We purchased our house from my husband’s parents 5 years ago. Along with it came a 22000 gallon in ground pool. My mother in law maintained it for years using shock and chlorine tabs and never worried once about the cya levels and never had an issue. Now for the last 3 years we’ve had an iron issue with our steps staining brown. I’ve since educated myself on using bleach instead to raise FC, using a polyfil filter to get rid of iron, etc. My husband is sick of having to buy and store jugs of bleach and chlorine and now for the last week our local Walmart has been out of both and hearing there will be a shortage this summer. We have dichlor but hesitant to use it because our cya is in the upper 50s and don’t want to raise it anymore. My question is this: how are people using shock and chlorine tabs all season long, year after year and not having the issues we are having??
Shock/chlorine tabs and cya
- Thread starter Lmlarson
- Start date
- Jun 8, 2019
- 4,576
- Pool Size
- 20000
- Surface
- Vinyl
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
They do have issues. They get green pools, then the pool store tells them they have “old water” or “chlorine lock” and they exchange.
Some people don’t use their pools much (lowering FC demand) and have a lot of rainfall/snowfall to change out water, which lowers CYA naturally as well. Those people are just lucky and don’t know it.
You’re in MI - do you have any Menards near you? They typically stock a lot of liquid chlorine. Or a Farm and Fleet? That’s where I get most of my chlorine.
Some people don’t use their pools much (lowering FC demand) and have a lot of rainfall/snowfall to change out water, which lowers CYA naturally as well. Those people are just lucky and don’t know it.
You’re in MI - do you have any Menards near you? They typically stock a lot of liquid chlorine. Or a Farm and Fleet? That’s where I get most of my chlorine.
We’re in a pretty rural area - nearest Menards is 2 hours away. My in-laws didn’t seem to have near the issues we are having now. My own parents as well are in MN, their pool is much smaller as it’s above ground but they don’t even know what cya is. They use tabs and shock as well but they may have enough water replacement every year to be able to do that. Is it worth it to use cal hypo occasionally?
red-beard
Gold Supporter
- May 27, 2019
- 1,621
- Pool Size
- 25000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Hayward Aqua Rite Pro (T-15)
We’ve been tossing that idea around more and more. Need to check into the cost for that!
- Mar 5, 2020
- 3,080
- Pool Size
- 66000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Astral Viron V35
I frankly don't like the idea of storing Tri- or Dichlor anywhere near Cal-Hypo. Very explosive mixture. Literally.
I support the SWG idea. Our house came with a pool that already had an SWG. I think without it, I'd filled in the pool a long time ago. But with it, there's not much to worry about with the pool. Yes, there is the standard maintenance and water testing, but certainly no schlepping home of chemicals, apart from some salt once a season and some CYA from time to time. In my case with very soft water and wet winters also some calcium chloride. But that's it. The bag of bicarb I once bought is now mainly being used by my wife in the garden and my son for experiments.