need help w/ my pool.

ok Ill try to make this easy???? 28ft round above ground useing baqucil for the 4th year, sand filter, living in milwaukee wis, cant aford this stuff any more its killing me money wise, this year open may 31, little cloudy its june 13 water is almost perfect, had my water tested yesterday they said my baquacil was at 5???? I thought it was at 30-50??? they said add 6 and a half pints to bring it back up, 65dollars later its back up , i keep a clean pool upkeep every day, this costs me 400- 500 dollars a year, as all my friends with other systems use alot less $$$$, I want to switch over next year May my ???? is wy cant i drain my pool and start all over, fresh then i dont have to make this chemical switch, cant i drain my pool way down and then add fresh water help me??? I only know this way, its not real bad buts its way to$$$$$$$$$ for me want to switch. thanks

If your pool can stay structurally sound during draining, then draining and refilling probably is your best option. Another of our moderators, Poconos, brought up the idea of using a big plastic sheet over your water, adding water from the top as you pump water from the bottom, so that the pool never drains, yet you get a full water exchange. Or...you can always make your conversion now, instead of wasting another swim season! If you'll read through the other posts in this forum, you'll find lots of conversion stories that should help convince you that you're NOT the only one that's ever gotten fed up with an expensive pool that you can't use!

Janet

Larry,

Why not switch now? It will save you a lot of $$$ over the summer, and you should have a sparkling pool within a week. I switched from Baquacil last year towards the end of the season. My pool has never looked better! No cloudy look, no funny smell, and lastly, no algae. I used to buy my Baquacil from ebay and would save a lot of $$$ that way. The savings by using the BBB method are unbelievable. Good luck in whatever you do, but I would switch now and be done with it.

thanks for the reply as far as the pool goes its lokking almost ##10 clean and almost clear the only problems i encounter is cloudy milky water not real bad, if you go under water and open your eyes you almosst can see the other side, as far as converting now Im sacred to do now as every thing seems ok, for now at least, cant i drain mosst of it in fall when the baquicl level will be low and then convert?? whats the best way u think to do it?? how do you start converting?? reply thanks for your help one more thing if i drain later as the water will be delooted i wont have as the scum and mess others are taking about then the baqucil level will be very low that good right, fill me in with more info if you can

You can wait until Fall and drain some water off, which would dilute the amount of Baquacil, which may speed the process up a day or so. However, for the amount of $$$ you will save, and the CLARITY of your water, I would suggest changing now. Look at around the last page of this thread and look at my pictures of my conversion. Look at the last couple after the conversion. I can see my bottom drain plain as day now, almost like looking through glass. On Baquacil, when it wasn't scattered-smothered-covered in algae, then the water had the hazy, milky look you mentioned. It's your pool and ultimately your decision. I'm just giving my unbiased opinion as someone that's been there/done that, and I would say switch now. You will have the cleanest, clearest pool for a great 4th of July party! Plus, the $$$ you save from chemicals will buy some nice healthy t-bones for the grill. ;)

Unless you have a surplus of Baquacil chemicals hanging around, aren't you going to have to spend more money to buy more of them if you wait until the end of the season? From the others than have converted, you should be able to do it in a week or less. If your water seems OK at the moment, you could wait until the next dosing of chemicals is needed and start the conversion then. Read through the other posts for instructions but the first step will be buy lots of bleach. Find a post by mwsmith2 and download his Bleach-calc program - you can use that to figure out how much bleach you will need for each initial dose. Good luck.

Peter

If you did not add anymore Baquacil to your pool, it should be real easy to kill off the remaining chemicals with bleach. You can convert now. You must have had a lot in your pool, because most people will have 0 when then open their pools after winter.

Yes, You can convert

Even if you wait to next year, you don't have to drain. Where I live I lose about 1/3 of my water due to evaporation. Yes, water evaporates under the cover. Read up on converting at the Baquacil thread.

Again, if you did not add the stuff to your pool, you can convert. You can convert even with high levels, but it will take a lot of bleach to kill the Baquacil off. It can be done and lots have done it.

After you convert, you will probably want to change out your sand as it will be gunked up with Baquacil.

Good Luck