New Pool Questions

[Pchubby]

Hi All - I've been lurking on the site for a couple months and trying to absorb as much knowledge as possible. We are nearing completion of our first IG pool, the liner is scheduled to be installed tomorrow and PB will fill pool with municipal water supply (PH - 6.9). The PB is responsible for the initial set up...is there anything I should be on the lookout for as he adds salt and chemicals? The Intellichlor IC-40 SWG manual lists the ideal salt level at 3600 ppm, does this seem accurate for a 17k vinyl pool in the North East?

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Hi Pchubby welcome out of lurkdom!
Nothing the PB should do at this point that's too harmful really except you don't want him to overdose your CYA....but you could always tell him to leave the chemicals with you and let you add them based on our guidelines.
-Take your CYA up to 70ppm using 159 ounces of granular CYA
-Your pH will probably be at least 7ppm after being hosed into the water- aeration raises pH.
-If you don't have a heater you don't need calcium.....but if you do, check with your heater manual for needed amount.
-For salt to get to 3600 parts you'll need 512 pounds. I'd put in 440 pounds and wait ... see if the device works. If so, no problem. Better to creep up on it than over do it. Other chems will leave trace salt behind in time which will add to your pool water. Leave SWG off 24hrs past adding salt and mixing in.
-Take your FC up to 5 using 109 ounces of 10% Liquid Chlorine. You want that in there and then let the SWG maintain that.

We want pictures!

Maddie

 

[Newdude]

He chubs !! My IC60 ran mint hovering at 3K. Coincidentally that’s about where most folks get a tiny taste of salt. I always shot for 2900 and we could rarely taste anything at all.

This is one of the FEW times that testing and knowing causes more trouble than it’s worth. When you are doing your regular equipment checks, if the lights on the SWG are green and happy, Walk away whistling without asking questions.

 

[Pchubby]

Hi Pchubby welcome out of lurkdom!
Nothing the PB should do at this point that's too harmful really except you don't want him to overdose your CYA....but you could always tell him to leave the chemicals with you and let you add them based on our guidelines.
-Take your CYA up to 70ppm using 159 ounces of granular CYA
-Your pH will probably be at least 7ppm after being hosed into the water- aeration raises pH.
-If you don't have a heater you don't need calcium.....but if you do, check with your heater manual for needed amount.
-For salt to get to 3600 parts you'll need 512 pounds. I'd put in 440 pounds and wait ... see if the device works. If so, no problem. Better to creep up on it than over do it. Other chems will leave trace salt behind in time which will add to your pool water. Leave SWG off 24hrs past adding salt and mixing in.
-Take your FC up to 5 using 109 ounces of 10% Liquid Chlorine. You want that in there and then let the SWG maintain that.

We want pictures!

Maddie

Thanks Maddie - I'll take a couple pictures tomorrow with the liner installed, we've gotten about 1.5 inches of rain today and the yard turned into a pit, its uncovered some drainage issues that need to be addressed!

Due to equipment shortages the PB had to swap out the quoted Pentair with a Jandy JXi 400 BTU heater running on natural gas. Looking over the Jandy operation manual it references the Langelier Saturation Index. If Im reading it correctly and I assume PH= 7.7, TA = 75, Temp ranging between 76-84 degrees, then the CH range should fall between 100-400ppm.

 

[Pchubby]

He chubs !! My IC60 ran mint hovering at 3K. Coincidentally that’s about where most folks get a tiny taste of salt. I always shot for 2900 and we could rarely taste anything at all.

This is one of the FEW times that testing and knowing causes more trouble than it’s worth. When you are doing your regular equipment checks, if the lights on the SWG are green and happy, Walk away whistling without asking questions.

Thanks for the recommendation!

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Do you have a test kit to test your fill water's pH and CH now? It won't be zero on anything but CYA.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Ignore the Langelier Saturation Index...that's old fashioned. We monitor the CSI- Calcium Saturation Index... Pool Math gives that to you after you fill out all the parameters .

The big nasty Texas freeze caused damage to almost a million pools. Pool builders are scrambling for equipment now. It may take a few months for things to get back to normal.

Maddie

 

[Pchubby]

Do you have a test kit to test your fill water's pH and CH now? It won't be zero on anything but CYA.

