First time pool owner with lots of questions

[joseatmc]

Hi, I just purchased a house built in 1965 and the vinyl pool was installed around that time too... I've been told it's over 30years old.. and it's ugly but it runs. I've been given lots of quotes on updating the plumbing,adding a skimmer, installing steps, replacing the liner, replacing the decking. all this will cost between 16-20K to make the pool look brand new. So obviously that will be done in the distant future.. right now the immediate concern is replacing a 30 year old sand filter. my main questions is does it matter if i buy a filter that is rated for a bigger pool?


details about the pool

My pool is a rectangle that measures 13x33 water line to water line... if you add the measurement from the coping i think its 18x36. i've looked online and have gotten a volume calculator to be about 26,000 gallons... no clue if this is correct or not.

The liner seems to hold water and doesn't seem to need immediate replacement. which is nice to know. it's not plumbed for a Polaris, but I have purchased a dolphin premier robotic cleaner.

The water since I've purchased it has been green, but I've recently started shocking the pool and am trying to get the water clearer.. (purchased house on august 21st and was on vacation last week.)

There is only one jet in the pool and only one skimmer (that is about 3 inches wide)

pump runs, and the sand filter is very old.

This is all I know at the moment.

as of today (according to my test strips) my chemicals are just about at optimal levels.. Chlorine is a little high, (since I shocked it) and my alkalinity is a little low, but i have added sodium bicarb to adjust.

I'm hoping the pool clears up in the next couple of days.

I'm thinking that I want to buy a new sand filter, I was considering a Hayward 30 inch filter, which would be a little overkill for the pool I could get the 24, but i'm not sure if it would be more helpful to have a bigger filter or not..

I have owned a saltwater aquarium for years, and the general rule in the saltwater community is the more filtration the better.

Anyway any advice or helpful information would be great!


Thanks!

[CarlD]

Welcome! First, I think your estimate is 'way too high. a rectangle 18x36x 4' deep is 2592 cubic feet. At 7.48 gallons per CF, you'd have 19388 gallons. Obviously, curves and angles make calculation more complicated, but if you know the cubic feet, multiply by 7.48.

Do you have a reason to think your sand filter is either defective or too small? It may be, and going to a bigger sand filter will generally give you better performance.

We call them "Guess Strips" because they are almost impossible to read accurately. We recommend the Taylor K-2006 instead.

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php/14994

What are you shocking with? If you use Dichlor or Trichlor and your stabilizer level is high you'll just make the problem worse.

[Watermom]

Having one that is "too big" is not a problem. A bigger sand filter is always better!

Welcome to the Pool Forum!

[joseatmc]

Thanks Carl!

I'll buy that test kit as soon as possible. I'm pretty sure I'm using the Trichlor. according to the test strips the stabilizer and alkalinity are the only things low.

the pool is 18x36 but it has an 8 foot deep end and a 4 foot shallow end. Not exactly sure how quickly it slopes since I've never been in there.

As far as the sand filter goes, the filter seems to be leaking slightly from the top, the pressure gauge when we bought the house was completely missing and when we closed on it there was a new one that was fixed to the top of the filter with some kind of apoxy putty. we've had literally 3 or 4 pool companies inspect the pool and tell us what we should do/need to do, only one said that we should probably get a new sand filter. However, all of them said that the pool is old and at the "end of it's life" not sure what that exactly means.

my water is as of today a light aqua color and slightly cloudy. I've been running the pool cleaner 5 or 6 times in the last 3 days .. I've started with a bag insert to capture the big debris and am now using the 2 micron filters. hopefully the cloudiness will go away soon. it does look noticeably better.

[joseatmc]

Thanks Watermom!

do you have any recommendations for a great sand filter. I've been told that it will run me about $1K. I've also been told to wait til the fall or winter so they will have better deals since it's their slow time.

[Watermom]

Though I still stand by the advice that you can't go too big with a sand filter ------ I was just talking with Poconos, a former forum moderator who is more of a pool equipment guru than I am, and mentioned this thread. He agreed that you could use the bigger filter but also thought that the 24 inch one (300 lbs of sand) would actually do just fine on your size pool and would save you money. I have a Hayward filter but can't tell you specifics about their various models.

[joseatmc]

any recommendation on chemical brands? or just chemicals in general... so far i've only been using the chemicals that homedepot sells since... I know i'll probably get yelled at for doing that but it is just so convenient, that is until i buy the chemicals off of amazon.

[CarlD]

For chemicals, go to our sister site, Poolsolutions.com and see the following!

http://www.poolsolutions.com/tips/pool-chemicals-at-the-grocery-store.html

Yes, it's really, really true. Ordinary chemicals you can get at your supermarket are packaged and marketed as super-de-duper magic (and expensive) miracle fixes!

