ok guys, i have a general question here. what would you do (in order) in my shoes?
background
-I inherited this pool last summer. The previous owner basically knew 1 thing about the pool: put salt in it untill the digital reader reads 3000 and if there are any problems, call the pool guy.
- my pool cleaner has never worked more than a few days at a time. its a Hayward phantom and the pipes are always springing leaks. when i fix one, another would pop up else where
- The summer started off great, i would add salt and keep it around 3000. We have long summers down here and somewhere along the way the SWG digital display started giving me some strange symbols and no longer gave me a reading. I don't remember the details but i did not find it to be an error message.
- I have a TF-100 kit but no salt test. I noticed the chlorine dropping no matter how much salt i put in
- chlorine reached 0 . I took it to the pool store for a free test and they read 0 as well. Their tests had me around the 3000 ppm range for salt however.
- I can't remember all of the details but i kept the CYA basically in trarget range (around 80 i think) and chlorine was not present.
- I shocked the pool a couple times, getting my chlorine to 28 and keeping it there for a couple days. Following that my chlorine would still drop until it eventually reached 0
- I basically decided *** the salt and started just added bleach for the remainder of the summber which was prob 2 months or so
- I also vacuumed the pool without the strainer basket
- I pretty much ignored the pool all winter, except for scooping leaves when it got really bad, dumping the skimmer every now and again and back washing a few times
- i eventually noticed that i wasn't getting any movement to speak of in the water. with the help of this site, i removed blockage from the impeller and have the water moving again
the current state of the pool
- water is cloudy but not green
- there is a good bit of leaves and pieces of leaves and stuff in the pool and settled on the bottom
- my pool cleaner is a pos and basically doesnt move, though it still collects some trash just sitting there filtering water
- i know my pool chem must be way off as it's been ignored for 6 months
- I feel like i should removed the SWG cell and clean it but i'm a little intimidated by this. I will attempt it probably this weekend or next however.
Should i vacum the pool first? it seems that i'll be dumping a lot of water so i should do this before i worry about chem right?
i guess replenishing the water and attacking the cya would be next?
what about cleaning the cell? which step should this be?
what do y'all do about re-agent refills? I bought the test kit and was disappointed that i was out of the chlorine test re-agent very quickly and resorted to going to the pool store every time but this is an issue with shocking of course. If i tell them i am shocking they want to sell me things and they cleverly have a bunch of cute girls working there.
background
-I inherited this pool last summer. The previous owner basically knew 1 thing about the pool: put salt in it untill the digital reader reads 3000 and if there are any problems, call the pool guy.
- my pool cleaner has never worked more than a few days at a time. its a Hayward phantom and the pipes are always springing leaks. when i fix one, another would pop up else where
- The summer started off great, i would add salt and keep it around 3000. We have long summers down here and somewhere along the way the SWG digital display started giving me some strange symbols and no longer gave me a reading. I don't remember the details but i did not find it to be an error message.
- I have a TF-100 kit but no salt test. I noticed the chlorine dropping no matter how much salt i put in
- chlorine reached 0 . I took it to the pool store for a free test and they read 0 as well. Their tests had me around the 3000 ppm range for salt however.
- I can't remember all of the details but i kept the CYA basically in trarget range (around 80 i think) and chlorine was not present.
- I shocked the pool a couple times, getting my chlorine to 28 and keeping it there for a couple days. Following that my chlorine would still drop until it eventually reached 0
- I basically decided *** the salt and started just added bleach for the remainder of the summber which was prob 2 months or so
- I also vacuumed the pool without the strainer basket
- I pretty much ignored the pool all winter, except for scooping leaves when it got really bad, dumping the skimmer every now and again and back washing a few times
- i eventually noticed that i wasn't getting any movement to speak of in the water. with the help of this site, i removed blockage from the impeller and have the water moving again
the current state of the pool
- water is cloudy but not green
- there is a good bit of leaves and pieces of leaves and stuff in the pool and settled on the bottom
- my pool cleaner is a pos and basically doesnt move, though it still collects some trash just sitting there filtering water
- i know my pool chem must be way off as it's been ignored for 6 months
- I feel like i should removed the SWG cell and clean it but i'm a little intimidated by this. I will attempt it probably this weekend or next however.
Should i vacum the pool first? it seems that i'll be dumping a lot of water so i should do this before i worry about chem right?
i guess replenishing the water and attacking the cya would be next?
what about cleaning the cell? which step should this be?
what do y'all do about re-agent refills? I bought the test kit and was disappointed that i was out of the chlorine test re-agent very quickly and resorted to going to the pool store every time but this is an issue with shocking of course. If i tell them i am shocking they want to sell me things and they cleverly have a bunch of cute girls working there.