The PH came in at 6.8, when I ran the CH test using the 25ml tube and adding first 20 drops of R-0010 followed by 5 drops of R-0011L the sample turned blue and stayed that color.

 

[Pchubby]

Thanks Maddie - I'll take a couple pictures tomorrow with the liner installed, we've gotten about 1.5 inches of rain today and the yard turned into a pit, its uncovered some drainage issues that need to be addressed!

Due to equipment shortages the PB had to swap out the quoted Pentair with a Jandy JXi 400 BTU heater running on natural gas. Looking over the Jandy operation manual it references the Langelier Saturation Index. If Im reading it correctly and I assume PH= 7.7, TA = 75, Temp ranging between 76-84 degrees, then the CH range should fall between 100-400ppm.

The pool guys ran through and added salt, turned on the swg and pump and took off. I added some granulated stabilizer 2 days ago and tested this am. Need some help getting this balanced!
CYA-70
FC-12
CC-0
PH-7
TA-50
CH-25
Temp-59.5
Salt-3600
The SWG was set to 80% and I just dropped it down to 20%, is this still to high with where the FC levels are and the size of the SWG for the pool? Would also love to get some guidance on my pump run schedule, currently set at:
3600 rpm from 8am-4pm
2300 rpm from 4pm-12am
1400 rpm from 12am-8am

 

[setsailsoon]

Chub,

Pump run time is determined to a great extent by your specific requirement from use, contamination etc. 8 am to 4 pm at max rpm is a little extreme. I ran about 4 hrs to get the pool skimmed each day then dropped down to minimum for the flow switch in the chlorinator rest of the day. Total run time was about 8 hrs in winter and up to 12 hrs in summer. The rest of the time besides skimming was used to generate sufficient FC. You can use Pool Math to estimate swg run time under "effects of adding". I got 10 hrs total run time at 50% as a good starting point for you. Play around with it and make your adjustments as you get your daily FC readings. Once you get down close to target let it cycle from target to 3 ppm or so above. If you try to micro manage FC on a salt system it will drive you nuts. If you have any problems getting this working just let us know. One thing you will want to know is how much FC is required per day. Most pools usee 2-4 ppm depending on time of year and pool use. 2 ppm is a good starting point for now but if you see FC dropping without leveling off you're using a little more so increase the run time a little. I found Pool Math to be incredibly accurate in predicting my settings for the past 3 years.

There are lots of ways to set up pool run time and they all work. Some prefer to run 24 hrs mostly all at minimum speed. Power usage on a VS pump enables this at very low cost. Only thing you should be careful about is don't run more time than necessary at high speed or your power bill will be excessive. Also, ignore anything you read about regarding number of pool volumes that go through the pump as a basis for run time. That's just wrong.

I hope this is helpful.

Chris

 

[Pchubby]

Chub,

Pump run time is determined to a great extent by your specific requirement from use, contamination etc. 8 am to 4 pm at max rpm is a little extreme. I ran about 4 hrs to get the pool skimmed each day then dropped down to minimum for the flow switch in the chlorinator rest of the day. Total run time was about 8 hrs in winter and up to 12 hrs in summer. The rest of the time besides skimming was used to generate sufficient FC. You can use Pool Math to estimate swg run time under "effects of adding". I got 10 hrs total run time at 50% as a good starting point for you. Play around with it and make your adjustments as you get your daily FC readings. Once you get down close to target let it cycle from target to 3 ppm or so above. If you try to micro manage FC on a salt system it will drive you nuts. If you have any problems getting this working just let us know. One thing you will want to know is how much FC is required per day. Most pools usee 2-4 ppm depending on time of year and pool use. 2 ppm is a good starting point for now but if you see FC dropping without leveling off you're using a little more so increase the run time a little. I found Pool Math to be incredibly accurate in predicting my settings for the past 3 years.

There are lots of ways to set up pool run time and they all work. Some prefer to run 24 hrs mostly all at minimum speed. Power usage on a VS pump enables this at very low cost. Only thing you should be careful about is don't run more time than necessary at high speed or your power bill will be excessive. Also, ignore anything you read about regarding number of pool volumes that go through the pump as a basis for run time. That's just wrong.

I hope this is helpful.

Chris

Thanks Chris - this is very helpful and thank you for pointing out the FC reading on a SWG will fluctuate some. We finally got some sun today and I dropped the run time down to 10 hrs. Thanks again for the quick response this morning!