Pool Service Company and Liquid Chlorine / Bleach

[catnip]

Hello folks. First, let me thank you all for the great information and attitude you have provided over the past month I've been lurking here.

I have a dilemma: we share a beach house and pool with several other families. We are there one week out of four and use a pool service company that visits once a week to maintain the pool. They use tri-chlor pucks in an in-line feeder and shock with cal-hypo. Based on what I've read here, I would like to move to bleach, but that's largely not possible since I'm there only one week out of four and the other families are not interested in doing the maintenance themselves.

So, my question: Is it possible or practical to have the pool service company switch to liquid chlorine, possibly with some kind of automatic feeder to provide daily doses in between their weekly visits to check chemistry, brush, vacuum, shock if needed, etc.? The service company maintains at least one commercial pool with liquid chlorine, so I know they have some experience with this method.

I would appreciate any feedback or ideas you folks have on this approach. I'm trying to get some level of knowledge before I approach the service company owner about switching to liquid chlorine.

Thanks!

[noworries]

Since you're paying the pool guy to maintain the chemistry of your pool, he's probably going to want to do it his way.

I would consider installing a SWG and an automatic pool cleaner if you want to get rid of the pool service company. Otherwise I'd just let them do their job.

[Spensar]

... but keep an eye on the CYA levels!

[catnip]

Spensar and noworries, thanks for your feedback. I, too, am a bit concerned about the CYA growing too high and more specifically about CH. Plus, I've seen the FC decline to near zero toward the end of the weekly service interval. We've had some problems with pool flooding caused by a difficult rain water drainage issue (maybe solved by some new drainage piping). The service company has used lots of Cal-Hypo for shock which (I think) has driven the CH level up to around 400. This week, after a heavy shock to combat some algae, we had blue cloudy water for the first 12 hours or so, finally quite clear and sparkly after another day but with a white percipitate on the bottom which I suppose is calcium and which I vacuumed. The pH was 7.8 (up from 7.6 recently) which may have aggravated the percipitation.

Anyway, the more I think and read about this, the more I think a SWCG might be a better solution. That should reduce the service company workload and get a lot of the not so good chemicals out of the picture, e.g. excess CYA and CH, plus keep the FC level more nearly constant between the weekly service intervals.

Any more ideas on how to optimize this situation will be appreciated!