Newbie to pools

[mthandt]

Hi,

My name's Matt and I just took over responsibility of my Gf's parents' pool. Just been doing some maintenence and basic care, trying to get the hang of things. So far I've replaced the DE filter cartridges and replaced a few other seals and o-rings. Just took apart the 6-way module for the Paramount in ground cleaning system and found that all of the internal seals on the pistons were bad and wouldn't you know it they don't seem to sell just the seals so you have to buy a whole new module. How conveniant for them. Ended up ordering a new unit but just wanted to get some insight from you guys/girls on the issue.

Also was just posting a new thread in hopes of getting full privelages to search the forums and read the threads so I can begin learining all I need to take care of their pool. Kinda still learning about the pool chemicals thing. Been testing everything using kind of an older test kit and not to sure of the results. But the biggest one I am worried about is the CYA is testing around 80-90 ppm using a taylor test kit. And I know that's kinda high and the pool guy only used chlorine pucks but don't really know what to do. Think I'm gonna bring some water to pinch-a-penny tomorrow and see what they say. Already brought some water there and they said everything checked out but I never got any numbers from them.


Thanks,


Matt

[aylad]

Hi Matt, and welcome to the forum!

Until Ben upgrades your status, you can always search the forum using the Google search link in my sig, which is actually better than the vbulletin search feature. Take some time and read as much as you can here and at our sister site, Poolsolutions.com. There's a TON of info here, and it can be overwhelming at first, but eventually it will begin to make sense and you'll realize that pool care really isn't hard, and doesn't have to be expensive or time-consuming.

What type of test kit are you using? I'll tell you up front that we don't put any confidence in strip testing...we highly recommend a drop-based test kit. The best one around for the money is the Taylor K-2006 (NOT the 2005) . It can be ordered from the Amazon link in my sig, and the forum actually gets a donation from the order.

If the pool guy used pucks, it is very common for your CYA to be very high. In that case, you have two options--either drain/refill some of the water to lower it, or just raise the chlorine levels to compensate. (See the "best guess" chart linked in my sig for that).

Anyway, welcome to the group--read around the site, and feel free to post whatever questions you may have!

[mthandt]

Thank you Janet! I have been reading tons of stuff and I think I've got the idea. Just realy have no faith in the kits that I am using because I'm not really sure how old they are. I have been using a Taylor K-2006 and a K-2005 but some of the tests just don't seem to work right. Do you know which of the reagents would lose there punch after sitting around for awhile? They were stored in a garage here in Florida for idk how long. Think for now I am just gonna go to the store tomorrow and have them test some water and give me the numbers. I might try to drain the pool and refill a little bit at a time to lower the CYA levels. I realize this won't be as effective as one quick half a drain but I don't wan the Gf's parents to think I'm crazy for draining the pool the first week on the job, haha! All they know is the pool looks clean now so why would I be draining it.

[PoolDoc]

Echoing what Janet said, I'd encourage you to look at the Best Guess chart and page, at least for now. You can always drain later. But change as little as you have to, while you're learning to operate the pool

Good luck!

[aylad]

What Ben said!! :)

I personally run a high CYA pool intentionally because in our climate (Louisiana) I use less chlorine and it's much easier to keep my levels stable. I would imagine in Florida your climate is very similar, so lowering your CYA may not be the best thing to do, especially if your water is in good sbape now.

I would replace any reagents that were in a garage longer than one year. They can last a lot longer than that when stored in a cool dry place, but heat can make them degrade. You can order them from several places online, but I usually get mine from sps-poolspas.com. Their prices are among the lowest and their service is fast.

Janet

[mthandt]

Thanks again! The CYA part of the test kit seems to be working at least because the store tested the same. Good to know that that CYA level isn't that excessive for down south here then. It seems like right now the pool is using virtually no chlorine because the CYA is high, it's been cool out and the pool is partially shaded. It's only at about 5 ppm though and according to the best guess chart I guess that's a little low. Trying to decide if I should bump it up a couple ppm and just keep it there. The pool seems to be doing well right now but I figure a little more can't hurt.

[Watermom]

The pool is using little chlorine because the water is cold, but when the weather starts to warm up, if you don't run higher cl levels you'll have a green pool! We see it all the time. Since your CYA is 80-90, then you don't want to use any stabilized forms of chlorine. So stay away from trichlor pucks and dichlor powder. What kind of pool is this -- gunnite, vinyl, fiberglass? Also, go ahead and post a full set of current water testing results.

