I just had to reply because I was in your exact shoes twelve years ago. I have to address your anxiety and exhaustion. Everyone else is replying to your detailed procedure and chemical needs so you are in really good hands with them on that front. Please let me speak to your exhaustion and confusion.
The reason there is so much conflicting information is because just like pharmaceuticals, the pool chemical industry is political since it has billions of dollars on the line so they need to combat any information sharing or procedures that hurt their profits, and gladly lie to do so. Just like with prescription medicine, they have to find a way to convince you that using their product is the easiest and safest. If something medical can easily be cured by say, drinking 10 glasses of water a day, or not eating any sugar, well there is no money to be made in that truth. Only a loss for the sugar industry. They have to lie and make you believe that your natural ways can’t cure you, or their products wont hurt you long term, and they have the data to prove this. It’s a lie, they don’t. In the same way, bleach can cure and protect from almost all pool ailments, sometimes borax or muratic acid is needed too. But thats it. These items are inexpensive and profits from their sales don’t get anywhere near the profits of all the other unnecessary chemicals sold at a premium. Bleach, Borax, Baking soda, and Muratic Acid work so well that there is never any reason to buy anything else. Ever. They know this too, but that hurts profits. First rule in sales is to convince people they can’t live without something that they don’t need!! The pool and pool chemical industry needs repeat business so they have to devise ways for you to keep coming back and needing more. That’s one reason the high quality test kits aren’t sold there. They dont want you understanding and knowing the truth. They want you to believe it’s so complex that you need to leave it to them. They have marketing teams working full time figuring out ways to discredit what BBB pool owners know. The wiser and smarter a group like ours becomes the more deceiving and undermining they have to become. Every year the conflict of info out there multiplies because of this. If you exhaust people enough with conflicting information they eventually give up and just trust others (the “experts”) to do the thinking for them and keep it easy. But they
will eventually end up in really bad shape because of this while those experts profit hugely and our pocket books become a nonstop faucet.
Most experts these days are compromised and have financial conflicts of interest influencing the guidance they give to others. Pay close attention to what a site has to gain and to lose. It is easy for companies to lie or mislead us, to twist the truths, and then to flood the airways with doubts and conflict. While many people can be lucky and escape the negative impact from believing others are indeed experts or trustworthy, most do not and - their misleading of the public
will eventually catch up to you.
I’ve been everywhere else and I am certain this is the best place to be if you want to do something right with a swimming pool.
You have a precious grandchild swimming in your pool so I commend you for the desire to do it right. Some pool water problems that can hurt their ears are not visible. A sparkling clear pool can cause havoc on a young child’s eyes, ears and skin - as it did my own pre-BBB.
Your water may have been clear all this time, as was mine before BBB, but don’t fool yourself - it’s at a steep cost in both time and money, and you would see this if you added up every cent and every minute ever spent on anything for the pool and it’s water. Everything you buy to control and combat what each marketable pool chemical does adds up. The cost of a quality test kit is a drop in the bucket compared to all the things you have always paid for. You can’t see the savings in BBB yet so I understand your concern over the cost of the kit. Let me be frank: no, it is not an unecessary, frivolous, or luxurious expense. It is the one single primary expense that enabled us to save the $25,000+ we saved over the last 12 years and provide a healthy safe pool for my kids to swim in.
Twelve years ago we had a yearly expenditure of $2400 or more per year for opening, closing, and chemical balancing using a pool company, their expert advice, and pool stores. I had four years experience with my own pool using shocks, clarifiers, algecides, Phos-free sparklers, conditioners, chlorinaters, etc etc. Results? My water was clear yes, but delicate, meaning it wouldn’t take much to knock it out of whack. You could say it was a whack-a-mole game to maintain it. Sure the solution to each new problem was an easy additive of some new chemical, or combo, but it cost more money. I
thought it was easy, but in reality looking back it was anything but. I had to stay on top of our water every single day for the entire swimming season and still had problems. Since starting BBB, we spend one day a week doing maintenance activities, sometimes less. I never worry and I never have any problems. Zilch. Our pool opened this year crystal clear and was almost fully balanced without adding anything. You want easy? KISS? Well BBB is the king of KISS. Learning how and why is not easy or overnight and cant be explained in a single reply, but it is worth every minute you spend reading. Way more than any other site or company. You found a site that tells the truth, has expert chemists on board that help clear confusion, and thousands of people like me who went from point A to point BBB and have first hand witness to share. There is no conflict of interest here, but it does require investing some time. Your grandchildren’s health and well-being depend on you doing so if youre going to own a pool.
I too was exhausted with reading all the available info sites abd talking to pool experts at stores and calling the manufacturers. By the time I found this site I was literally in tears with confusion and having a nervous breakdown. Another BBB site actually was rude to me because of my anxious condition. THIS site however treated me with dignity, understanding, and respect. They gave me boatloads of patience and understanding, and I reciprocated. I spent two grueling months in what seemed like a crash chemistry course. I made a binder!
It took that long for our particular circumstances to convert to BBB. You’re starting from a better place than I did, so it will be easier, because I was starting right after the pool company opened our pool and it was a green slushy swamp, like every year before. I had major ammonia build up. Sure I could have done the 3-week-long effort and treatments to get it to sparkling, but every year that cost me $600-800 in the chemicals alone. So starting with their out of whack water made it much harder to believe and trust what I learned here. But man did my time pay off! We spend less than $300 a year opening, closing, and balancing our water now. It’s easier. Our water has never once gotten algae or any other negative condition. Only one year out of the twelve did we have a cloudy water issue, but it was easily dealt with in a single day. We spend more time enjoying the view than trying to protect it. And we saved over $25,000 so far. That’s just one customer. See the money at stake for the pool chemical companies?
I encourage you to find the time this summer to read through Pool School and learn all you can. I’ve not seen any site have so little conflict of interest and so much accuracy and truth. Most of us have been in your shoes and we hear our past selves in your posts. So I’m sending a big warm hug to welcome you to the best place to learn how to really care for your pool, and to help you know you are not alone.
