Hi all,
This website and the pool maintenance guide has been an excellent source of information for me and my pool is truly trouble free for the first time (3rd year of owning this home and pool). I thought it would be annoying adding liquid chlorine every night but it has quickly become second nature and I can test the water and add the chlorine in just a few minutes, but I digress.
Since I completed my SLAM around May 15 of this year, I have maintained the appropriate chlorine level related to my CYA level and have NOT had to backwash the sand filter since then. The pressure on the sand filter hasn't even really gone up from the clean level, maybe 1psi. I only have to run the filter for 4 hours every night from about 8pm to midnight which is also when I add my chemicals. In the past, I've run the filter for 12 hours a day (pool store advice) and backwashed every 1-2 weeks in past summers and once a month in the winter months. I also battled algae all summer long the past 2 years.
Is this normal to not be needing to backwash very often? I'm stunned that I haven't needed to backwash for 1.5 months now, and that the filter only needs to run for 4 hours. I'm ecstatic with the overall reduced level of maintenance as my pool water looks great and most importantly I have not battled algae at all! I just wanted to make sure I'm not missing something.
EDIT: Figured I'd add my last full test results as an FYI
FC 5.5 (add enough chlorine every night to get this back to 10ppm)
CC 0.5
CYA 70
pH 7.6 (slowly drifts up and when it's at 7.8 for a few days I add enough muriatic acid to lower to 7.6 again)
TA 100
CH 575
Salt appx 1500 (test strip result)
This website and the pool maintenance guide has been an excellent source of information for me and my pool is truly trouble free for the first time (3rd year of owning this home and pool). I thought it would be annoying adding liquid chlorine every night but it has quickly become second nature and I can test the water and add the chlorine in just a few minutes, but I digress.
Since I completed my SLAM around May 15 of this year, I have maintained the appropriate chlorine level related to my CYA level and have NOT had to backwash the sand filter since then. The pressure on the sand filter hasn't even really gone up from the clean level, maybe 1psi. I only have to run the filter for 4 hours every night from about 8pm to midnight which is also when I add my chemicals. In the past, I've run the filter for 12 hours a day (pool store advice) and backwashed every 1-2 weeks in past summers and once a month in the winter months. I also battled algae all summer long the past 2 years.
Is this normal to not be needing to backwash very often? I'm stunned that I haven't needed to backwash for 1.5 months now, and that the filter only needs to run for 4 hours. I'm ecstatic with the overall reduced level of maintenance as my pool water looks great and most importantly I have not battled algae at all! I just wanted to make sure I'm not missing something.
EDIT: Figured I'd add my last full test results as an FYI
FC 5.5 (add enough chlorine every night to get this back to 10ppm)
CC 0.5
CYA 70
pH 7.6 (slowly drifts up and when it's at 7.8 for a few days I add enough muriatic acid to lower to 7.6 again)
TA 100
CH 575
Salt appx 1500 (test strip result)