I first found TroubleFreePool when I was googling how to demo and fill in a pool. I was searching for that because I was simply exhausted by my pool. Weekend trips for my "free" testing, followed by the 2 day ritual of "shocking," algaecide, and manually brushing over and over to get rid of my ever present algae blooms. Oh, and backflushing a high-pressure filter every two weeks. I had gotten to the point where I joked about the pool store $100 cover charge.
I was done, then I read about the TFP methods and said to myself I would give it a try before laying out the $10k+ it would take to demo the pool. That was about 8 years ago.
After getting in the groove, here's my "labor"
- Once per month, I pull out my phone and do a curbside pickup for about 15-20 gallons of 10% liquid chlorine. They load it in the truck.
- I get home, text my teenager "take care of the bleach" and walk inside
- He hauls the bleach to my 15 gallon drum and fills it up. The drum is hooked up to a metered "stenner" pump and trickles the bleach in when the pump is running.
- Every time he uses the pool he cleans out the skimmer basket and the polaris if needed.
- I run a test on the weekends as I grab a beer, then maybe add a cup of acid as I drink my beer.
- I tweak the other chemicals like baking soda and stabilizer a couple of times a year.
- I backflush the DE filter once, maybe twice a year. More because I should than because of over pressure.
Now, you may not have a teen to take care of the bleach and skimmers. You probably don't have a stenner pump to pour the bleach automatically. But dumping a cup of bleach in your pool over your morning coffee isn't much work. Once you get a feel for your pool, you honestly can write down your test numbers with 90% accuracy before you even do the test.
But beyond that, the water clarity and sparkle everyone notices, especially the people in the neighborhood with a pool service. People ask me how I do it because of the water quality. No chlorine smell or harshness, perfectly clear water where you can see the screw head on the drain at 8 feet, and never a spot of algae.
