- May 8, 2018
- 337
- Pool Size
- 14000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Hayward Aqua Rite (T-15)
Greetings from Houston, TX! Moved here a year ago and after several months in a Midtown apartment (fun, but not a permanent life) I've relocated to the northern suburbs in a house with my first pool. That said, I'm somewhat familiar with pool maintenance through family members' pools, and I'm a chemist that has worked for a decade in water treatment so I'm not a stranger to water chemistry.
The pool was largely neglected when I moved in. Water was quite clear, but there was no chlorine at all (not sure for how long), algae was starting to grow on the shady side, and the pump pressures were a bit high. Over the next couple of weeks, I shocked a couple of times, added some tablets to the dispenser (which I gather from reading here may not be the best solution), and a few other things at the recommendation of the pool store (again, some of which may not have been entirely necessary, but live and learn). I also dismantled the DE filter, cleaned it, and re-assembled (trial by fire if there ever was one). The worst thing that happened was that the seal on the filter apparently wasn't tightened down enough and the o-ring dislodged right as I was adding DE to the skimmer, so I had to stop the pump and ended up with some DE in the pool. This has mostly been vacuumed back to the filter where it belongs, but the Polaris has also picked up a little of it.
Upcoming projects will be repainting the deck around the pool and filling in the missing expansion joints, re-working the landscaping, and (perhaps most daunting) figuring out how to remove and replace the old and brittle deco-drain that was between the pool deck and house slab without breaking up the deck.
The pool was largely neglected when I moved in. Water was quite clear, but there was no chlorine at all (not sure for how long), algae was starting to grow on the shady side, and the pump pressures were a bit high. Over the next couple of weeks, I shocked a couple of times, added some tablets to the dispenser (which I gather from reading here may not be the best solution), and a few other things at the recommendation of the pool store (again, some of which may not have been entirely necessary, but live and learn). I also dismantled the DE filter, cleaned it, and re-assembled (trial by fire if there ever was one). The worst thing that happened was that the seal on the filter apparently wasn't tightened down enough and the o-ring dislodged right as I was adding DE to the skimmer, so I had to stop the pump and ended up with some DE in the pool. This has mostly been vacuumed back to the filter where it belongs, but the Polaris has also picked up a little of it.
Upcoming projects will be repainting the deck around the pool and filling in the missing expansion joints, re-working the landscaping, and (perhaps most daunting) figuring out how to remove and replace the old and brittle deco-drain that was between the pool deck and house slab without breaking up the deck.
All of the chemical tests we use are just simple titrations.
