We have just installed a PDC swim spa (with hot tub). We waited a year for it to be manufactured, and now it’s finally here and running. The swim side is 2100 gallons and the spa side is 420 gallons. The two sides are separate bodies of water with their own pumps, controls, heaters, etc.
I’m not new to pool ownership. Back in 1998 we bought a house with a 36,000 gallon above-ground pool originally installed in the 1970’s. Almost everything we did with that pool can be described by the word “jerry-rigged.” But we learned a lot. We sold that house in 2006 and I don’t miss that pool.
So with the spa, there’s an entire layer of controls, filter settings, timers, etc that we didn’t have before. I’ve read the owner’s manual and I’m not impressed. The manual reads like a list of trivia about the equipment without explaining concepts or how the pieces fit together in an actual maintenance plan.
I went to a pool store to get an initial set of chemicals. I’m sure they are overpriced but I just wanted to get started. Back in the early 2000’s I had a water test kit with little tubes and dropper bottles. Now, there are test strips. I find the test strips very hard to read, especially ph. The colors of the strip just don’t seem to match the reference printed on the bottle. The colors change as the water sits on the strip and I’m not sure which color counts, and with the strip very shiny and less saturated than the printed reference colors, I find myself guessing what matches.
I’m looking to actually make sense of the manual, figure out how the filter cycles should be scheduled, and a schedule/routine for chemicals.
I’m not new to pool ownership. Back in 1998 we bought a house with a 36,000 gallon above-ground pool originally installed in the 1970’s. Almost everything we did with that pool can be described by the word “jerry-rigged.” But we learned a lot. We sold that house in 2006 and I don’t miss that pool.
So with the spa, there’s an entire layer of controls, filter settings, timers, etc that we didn’t have before. I’ve read the owner’s manual and I’m not impressed. The manual reads like a list of trivia about the equipment without explaining concepts or how the pieces fit together in an actual maintenance plan.
I went to a pool store to get an initial set of chemicals. I’m sure they are overpriced but I just wanted to get started. Back in the early 2000’s I had a water test kit with little tubes and dropper bottles. Now, there are test strips. I find the test strips very hard to read, especially ph. The colors of the strip just don’t seem to match the reference printed on the bottle. The colors change as the water sits on the strip and I’m not sure which color counts, and with the strip very shiny and less saturated than the printed reference colors, I find myself guessing what matches.
I’m looking to actually make sense of the manual, figure out how the filter cycles should be scheduled, and a schedule/routine for chemicals.