[mthandt]

The pool is using little chlorine because the water is cold, but when the weather starts to warm up, if you don't run higher cl levels you'll have a green pool! We see it all the time. Since your CYA is 80-90, then you don't want to use any stabilized forms of chlorine. So stay away from trichlor pucks and dichlor powder. What kind of pool is this -- gunnite, vinyl, fiberglass? Also, go ahead and post a full set of current water testing results.

Yeah, the CYA level is my biggest fear with the trichlor pucks which is what I would most likely be using. I would like to do the BBB method but again I think my girlfriends parents would think I am crazy if I was out there pouring a gallon of chlorine in the pool everyday. I think they would feel better with me just using the pucks. Next time they leave town I'll just drain half the pool, haha. I think for now I'm just gonna continue using the pucks and monitor the CYA levels and if it starts to get too high and the chlorine demand becomes to great I'll consider swapping out some of the water or switching to liquid chlorine.

Here are the results from the store test:

TC: 5 ppm
FC: 5 ppm
CC: 0 ppm
pH: 7.6
TA: 100 ppm
Calcium: 250 ppm
CYA: 80 ppm

Oh, and it's a screened in gunite pool.

[Watermom]

Your numbers all look ok except that your chlorine is bit low for your CYA level.

Regarding continuing to use the pucks ---- it is your call. If it were my pool with a CYA of 80-90, I would not use them. It is easy to get into trouble when your CYA level gets too high. Just my opinion.

Glad to have you on the forum!

[mthandt]

Your numbers all look ok except that your chlorine is bit low for your CYA level.

Regarding continuing to use the pucks ---- it is your call. If it were my pool with a CYA of 80-90, I would not use them. It is easy to get into trouble when your CYA level gets too high. Just my opinion.

Glad to have you on the forum!

Yeah, I realize the chlorine is on the low side for the CYA levels but I think I'm losing virtuslly no chlorine at the moment, definitely will have to do something soon. Haven't put any chlorine in it for a week and it's holding at those levels probably due to a combination of the low CYA levels, the cool partially shaded water and no one is swimming in it. I would like to switch to liquid chlorine as I can get 6% clorox bleach from Sams for $2 a gallon before tax but don't really know how much I will have to stay on top of it with liquid chlorine. Maybe I'll start trying it next week and just see what happens. I have to get more reagent for the chlorine test on Tuesday so I can start testing it myself.

[PoolDoc]

There's nothing magic about liquid chlorine or bleach -- it's just one of the two forms of chlorine available to you that has no stabilizer. The other is cal hypo (calcium hypochlorite) and it's becoming increasingly difficult to find.

You could also use an SWCG (Salt Water Chlorine Generator), but that's significant expense upfront, and there's ANOTHER learning curve you have to climb with those units.

Here's an option: with your CYA that high, once you get your K2006, you can do this:
1. Dose 1x per week to 12 - 15 ppm chlorine using bleach. (We'll help you figure the dose, if you can give us pool gallons AND pool dimensions (so we can make sure the gallons figure is in range - often, it's not.).
2. Adjust your TC feeder / floater / what to trickle feed, so that your chlorine doesn't go below 3 - 5 ppm, before your next bleach dose.

That way, you can 'sneak' in, dump the bleach, trash the bottles, and then bask in the appreciation for the crystal clear pool (assuming, your filter is working OK). Over time -- depending on how you clean your filter -- your CYA will drop. The more pool water you dump (backwash) each time, the sooner it will drop. If you've got a cartridge filter, and don't loose any water, you may have to see how things run this way and whether the CYA keeps climbing.

[mthandt]

I like the slow TC release idea and adding bleach. That way I don't use so much liquid. I estimated the pool to be around 10,000 gallons by measuring the sides and depths at certain points. Wasn't too straight forward becasue the pool is a funny shape. Here is an attached drawing:

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh71/mthandt/PoolDimensions.png

The depths are in the middle of those sections and I should also note that it gets around 6' deep around the drain.

I have a 36 sqaure foot DE filter that I just replaced the screens in a couple weeks ago and added DE to. I'll have to backwash eventually it but I don't know how often yet as I just started taking care of it. I can't imagine it needing to be backwashed very often because the pool is screened in. Figure I'll do it every few months and just watch the pressure

-------------------------------------

Thank you everyone for the help!

[PoolDoc]

Hmm-mh. I started to calculate gallons, and then quit. Some of your dimensions don't work out.

