New homeowner with a pool

[japeru01]

We just moved into a house with a 26,000 gal gunnite pool and need advice on where to begin. The previous owners left a few chemicals behind and a Polaris 380 cleaner but trying to avoid using the tablets and chlorine stabilizers.

I bought a Maytronics PS Plus so it can clean with minimal effort from myself and turned off the forever running booster pump and installed a new timer and have the filter running every night from about 11pm till around 5am since we aren’t swimming anytime soon here in South Carolina.

I took the water to the people that were maintaining the pool and it tested with a CYA over 150 so I know I’m going to have to do a drain and refill to get this under control as the FC was something around 26.

Questions I have is should I bother doing this now or just keep the pool clean as I can with the robot, skimming, filter etc and then deal with the chemistry later (say February) or will the chemical imbalance prove to cause problems.

I plan to order a K2006 test kit but not sure if I should get the C version or not.
Any tips would be appreciated

 

[gonfishin]

Welcome, jaeru01.

You should get the 'C' version as it has more reagents and while you may not need them over the winter, you will during the summer. The TF100 test kit from tftestkits.net with XL option and a speed stir is a good buy.

For a chlorine pool, with CYA over 70, you have to keep your FC over 10 to avoid algae. Test results for pH when FC is over 10 are inaccurate. It would be really good if you can either drain and refill your pool or use the water exchange method to get your CYA in the 30-50 range.

See Draining - Further Reading for the water exchange method.

 

[Texas Splash]

Welcome to TFP! Let us know if you have anymore questions.
Test Kits Compared

 

[japeru01]

I can easily drain I planned on doing so to get the CYA levels down, just wasn’t sure if I should start the process now or if it’s okay to wait the winters over to begin the process.
I went ahead and order the test kit and will do an initial test to at least see what the levels are at since I’m not sure how accurate the store testing is. In the meantime should I be adding LC to the pool to keep it clear or just use the tablets the previous owner left since I plan on draining anyways?

 

[gonfishin]

If it were my pool, I would start the process to reduce CYA sooner rather than later.

While waiting for your test kit, you should aim to add 5 ppm chlorine to your pool each day to avoid an algea outbreak. Use the pool math link at the bottom of the web page or the poolmath app to determine what that should be based on the strength of the chlorine you'll be adding. 6% would be more than a gallon, 12% would be just under a gallon.

 

[FlaPoolGuy]

Hi, I'm also in year 1 of pool ownership, and I've been through a bunch already in terms of dealing with pool maintenance and improvement. See a few of my threads for details. I'm chiming in here, and the more expert people can give more complete / better advice, but I would not wait. My reasoning is it *may* be as simple as a quick drain and refill over the course of 24 hours then test and adjust your chemistry, or you may find additional problem (s) along the way.

What kinds of problems? Who knows? Cracked line? Issue with pump or valve or whatever? I'm making it up, but I'd rather find any problem now when you have several months to fix it vs making any discovery in March.

And of course having a higher cya level means testing problems as mentioned above plus you may have to spend more $ on chlorine to maintain such high levels.

 

[japeru01]

Bump to my old post. I have finally bought my k2006 test kit, drained about 80% of the pool and re tested my water.

I have the following readings after my refill:

CYA :40
FC: 0
TC: 0
Cal Hardness: 80
pH: 7.7
TA: 40

I see I need to raise my cal hardness and TA up quite a bit and doing some preliminary research I saw that you can you ice melter to do so. I was thinking of purchasing this on my trip to Home Depot when I go to get my chlorine. According to the pool math app I need to add about 2 gallons to my pool, 15lbs of baking soda and 44 lbs of cal chloride.

Does this look right? I dont want to have to start over again. But the pool store prices are insane for cal chloride would cost me roughly $90 just for that.

25 lb. Professional Strength Calcium Chloride:

Snow Joe 25 lb. Professional Strength Calcium Chloride Pellets Ice Melter MELT25CCP - The Home Depot

Professional strength MELT is a unique formulation of calcium chloride pellets that accelerates the melting process by generating a large amount of heat on contact with snow and ice. MELT is designed to quickly, safely and effectively tackle frozen snow, sleet and ice on most driveways, steps...

www.homedepot.com

 

[mknauss]

I would re-check the TA and pH tomorrow or before adding a bunch of baking soda. Hard to have a pH of 7.7 and TA of 40. If confirmed, add baking soda to raise TA to 70 ppm.

When you add the calcium (be sure the ice melt is near 100% calcium chloride) that may drop your pH a bit. So be aware of that.