Have had my pool a couple years now, treating with Bioguard 3" tablets (they said 2 at a time in each of my 2 skimmers) and putting in 3 bags of Burnout3 each week. Finally fed up when I got "chlorine demand" for the second time this month and they sold me another $100+ of Burnout 3 to shock it, saying "nobody understands why this happens, it just does." That answer didn't sit well with the engineer in me.
At that point I stumbled upon this site. I've been working my way through Pool School and trying to absorb as much as I can, cleaned my filters with dishwashing detergent and muriatic acid (pressure was at ~30psi from a startup of 17psi), and ordered the TF100 test kit.
Assuming I performed all the readings correctly, the results from my first test are as follows:
FC - 4
CC - 0.5
pH - 7.5-7.8
TA - 160-170
CH - 210
CYA - 60-70
Apologies for the ranges on some of these, pH was somewhere in between but probably closer to 7.5, TA turned a little pink at 16 drops but bright at 17, and seeing as this was my first time with the CYA test I found it a bit subjective between 60-70.
My plan is to switch completely from the pool store chemicals to the BBB method. My water is clearing up but I'm guessing that has mostly to do with the filter cleaning, as my water is showing FC, unlike the "chlorine demand" the pool store told me. I'm still trying to figure out exactly where all my levels need to be, but the one I felt most confident of right off the bat was FC, so I added a 96 oz jug of bleach (Pool Calculator told me that will raise my FC 1.9 ppm if I used that correctly).
Anyway, this is more of just an introduction and a quick summary of where I'm at to hopefully verify I'm on the right track. If I'm leaving out any info, am missing something, or doing anything wrong, please let me know. Looking forward to understanding how to take care of the pool myself and have great results!
At that point I stumbled upon this site. I've been working my way through Pool School and trying to absorb as much as I can, cleaned my filters with dishwashing detergent and muriatic acid (pressure was at ~30psi from a startup of 17psi), and ordered the TF100 test kit.
Assuming I performed all the readings correctly, the results from my first test are as follows:
FC - 4
CC - 0.5
pH - 7.5-7.8
TA - 160-170
CH - 210
CYA - 60-70
Apologies for the ranges on some of these, pH was somewhere in between but probably closer to 7.5, TA turned a little pink at 16 drops but bright at 17, and seeing as this was my first time with the CYA test I found it a bit subjective between 60-70.
My plan is to switch completely from the pool store chemicals to the BBB method. My water is clearing up but I'm guessing that has mostly to do with the filter cleaning, as my water is showing FC, unlike the "chlorine demand" the pool store told me. I'm still trying to figure out exactly where all my levels need to be, but the one I felt most confident of right off the bat was FC, so I added a 96 oz jug of bleach (Pool Calculator told me that will raise my FC 1.9 ppm if I used that correctly).
Anyway, this is more of just an introduction and a quick summary of where I'm at to hopefully verify I'm on the right track. If I'm leaving out any info, am missing something, or doing anything wrong, please let me know. Looking forward to understanding how to take care of the pool myself and have great results!