For example, you've drawn the dimensions of the angled perimeter line in the lower right corner as the hypotenuse of a right triangle with a rise of 7.5' and a run of 6'. But . . . that the hypotenuse of THAT right triangle would be about 9 1/2', and not the 11' you measured. I never enjoyed it, when I had to measure a pool like that for a custom LoopLoc cover -- too many chances to screw up, and if I did, I got to eat the cover. I'd always end up measuring it 2 or 3 times, and then drawing it on CAD, to make sure the point to point diagonals I'd measured were very close to what the CAD program calculated.

However, your pool appears to be on the same order as a pool 15' x 22' with an avg. depth of 4.5'. That would be about 11,000 gallons. So, 10,000 is a reasonable guess. If you REALLY want to know, read your water meter before and after you fill it, and subtract average daily use over the fill interval. That should give you the correct value, +/- 5%.

[mthandt]

That spot in the pool has a weird zig zag in it so that is why the measurments don't make sense. There are stairs there so the number of gallons lost by the bad measurment are gonna be small so that's why I didn't worry too much. I just turned the entire pool into two rectangles one for the deep end and one for the shallow, found the areas and then subtracted the two big triangles empty spots from them. Multiplied the areas by what I considered the average depth over that section and then converted to gallons. I figrued the little pieces on the edge and whatnot wouldn't really matter to significantly overall. I thought about drawing it up in Autocad but I had just deleted it from my computer as it was killing it. I'm an engineering student so I'm pretty good at math but was kinda curious what others would come up with. Never hurts to double check with someone else. I apprecite the time you spent helping me out though. You ever have any questions about cars or engines I can for sure help you out there. I'm a member of quite a few car and truck forums, this pool stuff is just new to me.

[PoolDoc]

I'm a member of quite a few car and truck forums, this pool stuff is just new to me.

Yeah, it's been a matter of some interest to me how many new members here share that involvement.

[mthandt]

Yeah, it's been a matter of some interest to me how many new members here share that involvement.


You talking about Involvement with other forums?

Do you know what a ballpark dose would be for getting the pool to 12-15ppm?

[PoolDoc]

Yes, involvement with other AUTO forums.

On a 11,000 gallon pool, a gallon of plain 6% bleach adds about 5 ppm. So a 15ppm dose would be ~3 gallons.

[mthandt]

Well at least one now, lol. But I'm sure there are more. I take care of all the friends and families vehicles and I know what a great asset forums can be. Learn the majority of my stuff from them.

And thank you for the info. Just found out that the chlorine from the pool store is quite cheap after the initial purchase of the container. Aboout $2/gal for 11.5% chlorine.

[PoolDoc]

Yeah, that's a good price for bleach. I think it's cheaper in Florida, than in most other parts of the country.

A couple of cautions:

1. Bleach is corrosive, but commercial bleach (above 10%) is very, very corrosive. Make sure you do not get ANY on what ever you carry the bleach in. You can lose a truck bed to a drop of bleach here, and a drop there.

2. Bleach doesn't store well in warm weather. At 90 degrees (when the BLEACH is 90), it can lose a LOT of its strength in just a week. If the bleach has a little iron in it (it often does), you can turn 12% bleach into 6% bleach very quickly.

3. For the same reason, try to buy bleach within a few days (1 - 2) of your supplier's delivery and then -- ideally -- add it to the pool immediately.

4. If you need to store bleach, it will last much, much longer in a air conditioned room than it will in a hot garage or pump room. It doesn't fume (well, it gives off oxygen, when it deteriorates), so there's no odor and no chlorine gases. It's just the drips that are a problem.

[mthandt]

I've noticed that a lot of pool trucks have the beds completely rusting out on them. So it looks like I am gonna have to buy 2 1/2 gallons at a time and store half of it for a week.

But just thought of something. If I'm keeping the pool at about 3-5 ppm with the TC won't I only have to raise the chlorine about 10-12 ppm using liquid chlorine? So then I would only need a little more then a gallon of the of the 11.5% chlorine weekly? You think it would be ok to assume that I can use a little over a gallon for the first week and then just the rest of the chlorine the second week because it has degraded. I mean i would test it afterwards but I'm thinking it should be close, might not be enough though.

[PoolDoc]

Rusted out truck beds? Yeah, that's bleach.

Your plan sounds reasonable. How well it will work depends . . . on how pure the bleach is (low metals bleach lasts longer); on how cool your storage area is, and so on. But, it's a good place to start, so long as you use a K2006 to check how well it's working.

Keep in mind that -- even in Florida -- you can store bleach for a while, now. In July? Not so much, unless you keep the bleach in an AC'd place.