So...for Chlorine: Bleach or Liquid chlorine.
For raising pH: Borax or Washing Soda.
For increasing Alkalinity: Baking Soda.
For decreasing pH: Muriatic Acid or generic Dry Acid

For stabilizer: CYA powder.

And that's really ALL you need to maintain a sweet, sanitary, safe pool!

[joseatmc]

OK... I had a friend of mine take my water in to get tested while I wait for my testing kit.. here are the results.

Free available chlorine = 4ppm
total available chlorine = 4 ppm
calcium hardness = 100 ppm (low)
CYA = 55ppm
total Alkalinity = 160ppm (high)
ph 7.8
copper 0
iron 0
phosphates 0

my water is still cloudy it's much less green today...

1) i was told to pu in 4lbs of green to clean, wait 5 min and shock it with 5lbs of shock wait 12 hrs and shock it with 5 lbs of shock and the if it is still cloudy use clarifier. should i do this? I'm thinking maybe...

I back washed my sand filter yesterday and it was pretty dirty so i'm hoping the water will clear up...

2) They also recommended me to put in Muratic Acid or Dry acid to lower alkalinity .. should i do this? I'm thinking yes...

3) They also said to add 48lbs of hardness plus to raise calcium hardness... should i do this? I'm thinking no way... What good is calcium hardness for in a vinyl pool?

[Watermom]

Answers to your pool store recommendations:

1) No. No to "green to clean" and no to unknown ingredients in bags of shock that may raise your CYA higher if they happen to be dichlor. Better to just use bleach to shock with. No to the clarifier at this point.

2) No. Don't worry about the alk right now. Just concentrate on cleaning up the algae first and then if you want, we can help you tweak your pH and alk. But, honestly, it is ok where it is.

3) A big NO. You are right. Vinyl pools do NOT need calcium.

In a 19K gallon pool (assuming that Carl's estimate is correct), each of the 121-oz jugs of Walmart's generic 8.25% bleach will add about 4ppm of chlorine. Use that as a reference to help you determine how much bleach to add each time you test. With a CYA of 55, you'll want to shock the pool up to about 15-20ppm.

Have you ordered a Taylor K2006 kit? If so, when do you expect it to arrive?

[CarlD]

Pool stores ALL look at calcium levels and if it's not between 200 and 400 they say "You need calcium". No, you don't. Calcium is, as you suspect, for masonry pools, because the concrete, mortar, plaster, and grout all are calcium carbonate and water will leech and weaken them unless there's sufficient calcium in the water. Vinyl? NOT an issue! :)

Magic additives sold by pool stores never work. Period. I never use them. Watermom never uses them, and most of our support team here never use them. The RARE times any of them might be usable, the owner, PoolDoc (Ben) can determine EXACTLY how to use whatever and what steps to take, but that is very, Very, VERY rare! 99.999% of the time they are a problem and do no good.

[joseatmc]

Thank you watermom and CarlD!

Yes I purchased the test kit.

Estimated delivery date of the testing kit is... Sept. 17, 2014 - Sept. 22, 2014

It's been poring all day today so far almost 6 inches has fallen just in the past 5 hours! it's crazy.. the pool is looking full, and I'm guessing I'm going to need to pour a lot of chlorine in or it's going to turn green again! today the pool looked light blue but still foggy.. i backwashed yesterday and cleaned the sand filter, hopefully it will start clearing up... of course this rain may change everything.

oh yeah.. a little more information on the pool... I looked at my pump and its a 3/4 hp pump.. the filters information is completely faded so no idea brand or size. if i get the 24 or 30 inch sand filter should i upgrade the pump to 1hp or 1.5 or not at all?

[Watermom]

A 3/4hp pump is just fine. In fact, you don't want a too powerful pump. The equipment set ups that work best are larger filter paired with pumps that are not too big.

[CarlD]

Watermom is right ( :) )! More horsepower is GREAT in cars, boats, motorcycles and lawnmowers--but not in pools! It just burns electricity and frequently overtaxes undersized filters.

[joseatmc]

Update on the pool today.. water is blue but still cloudy... do I just wait to see if the filter takes care of the cloudiness? haven't done much except shock with chlorine after the big rain so that it doesn't go green again. what does cloudiness mean when it comes to pools?

[Watermom]

It usually means dead algae. Keep your chlorine high and run the pump 24/7 while you are trying to clear it.

[joseatmc]

OK so ran pump 24/7 through the weekend... water still cloudy, however it is less coudy than it was.. i can now see to the second rung of the latter, but it's a big couldy.. the top rung is crystal clear. at this rate, my water will be clear just in time to close the pool...