New to pool - need some help

[bjp14]

Bought an old house that we love and side effect is that the house has a 25k vinyl lined in-ground pool. We weren't looking for a pool, but my wife will use it, it will attract family to visit, so not a bad thing necessarily.

I found out about the forum via some posts on the Bogleheads forum about pools before we committed to buy the place. I've read up on TFP forum and howto articles, bought a TF100 kit which we got a few days ago. Ran some tests, which seemed to work correctly. and now have some what next questions.

Looking for some help on what to fix first.

Prior owner gave use the rundown on their pool maintenance regimen. Opened and closed by the pool company. Other than that they maintained by manual skimming and running the Polaris Robot. Chemistry wise guidance was, "Run the pump an hour or two a day. More if you are using it a lot. 1 cup of dichlor a day in the baskets at the start of the pump cycle running. That's always worked for us. DE filter doesn't typically need to be flushed if pool is kept skimmed by you and robot"

We've only been in the house about two weeks. second day we were here, there was a huge rain storm and pool level went up 2 inches, maybe 3 inches. overall pool still seems very clean and water is clear

based on tests kit:

FC around 1 n the mornings
CC is zero
CYA 80 if doing the test right. might be a bit lower since I wasn't doing the test in full sun (not surprising it is high since they were using Dichlor)
TA off the charts low. test turns pink/red immediately
PH also off the charts low. 3 using the digital meter. lighter yellow than the window on the two tube color chlorine/ph tester

punching that into old school pool math web site, for TA saying to add 33 Lbs of baking soda. Which seems like a LOT.
and for PH, if I assume more conservative estimate of 4ph, vs 3ph, also saying add around 33lb of baking soda.

Having half a bucket of dichlor and some trichlor tablets, and with the amount of liquid chlorine seemingly needed to keep FC up, not sure switching to liquid before closing for the year makes economic sense.


so need some thoughts on what to tackle first ? Off to Sam's/BJ Club/Costco to get some 13lb bags of baking soda and raise the TA? Then aerate to fix PH more? and just live with the high CYA for a while?

We're in Southeastern PA near Philadelphia

 

[cdadams1223]

Welcome to TFP!!! I'm sure the pros will chime in soon but for starters, the 1st thing I'd do is get that FC up to 9ppm with liquid chlorine (LC). Based on your CYA level of 80, your FC range is 9-11 with an ABSOLUTE minimum of 6. You don't want to create an environment for nasty things to grow in there. If your TA was as low as you stated, yes, I'd be adding enough to at least get it up between 60-80ppm. For a 25K gallon pool, according to PoolMath you'd need 21 lbs of baking soda to hit a TA of 60ppm. I suppose you could go higher, up to the end range of 80ppm to help get your pH up but I'd wait and see what the pros suggest.

Huge congrats on the pool though and also picking up one of the best testing kits out there!

 

[HermanTX]

TA off the charts low. test turns pink/red immediately
PH also off the charts low. 3 using the digital meter. lighter yellow than the window on the two tube color chlorine/ph tester

If TA is below 50, then bring the TA up to 50-60 using baking soda and THEN raise your pH to around 7.4 using 20 Mule Team Borax.

Let is settle for a day then test again to see where TA and pH land.
FYI
Chemicals suggested for raising TA. Their effects are:
Baking Soda = big TA change, small pH change
Borax = big pH change, small TA change

You can add liquid chlorine to raise FC to the range for CYA of 80. STOP using dichlor or trichlor pucks as they contain some acid and putting downward pressure on TA and pH which you need to raise.