Funny story about me, a first time pool owner

I feel like a complete dumb-A for what I have done. I will share my story with you, since 1. I hope you never do anything this dumb, 2. You do not know me, work with me, nor socialize with me, so therefore I cannot be the blunt of your daily jokes.

I recently bought a foreclosed house, that had a older gunite in ground pool. The pool pump was burned up, and the filter looked really old and raged, when you would brush your hand down the side of the filter, you would get the chalky residue on your hand. The stickers on the filter had all but deteriorated, falling victim to the Florida sun.

I have never owned a pool before, and didnt have a clue what I was getting into. I personally wanted to fill the pool with dirt, but the fiance was not hearing it. I started the daunting task of trying to turn what looked like a great place to fish, into a crystal clear pool for my fiance to soak up the Florida sun in.

Once while cleaning the skimmer, I had a bull frog jump out, and it went straight over my right shoulder. It was the size of a softball. I immediately took cover, falling over the flower pots which surround our "Own Personal Fishing Pond". She got a good kick out of it.

Anyways, on to the real bone headed part of the story. I was able to get the floating clumps of algea out of the pool, and after about 23 gallons of bleach, I got rid of the green color. It stayed milky white color for over week. I could not get it out, so I started adding Flocculant to the pool. Well, 2 bottles of floculant later, and another 15 gallons of bleach, I still have the milky white pool.

I could see the clumpy white matter floating in the pool, but the filter would not get it. I would shut off the filter and let it ll sink to the bottom of pool. Then I would vacuum to waste. This went on for little while, but still no sign of relief. I finally decided that I had to step in, do the manly thing, and get this pool fixed. I went to wal-mart and bought some George brand, XL panty hose body shapers. You know the kind that looks like some pull up spandex pants with socked feet.

I ties up the legs, at the crotch area, and placed it over my skimmer basket, and another on my pool net. I began recirculating the filter again, and scooping the white clumps out. Finally, the white clumps would not just go through my net and skimmer.

Well to make a long story short, I did this for a few days, and can finally see the bottom of my pool. YEAH!!!!

Thats when I realized what I had did. As I said early in the story, that the sand filter stickers where almost gone, I had been running the sand filter on recirculate the whole time. I had simply been running the pool pump 24/7 and not filtering a dang thing. Yeah, I was pretty ticked at myself, but am now glad I realized that the filter needs to be set to "FILTER" for it to actually FILTER the pool water.

I was vacuuming and back washing so much, I must have refilled my pool 15 times. I truly wasted a lot of electricity, bleach, flocculant, and time... Glad I know to run it on filter now though.

Well--at least you know that your recirculate mode works! :) Don't feel bad, that's not the craziest thing we've ever seen on this forum, not by a long shot.

Glad your pool is looking better :cool:

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Originally Posted by Wraypau

You do not know me, work with me, nor socialize with me, so therefore I cannot be the blunt of your daily jokes.

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I think I'm going to like having you around the forum! I love your attitude!

Yeah, I am all cool now. I have never been madder at myself, yet have a great feeling of accomplishment, when I finally saw the light.

My Taylor K2006 came in tonight. About 20 minuites before receiving the K-2006, I had poured 4 gallons of bleach into pool.

I wanted to try adn test my pool with my new toy, the K-2006. I was doing as said, got my sample, to 25ml, then Places 2 R-0870 scoops into it. It turned pick, and stayed that way. I then put two drops of the R-0871, but nothing happened. So I add a drop, then shake, and repet, waiting for colorless to return. I finally had 30 drops of R-0871 into my test cup, and still it was pink. I figured I will have to wait until some of the chlorine goes away then get a better reading,..

Your reagents will last longer if you use the 10ml sample size. You really don't need that level of accuracy to clean your pool.

Why did you add so much bleach? In your small pool, 4 gallons would add about 35ppm of chlorine.

Because I don't have a clue what I am doing. If I over bleach it, it will keep the algae from coming back. This was my initial thought, until I received NY K-2006. Now that I have the test kit, I plan on balancing the pool water, then installing the Aqua-rite 25k SWCG, eco star vari-speed pump, and new sand filter.

The Aqua-rite manual says that it needs a good balanced pool before starting up. My pool has been eating about 2.5 galls of bleach per day. This afternoon, my chlorine level should be down and hopefully I can get an accurate water test.

Should i be filtering through my filter or main pool drain to get rid of the rest of the flocculant infested. Cloudy water?

Generally when you have added floc, it's to settle the particles down to the bottom so they can be vacuumed out. So if the stuff is on the bottom, and you can sweep it toward the main pool drain, I would do that. If it's all still suspended in the water, then use your filter.

I really like your attitude--just remember, we all learned it the same way :)

Dude, poll school just started, but at least you are in the right place. Good luck getting the floc mess out. Once you do you will be golden. I was all that about SWG until I got here. I ran my pool for $110.00 last year in total chemical cost. SWGs work alright, but you really don't need that. Just saying...