New member questions

[eep30]

Looking for information on water testing methods preferred by most and information on Natural Chemistry's Pool Foundation the pool store was trying to sell me claiming I will spend less on all my chemicals. I have issues testing my water. We bought our house 3 years ago and the 1st year I used a test kit with the drops for bromine, pH and alkalinity. I liked that, but sometimes had difficulty decided what the water color matched on the readings. Then the following year the pool store sold me test strips. I hated them. They were worse to get a true color reading on the strip to match the colors on the bottle. Then last year they sold me the accucheck machine. Thought it would solve all my guess work. Well I can test the same sample of water and get a swing in the pH of a whole point! So now I drive myself crazy doing all 3 tests and still guessing. I take a sample to the pool store once in awhile to verify.

Took water to LiteHouse pools yesterday and they were trying to sell me Natural Chemistry's Pool Foundation and was wondering if anyone had experience with this. They were claiming how great their pools were and using less chemicals.

I have a 25,000 gallon inground pool with DE filter, bromine and gas heater.

[aylad]

Hello, and welcome to the forum!!

The test kit that we recommend almost hands-down is the K-2006 kit. We don't recommend test strips with the exception of testing salt or borate levels, and we really don't recommend using pool store testing, because they're in the business to make money, so the recommendations you'll get from them are usually geared toward fattening their wallets rather than yours. You can check out this link where Pooldoc discusses the recommended test supplies http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?14994-How-to-Get-the-Right-Testkits-for-your-Pool. The one thing I'm not sure about is what is needed to test for bromine, since we don't really have anybody around the forum that I know of with a bromine pool. I'm sure Pooldoc or one of the other chemistry buffs will be by shortly to answer that question.

In looking for Pool Foundation, it appears to be a mystery mixture of essentially a phosphate remover, a metal sequestrant, and Borax. Very, very few folks need phosphate removers if they keep their sanitizer levels where they're supposed to be, and you only need metal sequestrant if you have metals in your fill water. Borax can be purchased at WalMart or the grocery store for MUCH cheaper than $30/5 pounds!! I'd pass. If you understand your pool water chemistry and what each chem does to your water, you don't need the Pool Foundation.

[BigTallGuy]

Amen on the Taylor K-2006 kit, Boo on the test strips. Stay away from Just about everything they try to force feed you at the Pool Store, they are in business to sell pool products and typically only have a half of a year to make a year's wages.

It is a proven fact that there is no "Miracle Cure" in Maintaining a pool if you want to keep it clean enough to swim in. If there was a secret formula or a magic pill, most of the pool stores would go out of business.

Read up on the BBB method on this Forum. The BBB method will keep more money in your wallet while not supporting the Retirement fund of the pool chemical company executives. The BBB Method uses products available at your Grocery Store at a typically lower price.