thanku proavia and Pooldv! Unfortunately, I had been looking in the wrong place to see if I had replies and didn't see page 3 until now. pb came and left and I made the mistake of talking too much. the VP of construction came out with a company that Paramount sends out. I had tried to give my story to the VP who didn't know about my daughter almost dying during the drawn out pool build and all the mistakes... PB, I believe tries to make things right but have limited knowledge on how to help. In trying to tell my whole story in thinking they may offer to give us some extras besides just a pump (which isn't an extra, it's what they should've given us in the first place), I wanted them to know that one of the things they need to do different is not to tell people that it's ok to only check your pH once a week. they all seem to think it shouldn't raise to 8.2 within a week and think it's odd if i'm adding too much. now i feel like i forget how much i've been adding because i add what the calculator tells me and I've made the mistake of not writing it down. So, he said scaling is only due to calcium and only way to deal with it is to empty the pool. He said if u go to high or too low with pH it can cause other probs with pebble and I later proceeded to get nervous about dropping it to 7.2 and looked on paramount's website to see what i had seen here before, that salt should not have been added to pool within first 30 days (it was added on day 2) and it said nothing about where to maintain chemistry, just that if it's not balanced correctly it voids the warranty. I called them and they weren't there and I researched a bit more on tfps and then was going to start a post under "in the deep end" since I was told to post there when I become a doubting Thomas, but I checked and saw I had posts so here I am.
Since I hadn't seen these posts I made the mistake of telling him I want the stains fixed and he said they should be able to send a diver out. the stains i was referring to are a dirt stain in the corner and the one by the drain. looks like dirt and it's also white, i guess scaling or DE that never made it to the filter? i was not referring to the general scaling that i see in different places of the pool at that time, as they already poo pooed my reasoning of letting the pH rise too often caused it. he said it takes months of leaving the pH high for that to happen.
proavia, i think u did tell me to record when i add ma and i keep forgetting. sorry, i can't remember if i added ma before the 7.5. i think i did because it pH was at 8.0 and I figured I had a couple of days to get it down before pb came out and so i may have written it wrong here. here's my numbers, again, including just what i measured that day. i can include CYA... also, but if i don't measure it daily i wasn't sure it would be accurate:
9-19:
10:30am
82 degrees
pH 8.0
FC=9
TA=60
CSI= -.2
7p i checked pH and it was 7.3/4 after i believe i aerated
9-20 at 1:30pm
temp 87
FC=9
TA=60
CSI= -.5
pH=7.5
9-21 8:11 am
79 degrees
pH 7.8
FC= 9.5 i shut off salt cell at this point as kept lowering it
TA=60
new pump installed
today 9-22 7:20am.
FC=7- salt cell still off
pH 7.8
that's all i figured they'd check today. in trying to lower it to 7.5 i put roughly 8-9 ounces in a beat up bottle with a hole in the top that i have been using to wash my tiles.
now they are not coming back until next thursday. they've asked me to not brush the pool so we can see how it looks. paramount is coming out with them and another company. the psi at the in-floor valve is within range but not quite balanced. i'm getting 18/19 on each zone accept for the smaller one below the steps where I get 22/23. they took out each head to make sure i didn't have any rocks and a couple blew out that they saw. this is the third time in a year they have done this.
i planned to add more acid while i wash the tiles today as i'm also lowering the water level so that i can get all the calcium off, but now i'm worried about going down to 7.2 so i can either start a thread on "in the deep side" or do some more research but i want to make sure i'm comfortable with what i'm doing as far as my pebble (although this may not be often when I have to lower it that far? As you are saying now I don't need to change TA so I don't' lower it, right?).
pooldv, i've seen some of your posts about heating up your pool. i am also going to leave a black hose out to fill my pool as i need more water for now. i'll get tired of doing that and i'm not sure how much heat it'd add, or if it'll be worth the effort for the short term, anyway. the next thing for me is to see if this pump can fit a heat pump on it and still be efficient for the in-floor. also looking into other ways to heat. so far i was told solar isn't the way, gas is too much $ and not so sure about a blanket or rings due to work, storage, and kids...
thx for all your help!
i wanted to stick a couple on the side of my house perhaps but they probably don't even get enough sun there and I'd only be able to do likely one 12 x 4 panel. i'll post on the heater post u replied to on this topic. thx!