New Member, yucky pool

My husband and I have decided to resurrect our old cheapo above ground pool for another year. We are retired now and just want it to cool off in, but the costs of chemicals are so high and we always goof up the pool.

It's a 15" by 4" older one of those flexible wall ones. We bought a used Heyward DE filter instead of the little one that came with it. We've had this whole setup about 15 years.

I'm very interested in figuring out this BBB system. What we did other years was loads of work and we never seemed to keep up with it. And of course the winter cover shifted and it filled with leaves. Really nasty sludge mess, will be quite a project. Any advice, and no we can't afford a new one.

Sorry, but the BBB method won't keep out leaves. ;) I'm curious though: what brand of pool is it that has lasted 15 years?

Anyhow, A 15' x 4' round pool should hold about 4,900 gallons. I think if your pool is well and truly slimed, it might be cheaper to dump and refill, than to clean up the mess.

If you water rates are high enough so that's not true, the place to start is by removing all the leaves. You don't really want to start adding chemicals till all the big gunk is gone. On a small pool like that, I would just use a pool pole and a leaf net, like this:

Decent consumer model:
Kem-Tek 555-6 Aluminum Framed Leaf Rake Pool and Spa Accessories
Commercial grade model
Purity Pool Ultra-Lite 18-Inch Lightweight Professional Leaf Rake, Tuff Duty Model

Once you've got the leaves out, you'll need a testkit and some bleach. See the test kit info page - but look around at your local Walmarts: the HTH 6-way test kit (NOT: strips) is a great deal, where available.

You can get bleach -- PLAIN 6% bleach -- at Walmart, too.

Hello! Thanks for the reply. As far as the brand, I've no idea. They aren't sold anymore. It was before they came up with the Intex type pools. It was like $250. Of course we've replaced the liner a few times in those years. And bought the bigger pump. I believe I still have some of the literature in the mess of files, will look.

Yes, we have well water here, so we've decided to just empty it completely. Quite the mess, worse than usual. We replaced the liner last year and it already looks just horrible. Very hard water.

I think one of our problems is we don't always use stabilizer. And as far as bleach, do you just mean the regular laundry bleach? I've also seen an agricultural grade bleach at our Tractor Supply. Anyone familiar with that? Any better or worse?

I'm so excited to find this forum and this alternative method of pool care.

+ PLAIN 6% laundry bleach -- let's save the ag bleach for later, once you've gotten the basics under control.

+ You need a good test kit. The *only* good testkit that's sometimes available locally is the HTH 6-way (kit, not strips!) avail at some Walmarts. Otherwise, get a cheapie local OTO / phenol red kit. You'll need the K2006 eventually, however. (Test kit info page link in my signature)

+ Hard well water is not a problem. Iron or other metals in the well water IS a problem. Let me know.

+ You cannot run an outdoor pool well without stabilizer, unless you are willing to work yourself to death.

This is nice to have somebody give me some direction in this.

Well we got it empty today except some bottom sludge. I started scrubbing. The stuff is coming off the bottom quite well. With a scrub brush and elbow grease and then I'm sucking up the sludge with a shop vac.

Having problems with the walls. I think we really screwed ourselves and put the liner in upside down. We have the smooth side to the inside, (the swimming side). And seem to be having more problems than ever. It looked like the right way as the seam edge is then to the outside. The entire walls have what I assume to be calcium deposits, but have never had this bad of problem before. Very rough, white. I've got some lime a way. But could I maybe uses like the thick toilet bowl cleaner?

I saw on another thread that you get a % of amazon sales through the links. I will definitely try to use that link for all my shopping on there. This site is wonderful and I'm so thankful to have someone to ask. Money is tight and I think we could save a lot this way.

For start up we do still have some Sock It left from last year. We could use that up first and then switch to bleach or not? Thanks so much for your help.

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Hello again, So that I can order through Amazon and have it get here when ready to fill, could you give me an idea what I need to order? I'm going to town tomorrow to buy the small test kit for temporary and will order the better one. I'll also pick up bleach, and whatever else you say I need from WalMart.

