My first step in getting off $oft $wim...

It's too cold to swim here now, so I've decided to take a shot at getting off soft swim NOW rather than in the spring.

Just ordered the 2006 test kit from the links here at the PF.
When it arrives I'll be testing fill water out of the hose.
I will also do a partial drain and refill to dilute the soft swim and test the diluted pool.

My main challenge is avoiding the coffee colored water that I know will come with the addition of chlorine to our rural water. This will happen, my neighbor has told me his did.

While you're waiting, it might be helpful to contact your water dept and get an analysis of your water--specifically, whether it contains metals and, if so, which ones. Adding high doses of chlorine to metall-laden water will make it pretty ugly-looking, but much of it can be filtered out.

Then again, the conversion process to chlorine can produce some pretty interesting colors in and of itself--if you don't have metals in the water, and the coffee-colored water is a byproduct of the conversion, there's not much you can do about it other than keep adding chlorine...

Are you sure that you want to convert now, instead of waiting until spring? If you convert now, then close the pool, you're going to have to clean up the winter mess when spring arrives, anyway. Why not just let the pool water dilute itself with the winter rains, then do it all at once when spring gets here--that way, when it's done, you can go swimming! The conversion will go easier, the lower levels of Softswim that you have. Just something to consider.....

Thanks for the reply. I will most definitely contact my water company for test reports.

I'm on the fence about when to attempt this conversion: Now, or spring. I kind of thought I would mess with it now so that I have a window of down time in case I really mess it up or something. It's going to have to happen sooner or later, so I suppose I shouldn't lose too much sleep over when.

My main fear is not the soft swim. My main fear is coffee colored water from the fill water and chlorine. This is a known fact in my rural neighborhood, and everyone here is on Baquacil because of it. I want to get away from the cost of soft swim, but I don't want 7 weeks of sewer water in my pool.

I will do two things first: Test my fill water when the kit arrives (maybe today?). And obtain a report from my water company. Then with that info I'll report back here and see if you good people can help walk me through this. By the way, it's unlikely I'd attempt this conversion without this forum as a resource, so thank you to everyone that helps out the new guys like me.

I just found our water company's newsletter.
Please look at the bottom of the fourth page.
Is that info helpful?

http://lrwd1.com/Newsletter.10.pdf

(edit) I just noticed it's a newsletter from 2009. Things may change over time, so I'll find more current info. But based upon that report, what do you think I should do first?

I've asked Ben to check into this thread and see if he has any specific advice for you, given the water quality report. It would be helpful to know what causes the brown--if it's metals, tannins, or just water source, because that's going to determine how the cleanup will go. Let's see what Ben has to say, and then you can get a plan together from there.

Thank you, Aylad. It seems to be a real puzzler in our neighborhood.

I just hung up with the water utility. They're going to email me some additional info which I will post later this evening if it comes in.

Here is the data sheet that they sent me. I hope you can read it.
(Ctrl + to enlarge the view)


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ort_Page_1.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ort_Page_2.jpg

I'm with Jan on this one. I think I would wait until spring to do the conversion.