New Member, Old Pool, Valley Forge PA

[jturie]

Found TFP via Google, and after 30 minutes of perusing the advice, I had to sign up. You folks seriously know your stuff.

I have owned my pool since I moved to this house 15 years ago. It's plaster, 50 years old and, at 36,000 gallons ("lazy Z" shape, 10 feet deep) is one of the largest private pools in the area. I had a complete overhaul done 10 years ago (new plaster, tile and coping), so everything is in great shape. All hardware (pump, DE filter) has been replaced within the last 3 years. I have relied on several pool stores over the years and have never been super-serious about my water chemistry--relying on test strips and pool store tests. While the manager at my Leslie's store is fantastic, her workers are less so. A few weeks ago I took 3 water samples to 3 different stores....the results varied so ridiculously I decided to get serious and went out and purchased the Taylor K-2006 kit. The other thing that got me off my old rear end was a nasty case of algae that cost quite a bit of money to fix. Somehow, 3 days after getting perfect numbers back from the pool store (nope, NOT the manager), I woke up to a green algae-covered pool--the day before a 40-person birthday party.

Once my kit arrives, I'll post numbers. Time to grow up and take control.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Welcome to TFP, Jturie We're glad you found us!

Such a shame about the green pool birthday party

What is the state of the pool now? How do you sanitize your pool, and what chemicals have you added?

When you get your test kit run a full set and tell us:
FC
CC
pH
TA
CH
CYA

That will give us our starting point to guide you in the fix. While you wait for delivery, go make friends with PoolMath. Its a great app that will help you know how much of any chemical or drain/refill you need to do to get a desired result. You enter your current levels in the far left column, then your goal levels in the right hand side column. You fill out the top AND bottom information and it computes the needs.

Until the test kit arrives add two gallons <due to size of your pool> of plain, unscented, 8.25% bleach to the pool daily and brush. That won't fix it, but it will help slow down the reproduction of algae until we know what you're dealing with.

Maddie

 

[pooldv]

Welcome to TFP!

Nice story.

 

[Oly]

Need a picture of that lazy Z pool, sounds wonderful.

 

[jturie]

Thanks for the welcomes...will post my numbers and collect the info for my sig ASAP. And, BTW, dummy here meant to type "Lazy L" not "Lazy Z".

It took a few days, but I killed that Algae dead and have vacuumed out its filthy white corpse and did a backwash (which I have been doing wrong--as I discovered after reading info here). Pool is now back to crystal clear, and I'm keeping a real close eye on my FC. My gray plaster really kicks the temps up, so algae love my pool. My next door neighbor has white plaster in his 50 year old pool, and his water temp is typically 6-8 degrees less than mine.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Ah, but being in PA I imagine a warmer pool is appreciated, right?

Are you using bleach to chlorinate now?

Maddie

 

[jturie]

Warmer is good...in June. Not so good now!!!

Say hello to my little friend (don't mind the lack of grout....contractor is coming early next week to install it if we can get two days without rain):

 

[bmoreswim]

Great looking pool!! I'm glad you are interested in maintaining it yourself. It is easy and satisfying.

You mention grout for the gap between he coping and deck. Is he putting grout or a caulk that will be able to handle the different rates at which the pool shell and deck expand and contract? Grout in that location is not a best practice. The one side seems to have a larger gap than the others. The smaller gap looks ideal for caulk. The larger one is too big for caulk but I'm not sure the exact approach that would be used for installation to give it the flexibility desired.

 

[jturie]

Sorry, really bad terminology on my part. He is caulking, not grouting. These are the folks that did the rehab work on the pool, and are fantastic. Naturally I waited too long for them to re-caulk. I know I should have done it myself, but was just too lazy. My neighbor is going to repaint and re-caulk his pool next year, so I'll help him and learn how to do it the right way.

You are right...that front part has a pretty wide space. Previous owner had to replace piping and rip up that section of the deck. He did a really lousy job on the concrete. It is 18 years old and looks worse than the original 50-year old deck.