So the manual that came with the pool says 5200 gals if dished. It is dug down quite a bit to about 5' at the center. We have well water, high calcium not too high of iron but some iron. We once had the pool turn bright green when we chlorinated. Pool store guy said it was copper. But that only happened one time. I don't understand either.

What should I buy for a stabilizer? I'm really dumb on stabilizers. But after reading more see that it's very important. I'm anxious to get filling but will be a while before it's all scrubbed. I have a messed up rotator cuff in my shoulder and can only scrub for so long. Also, just from your experience I would think we'd need to lower PH? I will test, but don't get to town every day so would like to have the stuff on hand if possible. Thanks again for helping.

Hi! I thought I'd answer in case Ben isn't able to before you go to Walmart, because I just bought all this stuff a month ago to open my ag pool too. :)

== OTO test kit
== 1 jug of stabilizer (hth stabilizer & conditioner looks like this)
== Several (as many as you feel like buying/storing at a time) gallons of plain unscented 6% bleach, store brand is fine
== 1 box of 20 mule team borax (laundry isle). This is in case you need to raise your ph. Not sure how much you'll actually need until you test your water's ph but might as well have it on hand.
== 1 box of baking soda. This is to raise alkalinity. Won't know how much, if any, you'll need until water is tested. (If your store has the hth 6-way test kit that Ben mentioned, get one of those)
== Acid. You won't know how much, if any, you'll need to add until you test your water's ph. It's something you'll need on hand though so you can go ahead and get a jug. You can either go with muriatic acid (liquid) or dry acid (at walmart it's called hth ph minus looks like this aka sodium bisulfate)

And that should be your pool supply staples for the season.

Just finished reading through your posts:

1. Do not use the Sock-it now. It adds calcium and you're going to be trying to REMOVE calcium.

2. Can you do a white bucket test on your fill water?

• Take a CLEAN 5 gallon white bucket;
• fill it with 4 gallons of whatever water you'll use to fill the pool;
• add 1/4 cup of bleach and 1/8 cup of baking soda; mix and cover;
• wait 24 hours and inspect to see if there is any sediment on the bottom;
• wait 24 more hours and inspect again.
• Tell me what you find -- color and amount.

3. When you refill, lets use ONLY 3 chemicals: bleach, borax and muriatic acid.

Read the muriatic acid page, so you can handle it safely
Add 1 qt of bleach each evening
Use 20 Mule Team borax if the pH gets below 7.0 -- 1/4 box added slowly via the skimmer
Use muriatic acid if the pH gets above 7.6 -- about 1/4 of a gallon jug.

4. If you can buy 1 - 2 lbs of stabilizer at Walmart, do so. Put it in a sock, and hang it in front of a return. If you can't get it here, you can order it from Amazon:
Kem-Tek Stabilizer 4lbs

Luckily for once I do have a clean bucket with a cover! Yes, I will get that started in the AM. This is so exciting!

Hopefully if both of us work on it we can get it all scrubbed down tomorrow and start filling soon. Will get all the stuff to start tomorrow. Oh, I hate WalMart on a Saturday! Always seems to be when I end up there though.

Thank you both for your help. Perhaps this year I will finally be able to enjoy our old pool instead of just endless drudgery and worrying about what it looks like on the Google map. (Yes, the last update of the map it is hideous). Oh the shame.

Well, rats. Went to order the Taylor 2006 test kit on Amazon. It said they had 1 left. But when I clicked it said not available. Added it to my wish list. I am still owed a Mother's Day present. When it comes in again I will collect on that. So will just have the little one to start with.

Hooray, We are on the way back. Just started it filling. Fingers crossed for the liner. But the liner is clean!

In the bucket where you said to put bleach and baking soda. The water has a white film on top. The water is colorless but quite cloudy. Don't know if this is telling anything. Will check it again tomorrow AM.

I'm really wondering how we ended up with so much calcium on the liner. I can understand at the water line, but all up and down and even some on the floor. I was quite an acidic adventure removing all that.

And I see that we should create a signature line with our specs. I will attempt it. Thanks much pool people!