New guy coming soon to a pool

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Kush

Kush

Gold Supporter
Mar 23, 2020
26
Tewksbury, NJ
Hey members, currently in contract to purchase a house with a pool and doing our home inspection tomorrow. I have planned to bring a jar with me to collect some pool water and will try to take a measurement as well as inspect all the pumps and equipment I can during the inspection.
I’ve been reading quite a bit on this site so I feel I am about 10% educated on pool ownership and water chemistry.
Anything I should particularly look out for?
ps.I just ordered the TF 100 kit from TF test kits based on recommendations on this forum.
Thanks in advance
 
Get a big jar of the pool water and save it for when your kits arrives. Keep the jar lid on tight and try not to jostle it around a lot. When the test kit arrives, don't worry about pH testing or chlorine testing, it's not important. Test total alkalinity (TA), calcium hardness (CH) and Cyanuric acid (CYA) concentration. Those numbers will reveal a lot about previous pool chemistry maintenance.

Grab as much info about the equipment as you can. Model and part numbers help. Take pictures of all the plumbing and valves. Look for anything that might appear to be broken or kludged together.

If a pool heater is present, find out if it gas (natural gas or propane) or an electric heat pump.

If it's a vinyl liner pool, see oof you can get any information on the age of the liner.

Ask the homeowner to provide you with any and all documentation that you may have regarding the pool. You need to know the approximate volume of the pool. Bring a tape measure (50ft at least) and make some rough measurements of the pool with depth.

If the property is on a well, ask about the quality of the well water and if it has been tested.
 
  • Like
Reactions: damon5683
Thanks joyful I have some info already. It is a Gunite pool with supposedly newer less than three years old Pentair equipment a propane gas heater and was under maintenance contract by a pool company. The seller had provided me with last year‘s bills so I could see the chemicals that they were using I will list some but based on my reading here it seems like a lot of it Was money grabs and maybe adjusting their own errors?
They were using acid powder and total alkalinity, Cal hypo and Chlorine sticks, ph up and A little algicide at the open and close of the season. Stain and scale mph buffer at the opening along with I would hope new DE in the filter. From Aerials it does seem that the pool is partially shaded during the hottest months in New Jersey and rough measurements indicate 36 x 18+ or minus and kidney shaped.
 
Kush said:
Thanks joyful I have some info already. It is a Gunite pool with supposedly newer less than three years old Pentair equipment a propane gas heater and was under maintenance contract by a pool company. The seller had provided me with last year‘s bills so I could see the chemicals that they were using I will list some but based on my reading here it seems like a lot of it Was money grabs and maybe adjusting their own errors?
They were using acid powder and total alkalinity, Cal hypo and Chlorine sticks, ph up and A little algicide at the open and close of the season. Stain and scale mph buffer at the opening along with I would hope new DE in the filter. From Aerials it does seem that the pool is partially shaded during the hottest months in New Jersey and rough measurements indicate 36 x 18+ or minus and kidney shaped.
Click to expand...

Definitely grab the bottle of water. My guess is the values won’t be bad because Jersey gets a good deal of rain dilution. I suspect the levels will be a little off from what TFP recommends but not far.

Propane ... ooof ... that stinks. Propane is probably the MOST expensive way to heat a pool. In your area, a properly sized heat pump should be better at keeping the pool warm assuming a bubble cover is used. It certainly wouldn’t cost any more than the propane does. If there are any south facing roof lines, solar thermal heating might be a good upgrade to keep in mind. I’d say make plans to get rid of the propane guzzler in the not too distant future, your wallet will thank you.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kush
Well the inspection went good. Turns out the pool was stripped re-plastered and all new Pentair equipment installed in 2014. Pump is a Pentair Intelliflo vs pump, pentair boost right pump for the robot, and a Pentair FNS +60. I think I’m pretty happy with that. Took a gallon of water out of the pool for testing. The water was clear I could see the bottom drain. My rough measurements were 38 x 18 with an average depth of six so I’m coming up with about 30,000 gallons. That is based on a rectangle but the pool is kidney shaped the inspector thought it was somewhere in the range of 20K to 25k. Sent an email to the pool company see if they can tell me. I’ll post the test results once I receive the kit.
 
A 6ft average depth would require a very deep deep-end, something like 9ft if the shallow end is 3-1/2ft. Are you sure you got the depths correct? It’s unusual to see a gunite kidney shaped pool with those kinds of depths and no diving board.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
I also noticed that there is an Intermatic timer along with the timer on the pump. Which one should I use? Also when I get to back washing the filter and vacuuming to drain etc. I can do that through the settings on the pump or manually with the valve which way do I go? Thanks
 
Once you can list out what equipment you have (brand, model, etc) we can help on the pump and timer issue. Sounds like you might have a VS pump and if so, the timer is not needed (unless you also have a pressure side cleaner or SWCG).
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
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