New to the forum and pool ownership

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As a part of the contract/inpection repairs when we bought the home, the pool light was to be repaired, and will be done next Monday. I called the guy who is the pool division manager of this local lawn and pool company and asked about the water table, and danger of draining 2/3 of the water out of the pool. He said in this area, if you were to drain the pool completely, it would take a couple of days of being empty before you would start to see any problems from it. He also said, here in the city there are no regulations as far as draining your pool water into the sewer. He did say refilling the pool would create a pretty hefty water bill for the month, which does not surprise me one bit. Im gonna try to knock out this task over the weekend!

Should I wait until the pool is refilled to go purchase the BBB supplies, and then just buy what is needed, or are there somethings that I should go ahead and buy?

Also, after refilling, how long should I wait to test and treat accordingly?

Thank You
Jeremy
 
Well you are certainly going to need bleach eventually, but until the pool is refilled and the water circulated for at least a few hours and then a complete set of tests are performed, you will not know what else will need adjustment.
 
Good luck Jeremy. I did a full drain and refill on a pool I inherited last July. It took some time for 25K gallons to pass through a garden hose. I'm sure you can google the rates for water in your city, but I think it cost me around $250-300. You will definitely need bleach at some point, and perhaps not much else, so if you are at the store anyway no harm in picking some up.
 
Thanks Paul. Hopefully it wont be much more expensive than that, but you never know. Im mentally prepared either way. Im just ready to get it going, so I can have a system down come swim season. Hopefully, with the information and experience on this site, doing the partial drain, and refill will be the biggest obstacle!

Jeremy
 
jsmith58 said:
Thanks Paul. Hopefully it wont be much more expensive than that, but you never know. Im mentally prepared either way. Im just ready to get it going, so I can have a system down come swim season. Hopefully, with the information and experience on this site, doing the partial drain, and refill will be the biggest obstacle!
Click to expand...

Some cities offer special rates when you fill your pool - others do not. You might call and ask. We used to, now we don't. We assisted a neighbor once or twice allow him to use our hose since our kids swam in his pool - both of our hoses worked over night and made quite a dent. Actually I think he ran two hoses on his side and one from ours. His pool holds 20-21,000 gallons (30' 48" deep round AGP).
 
Refilled yesterday afternoon, and through the night. I'll hopefully post new test results later. My wife has been questioning the things I've been doing, as she had just planned to hire a pool boy. I went over some of the things I've learned and showed her this forum. Needless to say, she was impressed,and now feels better about me doing this!

Thanks again for the help so far.
Jeremy
 

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jsmith58 said:
My initial test results are:

FC- 15 (High)
CC-0
TA-120
CH-270
CYA >100 Im estimating 120-150 (High)
PH-7.5
Click to expand...

My initial CYA was recalculated to be 150.


Ok, here are my test results post drain and refill.

FC- 7
CC-0
TA-120
CH- 270
CYA-75
PH-7.5

:party: I think I at least make good progess being the goal was to lower the CYA. The pool does get a lot of direct sunlight, so maybe the higher CYA is OK? Or maybe it will go down naturally through evaporation and refills this summer.

Based on my results, Im guessing I either only drained about half of the water from the pool, versus the 2/3's I was shooting for, or maybe the water content of the tap water used affected the results to this point.

Where do I go from here? At this point do I use the pool calculator to determine how much of what I add to the pool to get started? I see in pool school to test the PH and Chlorine daily and adjust as needed. Do you use the pool calculator on a daily basis to make these determinations?

Thank You
Jeremy
 
I use poolcalculator.com every time I make additions, except for MA (muriatic acid). I have done the MA additions enough I know what to add when I see the results of the pH test.

For you, you should get that TA down. You can read about that here:
pool-school/lowering%20total%20alkalinity

You can live with that CYA. Just be careful to not get yourself into a position where you need to shock. It should come down on its own due to splash-out as long as you do not use products containing CYA, so no trichlor tablets!
 
Just to add to what Robbie said:

The CYA does not evaporate and is not in tap water. So, either our 150ppm estimate was a bit off or you replaced less water ... most likely a bit of both. The only way the CYA will go down is if water is removed from the pool, splash-out, backwash, etc ... NOT evaporation.

You can live with a CYA of 75ppm ... just realize that a FC of 6ppm is the absolute minimum ... never let if drop below that. The pain of the high CYA will come if you have to go through the shock process with a shock FC level of ~30ppm.

You are in the CYA range for a SWG pool, but you may find it a bit easier to maintain if you were able to replace more water to get down to around 50ppm.
 
Ok, so besides the TA being too high, I guess everything else I can live with for now. I read the link, so the next step is to buy muriatic acid, use the pool calculator to determine how much to use, and then aerate to bring the PH back up to normal levels. I saw that the process of lowering the TA can take days or weeks. Two questions. 1) If the TA is still elevated come warmer weather, is it still safe to swim? 2) Do you have a recommendation on a brand of acid, and where to buy? I was gonna try home depot, lowes, or walmart before going to a pool store. Im also gonna pick up some chlorine while Im out.

Jblizzle, I see what you mean. Water evaporating doesnt remove CYA, but once the water does evaporate, and you have to refill some, does that lower it at all due to diluting the pool water with more tap water during small refills?

Thank you
Jeremy
 
You won't lower CYA by evaporation and refills. It concentrates the CYA as it evaporates, then it goes back to normal when you refill.

When you add chlorine, make sure your target is ABOVE 6, so you don't fall below 6.

TA does not affect swim safety. You can swim with the TA where it is now.

Any MA is fine. Just don't buy the "safer" type. It's just a lower concentration and won't match up with the calculator.
 
Not sure I understand your question ... but, once you have yours levels under control, the maintenance is quite easy.

The only things that are slightly off at this point are the CYA and TA being a little high. Maintain the FC high enough and the CYA will not matter. And you can lower the TA like you found using acid. Your TA is really not very high (compared to others) and actually I would suggest you just monitor your pH and keep it in range and your TA will eventually lower itself.

Just watch the FC and pH and you should be able to enjoy a clear pool all summer.
 

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