My pH has been constant since June. Is this normal? This seems too easy...

Jump to latest Follow Reply
4

4rings6stars

0
Oct 4, 2016
39
Littleton, MA
​I'm not complaining, but just want to make sure I'm not testing incorrectly or something.

When we bought our first house and it had a pool, I was worried the pool was going to be expensive and time consuming to maintain. It's been neither.

This is was my first year with the pool, and I've followed the TFPC method. I started out with a slightly elevated CYA, but did a few partial drains and it gradually has come down to about 55/60. It was also a bit low on CH, so I added some deicer.

Besides the calcium, the only thing I have done to the pool is add bleach every day or two and the pool has been crystal clear all summer. I tested daily for the first few weeks, but quickly figured out approximately how much chlorine it used each day and now I just eyeball the chlorine additions and test once or twice a week.

One thing that has really surprised me, is that my pH has been a constant ~7.6 all summer. When I bought the house the pool room was filled with dozens of jugs of pH UP, pH DOWN, algaecide, stabilizer, winterizer, shock powder, chlorine tabs, and a few other things.... I've not had a use for any of them.

I just installed a heat pump a few weeks ago so I'm wondering if that will cause anything to change. But so far, this pool has been easy and cheap. I think I have spent $72 on chlorine all summer.

Thanks TFPC and all of you!
 
I would say the majority of pools tend to have a slight increase in pH over time, but not all. I have a friend that also doesn't experience any pH change over the course of a season.

It is important to get new testing chemicals every year, the pH one does go bad but if you have fresh refills every year I don't think you have anything to worry about.
 
Awesome.

I'm curious what your T/A is. You seem to be at the sweet spot for your pool.
That has some to do with PH fluctuations.

My last pool that was plaster also had stable ph.

My current inground vinyl also has stable ph, but it does rise a bit
when I need to raise cya in the spring.
I lose most of it each year to draining down after multiple heavy rains each year
but that is normal (cya raises ph a bit).
 
My TA is 70. My pH never moves all summer once I have it adjust it coming out of winter. The only thing that changes the pH for me is temperature. I do not have a SWG or any water features, so that helps to prevent pH rise.
 
My pH has been solid at 7.4 for the past three seasons (life of this TFP pool). I have only added acid twice in three years, once to SLAM, & once before I realized that high FC skews the pH reading. My pool's TA is 80ppm. My fill water is pH 7.2 and TA is around 40ppm.
 
My pH has measured between 7.5 and 7.6 since my first treatment of acid when I first opened this season. It wasn't until two days that I measured 7.8 and finally put in some acid. Besides that, I haven't put a single thing into my pool except for regular bleach, and switched to 12.5% chlorine a few months ago when I installed the stenner pump. I love Trouble Free Pool!
 
My experience has been the opposite now that I'm using the TFP method. PB left me with several jugs of MA when we built a little over three years ago. I had never even once had to add acid to the pool or adjust pH in any way, always 7.2-7.4. Now that I've gone to bleach/liquid chlorine, I've added a little over a gallon in the last month or so to keep the pH down because it keeps rising for some reason. And I need to keep it on the low end of the spectrum since my CH has skyrocketed to around 600.
 
TXHeat said:
My experience has been the opposite now that I'm using the TFP method. PB left me with several jugs of MA when we built a little over three years ago. I had never even once had to add acid to the pool or adjust pH in any way, always 7.2-7.4. Now that I've gone to bleach/liquid chlorine, I've added a little over a gallon in the last month or so to keep the pH down because it keeps rising for some reason. And I need to keep it on the low end of the spectrum since my CH has skyrocketed to around 600.
Click to expand...

Are you bumping up your alkalinity after it drops from all the acid additions? I would figure that once the alkalinity level gets low enough that the pH would eventually stabilize. This would not work if you were to keep increasing your alkalinity to get it back to the recommended "target" level.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Bandit5 said:
Are you bumping up your alkalinity after it drops from all the acid additions? I would figure that once the alkalinity level gets low enough that the pH would eventually stabilize. This would not work if you were to keep increasing your alkalinity to get it back to the recommended "target" level.
Click to expand...

TA is at 80 as of yesterday, but that's down from 100-110 a few weeks ago. So hopefully that will now keep the pH a little more stable. Thanks for the input!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply