Going on vacation -- good plan??

We have an 8000 gall (or so) vinyl pool. We are going on vacation for three weeks. We live in southern California and temp is low 80s to high 80s this time of year usually.

pH is always at 7.5, never done anything to it, never seems to change.

Currently we have a cheap intex salt cell. It looses time and drives our neighbour mad if it does because it beeps incessantly if it gets out of sync so we have decided it is better to turn it off while we are away. We are also going to turn the solar off to reduce the water temp.

We have a tree that drops and sheds leaves in the pool, but previous attempts to fix this have not been successful. We have had mustard algae this summer but have not seen it since shocking heavily and adding polyquat.

For the first 5 days we are gone the pool gets to entertain itself and throw parties with algae. After that a local kid is going to do some basic pool care. It is new to him so our plan is to have him test Cl levels and add bleach (shock if necessary, quite possible after 5 days), skim and empty the skimmer basket also brush if he sees algae or feels slime. We have told him to keep it above 3 at all times, preferably around 5 so long as there is no evidence of algae or crazy disappearing Cl.

Our CYA levels are somewhere between 30 and 40. I'm thinking I should shock the pool (how high should I go?) the morning we leave and stick some pucks in a floaty.

Does that sound good enough? I'm not expecting perfect, so long as it isn't a swamp full of mosquitos I figure I'll just fight with it after the wild party.

Nobody who can come and pour a jug of bleach in during the first 5 days?

I would probably shock up to about 15ppm. If you are going to use trichlor, I'd suggest raising your pH up to around 7.7 or 7.8 with some 20 Mule Team Borax. Trichlor is very acidic and will drive your pH down. So, better to give the pH some 'wiggle' room.

What are you going to do about your pump? If you have a tree that drops a lot of debris in the pool, I'd be afraid to leave the pump running for fear of the basket stopping up and causing the pump to burn up.

The clogged skimmer basket while on vacation and leaving the pool unattended has always been a concern of mine as well.

We resolved it last year by cutting a piece of fiberglass window screen just slightly larger than the rectangular opening to our skimmer. We then undid the screws that hold the skimmer frame in place, inserted the fly screen over the opening, and replaced the frame. No debris got in the skimmer basket, nothing could clog it. Yes, we had some leaves and bugs on the bottom of the pool but that wasn't a big deal to scoop up.

We were able to let the timer run the pump during our absence and let the chlorinator inject just a minimal amount of chlorine to keep the water from turning green.

Anna,
That is a great idea. Thanks for sharing that.

thanks for the advice!

My neighbour offered to put some bleach in one evening during the five days so I think we might be ok.

Trichlor doesn't seem to alter my pH. Nothing seems to, my kids splashing, pucks in the floater etc. It really is always the same.

Our skimmer doesn't have a frame like that but perhaps we could rig some sort of flap...?? In the past we have taken a pool noodle and tied it in an arc to make a kind of dam around the skimmer to stop floaties gumming up the works.

See if you can talk your neighbor into coming by twice to add bleach. If they'll only be able to come once, make sure they add a hefty dose to hold it a couple of days until the kid starts coming by daily.