- Jul 31, 2020
- 16
- Pool Size
- 11400
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Jandy Truclear / Ei
Hi Everyone
Sorry to be the millionth person to write their newbie pool story! I'm sure you veterans are sick of it!
So like many over the past few days, my wife and I bought a house that had an in-ground pool. Neither of us have any experience with pools so we are little nervous about it... Also, we plan to do the maintenance ourselves.
We went to Leslies and had a sample done. Our initial results were not very good as our previous owners had a "pool man" and they did not live in the house. From what I can tell all he did was cash their check and put in a puck into the chlorine dispenser!
FC: 4.22
TC: 4.22
pH: 7.9
Alkalinity: 78
Calcium: 436
CyA: 156
Phosphates: 0
TDS: 1900
Their advice was to immediately:
1. Drain Pool - we were in disbelief at the time and thought they were nuts!
2. Add Alkalinity up product
3. Add Muriatic Acid for high pH
Then for Weekly Maintenance Program:
1. Use Leslies Tabs to maintain 1-4 Chlorine - after talking to the store, we chose to use one of their chlorine products 1-2x/wk w/ less CyA (I forget what that was)
2. Add Leslies Shock once per week - we chose Power Powder Plus as it had no CyA
3. Add Perfect Weekly once per week - still can't figure out what this is for and why we would use this as we have no Phosphates! Have call in to store mgr as to why they would recommend as most folks on this site indicate it's waste of $$ - and at this point I agree and will discontinue using!
So fast forward a few weeks... We concluded that we are in state of chlorine lock and have to take measures to get CyA under control... We did some research and since we live in SoCal (expensive water!), we decided to go w/ Reverse Osmosis (RO). In the interim, we have lowered the level of our pool (by letting evaporate) and added new water. Also, since the regular Chlorine was not helping, we are just shocking every 3 days until we get the RO done so we don't get any algae. And cleaned the DE Filter (thanks to my super kind neighbor for helping me - with a mask!!!). This actually helped quite a bit and after testing today, we are at:
FC: .37 (Not concerned about this as I will be shocking tonight - and we're not using pool til RO is done)
TC: .47
pH: 7.7
Alkalinity: 85
Calcium: 430
CyA: 146
Phosphates: 0
TDS: 1900
So now to some questions/advice from the group on our Plan:
1. RO to lower CyA to between 40-60 as well as lower Calcium
2. Eliminate using the Perfect Weekly
3. Monitor pH and Alkalinity regularly and adjust as needed w/ MA- I think this is just something I will figure out the cause/effect and I'll use the tool here!
4. Chlorination - This is where I am a little confused. I don't want to use anything w/ CyA and Calcium or I'll be right back in same spot quickly (I understand nature will take me back here at some point, but I think w/ the evaporation here in SoCal and filling I can elongate that). I may be dreaming!! I am thinking 2.5 gallon of liquid chlorine per week. What is the advice on what to use?
Does this sound like a reasonable plan or are there gotchas that we need to look out for??
Thanks again and I look forward to engaging on this forum!
Dave
Sorry to be the millionth person to write their newbie pool story! I'm sure you veterans are sick of it!
So like many over the past few days, my wife and I bought a house that had an in-ground pool. Neither of us have any experience with pools so we are little nervous about it... Also, we plan to do the maintenance ourselves.
We went to Leslies and had a sample done. Our initial results were not very good as our previous owners had a "pool man" and they did not live in the house. From what I can tell all he did was cash their check and put in a puck into the chlorine dispenser!
FC: 4.22
TC: 4.22
pH: 7.9
Alkalinity: 78
Calcium: 436
CyA: 156
Phosphates: 0
TDS: 1900
Their advice was to immediately:
1. Drain Pool - we were in disbelief at the time and thought they were nuts!
2. Add Alkalinity up product
3. Add Muriatic Acid for high pH
Then for Weekly Maintenance Program:
1. Use Leslies Tabs to maintain 1-4 Chlorine - after talking to the store, we chose to use one of their chlorine products 1-2x/wk w/ less CyA (I forget what that was)
2. Add Leslies Shock once per week - we chose Power Powder Plus as it had no CyA
3. Add Perfect Weekly once per week - still can't figure out what this is for and why we would use this as we have no Phosphates! Have call in to store mgr as to why they would recommend as most folks on this site indicate it's waste of $$ - and at this point I agree and will discontinue using!
So fast forward a few weeks... We concluded that we are in state of chlorine lock and have to take measures to get CyA under control... We did some research and since we live in SoCal (expensive water!), we decided to go w/ Reverse Osmosis (RO). In the interim, we have lowered the level of our pool (by letting evaporate) and added new water. Also, since the regular Chlorine was not helping, we are just shocking every 3 days until we get the RO done so we don't get any algae. And cleaned the DE Filter (thanks to my super kind neighbor for helping me - with a mask!!!). This actually helped quite a bit and after testing today, we are at:
FC: .37 (Not concerned about this as I will be shocking tonight - and we're not using pool til RO is done)
TC: .47
pH: 7.7
Alkalinity: 85
Calcium: 430
CyA: 146
Phosphates: 0
TDS: 1900
So now to some questions/advice from the group on our Plan:
1. RO to lower CyA to between 40-60 as well as lower Calcium
2. Eliminate using the Perfect Weekly
3. Monitor pH and Alkalinity regularly and adjust as needed w/ MA- I think this is just something I will figure out the cause/effect and I'll use the tool here!
4. Chlorination - This is where I am a little confused. I don't want to use anything w/ CyA and Calcium or I'll be right back in same spot quickly (I understand nature will take me back here at some point, but I think w/ the evaporation here in SoCal and filling I can elongate that). I may be dreaming!! I am thinking 2.5 gallon of liquid chlorine per week. What is the advice on what to use?
Does this sound like a reasonable plan or are there gotchas that we need to look out for??
Thanks again and I look forward to engaging on this forum!
Dave