Tablets or Granules?

Hello - I have an above-ground Doughboy that was just installed. A chlorinator was installed with the pool. The pool installer said to use chlorine tablets, any name brand trichlor tablet either 1" or 3". The local pool supply store said that the tablets would cause a more rapid degradation of the vinyl liner and he is pushing the granules. Is there a trade off in the life of the liner for the convenience of the tablets, or is this a commission issue? Do you have any brands that are recommended? Thanks for your help, Bob

Neither, use bleach - the cheapest one you can find, but make sure you verify the concentration on the bottle, I found Walmarts Generic brand at 5.25% to be the most bleach for your buck, but I'm in Canada, and others may chime in and send you somewhere else for an even better deal.

I recommend you read the poolsolutions website from cover to cover, it will save you lots of $$$ and make maintenance of your pool VERY easy.

Welcome to Pool ownership!

One of the reasons he may have said that tablets cause degradation of the liner is that trichlor is very acidic and if you don't keep track of your ph, it can harm your liner. If you keep your ph in line 7.4 -7.6, then you should have no problem using the tablets. The granules add calcium that is not really needed in a vinyl liner pool. Most of us on the forum use bleach, but chlorine is chlorine - you just have to be aware of what else is added with the product you choose.

Now that I know what I know thanks to this forum, I'll never use the tabs again. Each week, I'd be dumping POUNDS and POUNDS of PH increaser in my pool just to keep it borderline normal. And of course my ALK level was off the charts.

Nope, from now on, bleach for me!