Hi Everyone-
I've titled my thread the "unpoolstorification" because I recently purchased a pool with a house, and it seems just about everything that could be non-TFP was wacked.
The instructions from the previous owner were, "put a bag of shock from Big Box Store into the pool weekly, and keep the floating thing full of chlorine".
Here's what I've done so far:
Initially, I went to the local pool store to have my levels checked weekly under the recommendations of one of my co workers. Levels had been "within normal limits" (more on why that's in quotes later), and the water clear and the bottom with some nasty brown/green streaks all over it. Like someone had a bad case of diarrhea in the toilet. It was about as attractive as it sounded. Each week I went my levels were "within normal limits", and I kept refilling myfloaty thingy with the white hockey puck things float feeder with trichlor tablets, about 3 tabs/week. Everything was going "well", except for those pesky brown stains.
I bought the "stain ID kit" from the pool store and read the insert. All my chemistry was wrong for doing the ID test. Not a low enough pH, too much chlorine, too much CYA. The pool store said I had to dump some water from my pool and refill (good advice!). They suggested a few inches and retest. I said, "but if my CYA is at 100, and it needs to be at 30, don't I need to dump 70% of the water and then refill?" They just looked at me blankly, and it was my first indicator that something was not quite right in Pool Store Land. So I ended dumping a few feet (didn't want to float the pool!) and refilling, and back to the pool store I went! "Please recheck my CYA level," I said.
They did their test again, and results were... 100. "How can that be, I asked?" and I showed them a picture of how low I drained the pool since the last test. The kid doing the test got someone else (the manager?) who informed me they only test up to 100. "So what you're saying is that 100 really means 'at least 100'? So my level could be 1000 or 1 million or something?"
"Well, probably not that high, but yes."
And then I follow up, "Are there any other of these levels you check that are like that?" and it turned out they did the same with chlorine and one or two others which escape my recall right now. When they had been telling me my level was "5", they really meant "5 or more" but never bothered to say that.
"Does that mean I should stop using the chlorine hockey puck things?" (yes I really said that). "Yes, you should get some jugs of our liquid chlorine. It'll be cheaper too!" (Best advice I think I got from them to date)
That was my second indication I probably should not be using the "free water test," and incidentally my motivation to search for and ultimately find this website.
I did get my chemistry to where I could do the stain ID test according to Pool Store Free Water Test, and surprise the stains were iron. Bought the recommended "Iron and Cobalt Remover" powder and "Metal Controller" liquid, and it worked like a charm except when it initially turned the plaster a delightful shade of black. By morning the stains were nearly gone so it was all good. Or so I thought. Since then I've been dealing with intermittent algae blooms, and I think the iron stains are starting to return.
The pool store people are either unwilling or uninterested in helping other than "sounds like you need to shock your pool" or "take the free water test then buy what we tell you to buy" or some combination of those two. Except now I get to add the special "sequestrant" test when I go and add more of that to my pool each week. This level also seems to vary quite wildly depending on the person doing the test and the branch of Local Pool Store where I have it done. I really would like to do a split sample test and take them to different branches of Local Pool Store and see how reliable the numbers are from store to store... but I digress again.
And lord knows what else was in all those "blue shock" bags the previous owner had been putting into the pool...
Since then, I've ordered by TF100 which has not yet arrived, and I'm looking forward to having reliable numbers to do this the right way! Any tips anyone has to make this process easier / faster / smoother? Thanks in advance!
I've titled my thread the "unpoolstorification" because I recently purchased a pool with a house, and it seems just about everything that could be non-TFP was wacked.
The instructions from the previous owner were, "put a bag of shock from Big Box Store into the pool weekly, and keep the floating thing full of chlorine".
Here's what I've done so far:
Initially, I went to the local pool store to have my levels checked weekly under the recommendations of one of my co workers. Levels had been "within normal limits" (more on why that's in quotes later), and the water clear and the bottom with some nasty brown/green streaks all over it. Like someone had a bad case of diarrhea in the toilet. It was about as attractive as it sounded. Each week I went my levels were "within normal limits", and I kept refilling my
I bought the "stain ID kit" from the pool store and read the insert. All my chemistry was wrong for doing the ID test. Not a low enough pH, too much chlorine, too much CYA. The pool store said I had to dump some water from my pool and refill (good advice!). They suggested a few inches and retest. I said, "but if my CYA is at 100, and it needs to be at 30, don't I need to dump 70% of the water and then refill?" They just looked at me blankly, and it was my first indicator that something was not quite right in Pool Store Land. So I ended dumping a few feet (didn't want to float the pool!) and refilling, and back to the pool store I went! "Please recheck my CYA level," I said.
They did their test again, and results were... 100. "How can that be, I asked?" and I showed them a picture of how low I drained the pool since the last test. The kid doing the test got someone else (the manager?) who informed me they only test up to 100. "So what you're saying is that 100 really means 'at least 100'? So my level could be 1000 or 1 million or something?"
"Well, probably not that high, but yes."
And then I follow up, "Are there any other of these levels you check that are like that?" and it turned out they did the same with chlorine and one or two others which escape my recall right now. When they had been telling me my level was "5", they really meant "5 or more" but never bothered to say that.
"Does that mean I should stop using the chlorine hockey puck things?" (yes I really said that). "Yes, you should get some jugs of our liquid chlorine. It'll be cheaper too!" (Best advice I think I got from them to date)
That was my second indication I probably should not be using the "free water test," and incidentally my motivation to search for and ultimately find this website.
I did get my chemistry to where I could do the stain ID test according to Pool Store Free Water Test, and surprise the stains were iron. Bought the recommended "Iron and Cobalt Remover" powder and "Metal Controller" liquid, and it worked like a charm except when it initially turned the plaster a delightful shade of black. By morning the stains were nearly gone so it was all good. Or so I thought. Since then I've been dealing with intermittent algae blooms, and I think the iron stains are starting to return.
The pool store people are either unwilling or uninterested in helping other than "sounds like you need to shock your pool" or "take the free water test then buy what we tell you to buy" or some combination of those two. Except now I get to add the special "sequestrant" test when I go and add more of that to my pool each week. This level also seems to vary quite wildly depending on the person doing the test and the branch of Local Pool Store where I have it done. I really would like to do a split sample test and take them to different branches of Local Pool Store and see how reliable the numbers are from store to store... but I digress again.
And lord knows what else was in all those "blue shock" bags the previous owner had been putting into the pool...
Since then, I've ordered by TF100 which has not yet arrived, and I'm looking forward to having reliable numbers to do this the right way! Any tips anyone has to make this process easier / faster / smoother? Thanks in advance!
