More post-Harvey test results. I think it replaced 50% of my pool!

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yubbie2

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Apr 1, 2017
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Houston, TX
Hi all. Reporting in from Houston, TX., safe and sound, thank god. Harvey was a *bleeeeeeeep* but we survived. Small hole in the roof which ruined the ceiling in the guest bathroom, but it's hard to complain about something like that when we see what happened around us.

Grand total here was around 44", which meant that during the storm (usually at uncomfortably late hours of the evening) I was outside draining my pool. 5 times. Test results show what I suspected, which is I probably swapped out half of my water between pumping and the rain refilling it. Everything is roughly 50% of what it was pre-storm.

FC: 3
CC: 1
PH: 7.4
TA: 50
CH: 130
CYA: Did not test. It was too dark out by the time I got to it tonight. It was ~45 pre-Harvey
Temp: 78 (brrr! It was 93 pre-Harvey)

I just added a bottle of bleach to bring FC up to 7. The water is clear, and I've been doing a good job skimming debris out of it. But the DE filter didn't run for almost 6 days - it's on now, and I'm going to leave it on for 24-48 hours. I'm hoping I don't have to SLAM, since bleach is in fairly short supply around here. I plan on retesting FC in a little while and then again in the morning.

On hand I have: 4 or 5 gallons bleach, stabilizer, ~20 lbs of hardness (Leslie's brand), and 1 gallon of muriatic acid. Pool math is telling me I need to add 162oz weight/129oz volume of baking soda, and 511oz weight/408oz volume calcium chloride (hardness). I don't know when I'll be able to get ahold of that much baking soda, and I'm confusing myself online reading about soda ash vs baking soda (leslie's sells soda ash - are they interchangeable for my purposes? I think I could get to leslie's tomorrow sometime, but that's a TON of baking soda to procure when there are lines outside supermarkets just to get in)

My plan tonight is to start adding the hardness that I have, and try to get more tomorrow. But the TA is confusing me. Can someone help and tell me if (1) soda ash from leslies is ok to raise my TA, and (2) am I heading towards recovery or SLAM?
 
Your pH is fine so to raise your TA without impacting your pH appreciably you need to use baking soda. But for now, you do not really need to increase TA except to increase your CSI. But adding calcium will solve that too.

Walmart carries large bags of baking soda. But I am sure any shopping is an issue right now.

Use your calcium chloride. Leslies might have some too - it is always more expensive there but if available, it will help.

Check your CSI -- manage that to above -0.6.

Add CYA soon to get to at least 40 ppm to protect your bleach. You might stay away from a SLAM if you get to that quickly.

Take care.
 
I bet you exchanged more than half!

Walmart, Costco, etc sell larger bags of Arm and Hammer baking soda and it even has a pool on the front of the bag. I believe I have a 7# bag. How high were you looking to take your TA? We prefer baking soda to soda ash as soda ash will raise your pH also which you don't want to do if you need to SLAM.

If bleach is in short supply and your CYA is presumably low- hit up Walmart or Lowes for some bags of "shock" which are both chlorine & CYA. You can use Pool Math to determine how much you can get away with.

I'd get the hardness in there for sure, probably first. Again, use PoolMath to tell you how much you need.

Keep your chin up! We're all sending positive ohms to Houston and LA areas.

Maddie :flower:
 
Thanks for the replies, everyone. Very helpful.

I just added the rest of my hardener (~17lbs), and 3.5lbs of stabilizer. That should get me out of the danger zone overnight hopefully, and tomorrow's task will be to procure a suspiciously large amount of baking soda. I'm trying to get TA from 50 to 80, which PoolMath says is 162oz by weight, so about 10lbs.

If I can't get Baking Soda and can only get Soda Ash, can't I just rebalance the pH with the muriatic acid?
 
Manage your CSI - your TA is no doubt fine. As you have added calcium your CSI should be OK if you keep your pH on the high side.
 
Phew. Ok, hopefully I'm reading this right, but I think I'm on the right track and have probably avoided a SLAM.

