weekend I began my journey towards crystal clear water once again. As my wife watched me pulling off the winter cover, scrubbing the pool floor, test for 2-3 factors with my Taylor test kit and pulling out leaves, she suggested "Why don't we just call a pool company in Raleigh and have them come out to open our pool?" Well, that really got me thinking about this forum.
You see being a first time pool owner three years ago, I was thinking that I would need to hire a pool company to come out every week and sell me their magical "snake oil" pool additives to make my water clean and healthy to swim. But out of morbid curiosity (and because I'm fairly cheap), I "Googled" pool water maintenance forums and came across TFP. So I read a few articles in their pool school, browsed several threads with new folks like me asking questions about using such-and-such POOL SLAM chemicals to get their in-ground and above ground pools cleaned up in the next 24 hours for a party they are about to have for 30+ people. LOL After reading through most of pool school, I really began to understand the basic principles of water chems. I was lucky enough to find this site on my first day of pool ownership. And when I say first day, I mean the very first day. As in, the pool was still in the box and I was waiting for my local AGP installation folks to come dig the dirt level and set up my new pool for me.
Now I am (by no means) as expert as most of these long time members when it comes to trouble shooting issues. But my point to this story is that I owe many thanks to the fine folks who contribute and run this site. It has saved me tons of money, stress and days of NOT using the pool. These pictures are from my first day cleaning up my pool. They are literally 24 hours apart from each other. I don't consider my pool clean enough to swim in until I can tell the difference between a quarter and a nickel at the floor of my 4 foot deep pool. That's how great this system is. Good ol' liquid chlorine, baking soda and Cyanuric Acid (or CYA) is about all I ever used in my pool. And it looks great all summer long. So you know what I told my wife? "No, that's ok. I didn't research how to take care of my own water just so somebody else can come over with a couple of test strips and guess at what my pool needs every week and charge me $100."
Ok, I'm gonna climb off my soap box now. Thanks for reading my rant.
You see being a first time pool owner three years ago, I was thinking that I would need to hire a pool company to come out every week and sell me their magical "snake oil" pool additives to make my water clean and healthy to swim. But out of morbid curiosity (and because I'm fairly cheap), I "Googled" pool water maintenance forums and came across TFP. So I read a few articles in their pool school, browsed several threads with new folks like me asking questions about using such-and-such POOL SLAM chemicals to get their in-ground and above ground pools cleaned up in the next 24 hours for a party they are about to have for 30+ people. LOL After reading through most of pool school, I really began to understand the basic principles of water chems. I was lucky enough to find this site on my first day of pool ownership. And when I say first day, I mean the very first day. As in, the pool was still in the box and I was waiting for my local AGP installation folks to come dig the dirt level and set up my new pool for me.
Now I am (by no means) as expert as most of these long time members when it comes to trouble shooting issues. But my point to this story is that I owe many thanks to the fine folks who contribute and run this site. It has saved me tons of money, stress and days of NOT using the pool. These pictures are from my first day cleaning up my pool. They are literally 24 hours apart from each other. I don't consider my pool clean enough to swim in until I can tell the difference between a quarter and a nickel at the floor of my 4 foot deep pool. That's how great this system is. Good ol' liquid chlorine, baking soda and Cyanuric Acid (or CYA) is about all I ever used in my pool. And it looks great all summer long. So you know what I told my wife? "No, that's ok. I didn't research how to take care of my own water just so somebody else can come over with a couple of test strips and guess at what my pool needs every week and charge me $100."
Ok, I'm gonna climb off my soap box now. Thanks for reading my rant.