AM results:
FC 7.5
CC 0.0
CH 255

Gives me a CSI of -0.52. The only thing out of range is the TA, which will be today's adventure. The stabilizer is slowly dissolving from the socks I hung in the skimmer basket and in front of the return jet, so no sense testing that yet. Lots of dusty grime in the pool this morning, but I realized the robot cleaner basket was totally full. We'll see how it looks in the sunlight this afternoon after a full cleaning cycle. I plan on keeping the FC on the higher level for a few days just because of all of the leaves/branches flying around. FC doesn't seem to affect my CSI, so I suppose there's no harm keeping it up as long as we're not swimming (which we're not, it's too cold in the water still)
 
Going to tag on this post, since I am also in the path of Harvey...

I'm in the Woodlands. Received "only" 29 inches here. My overflow pipe kept the pool from ever actually overflowing. Amazingly, the wind did not really kick up until AFTER the rain stopped. Even then, it wasn't bad...maybe 15-20 mph. Pool numbers:

pH - 7.8
CC - 7
FC - 0.5
TA - 30
CH - 200

All in all pretty good. Will pick up some baking soda while I am out. I raised the CC to around 10 right when the storm hit, and added some bleach every couple of days. It never got below 5. pH stayed good. Water is clear, but some dirt in bottom of pool. It came through in good shape, as did I and my house.

Thanks for all of the concern from across the country.


BTW, Walmart usually carries a 2 lb. box of baking soda in the Baking Supplies section.
 

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We also took it on the chin with Harvey. Goodness. In total, we received just over 40" of rain throughout Harvey's visit.

I got nervous when we lost power Sunday. We finally were restored power this afternoon so it was time to get to work.

FC 6
CC 0
Ph 7.2
CH 125 (yikes)
TA 30 (yikes)
Cya 20 (not terrible)

I added the proper amount of baking soda and then add to shell out a few bucks for Leslie's Hardness Plus.

I'll need to add some cya tomorrow.

I'm so glad that this ordeal is over for me, but several of my neighbors received water in their homes. We will continue to assist them where we can.
 
Piggy backing on the Harvey thread. I just returned to my house after a week away. Results before the storm:

FC: 22 (shocked before I left)
CC: 0
Ph: 7.4
TA: 70
CH: 330
CYA: 50

AFTER
FC: 3.5 (added 100 oz to get to 8)
CC: 0
Ph: 7.4
TA: 30
CH: 130
Cya: need to get reagant haven't tested

Looks like I'm in a similar boat as others so I'm on my way to buy baking soda, more bleach, stabilizer and calcium.

Questions: which do I add first? I'm thinking baking soda

How do I added it? Just pour it in or dissolve it outside of the pool first?
 
I would assume your CYA got cut at least in half so add 20 ppm of that in a sock now. Then some baking soda but do not go overboard (70 or so TA). You can just sprinkle it into the pool. Then some CH to get to 250. Monitor your pH as that will rise from the baking soda but fall due to the stabilizer so may cancel each other out. Manage your CSI then to see if you want to raise CH or TA.

Take care.
 
Since bleach seems to be in extremely short supply around here, what are our options for alternatives? I know pucks are frowned upon (rightly so, for lots of reasons), but if I get to a point that I can't obtain bleach, what should I do? My CYA is currently on the lower side - I have socks soaking at the moment with stabilizer - should I pull those out in anticipation of needing to use a few pucks? What's the ballpark composition of one? That is, what will it do for my FC and for how long, and how much will it raise the CYA per puck? If I can use them for a week or two without longterm effects, I can probably stockpile enough bleach here and there to get me through the scarcity.
 
My CYA was low so I floated a few pucks. It's not that they are frowned upon as much as most people don't know how much CYA they are adding and thus the consequences. If you need CYA and FC then trichlor sounds like a solution (be careful as some pucks contain more surprises than others like 6 in 1).
 
BasicTek said:
My CYA was low so I floated a few pucks. It's not that they are frowned upon as much as most people don't know how much CYA they are adding and thus the consequences. If you need CYA and FC then trichlor sounds like a solution (be careful as some pucks contain more surprises than others like 6 in 1).
Click to expand...

Thanks. Just need FC, but I'm conscious of the effects of adding too much CYA, having done a 100% water replacement in the past to fix a 1000+ppm CYA value when I fired the pool guy
 
I feel sorry for all of you folks that were ravaged by Harvey - good luck.

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings but it seems like there are at least toxic waste sites in the Houston area that were flooded. If you live by one of those then algae may be the least of your worries.
 

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