Can my pool stay home alone for 10 days?

[jereece]

Here's what I do.

Punch one ~1/8 inch hole in top and one or two in the bottom of a set of bleach bottles and string them out over my pool. I use one bleach bottle for every day I will be gone.

http://www.jreece.com/bleach1.jpg
http://www.jreece.com/bleach2.jpg

The density of bleach is 1.09 (slightly heavier than water) so it slowly leaches out of the bottles. My experience is that it takes 5-7 days to totally get out of the bottle with 1/8 inch holes. I also run my pool pump using a timer.

[poolmom06]

Here's what I do.

Punch one ~1/8 inch hole in top and one or two in the bottom of a set of bleach bottles and string them out over my pool. I use one bleach bottle for every day I will be gone.

http://www.jreece.com/bleach1.jpg
http://www.jreece.com/bleach2.jpg

The density of bleach is 1.09 (slightly heavier than water) so it slowly leaches out of the bottles. My experience is that it takes 5-7 days to totally get out of the bottle with 1/8 inch holes. I also run my pool pump using a timer.

Thank you for sharing this!I wish I had seen it a week ago!

[amyinraleigh]

Just out of curiosity, are your animals staying at a shelter or someone else's home? What kind of animals are they? I can't imagine what sort of pet you could leave for 10 days without needing fresh food or water.

OH MY GOODNESS! Most of my pets have never been alone for 10 HOURS! Here's what I wrote a couple posts back:

I have many pets that are going to be graciously well cared-for by my immediate neighbors, I don't want to dump the pool on them as well. That care and time is taken with my animals is much more important to me than overwhelming the caretakers with "a very complex and intricate" additional burden - which I myself don't even fully understand.

This is the problem, so many people are doing so much for us already I don't feel comfortable loading one more thing on anyone that isn't absolutely necessary....

Between the floater and stringing up bleach bottles though, I think it'll be covered. I'm leaning toward the floater (the bleach bottle string-up is a great idea tho, I'm just too new at this and still don't fully feel comfortable leaving 10 bottles of bleach in my pool, I've only gone through 3 bottles since filling my pool 10 days ago....) - my CYA is still only just at 20, so more probably won't hurt. Is there any way of telling just how much stabilizer is in a floater?

Thanks again!! Amy

[medvampire]

With a start point of 20 CYA and the amount of time you will be gone I don’t think you should have too much of a problem. The release rate from the chlorine floater with an 18 ft intex should be very low so I am sure the amount you build in CYA will not too great. With out a starting point of your pH and ALK it would be hard to really pinpoint your need to preadjust your ranges but if you are on the high side of normal on both I think you will be alright due to the low release from the floater. So what I would do.
Check your chemistry.
If ALK is normal on the high end leave it alone. If low adjust up slightly.
If pH is low adjust up but stay with normals.
I don’t know the settings on the specific floater but check the instructions and set for maintance dose
Tie the floater like I posted previously.
Pack up and go on vacation. Have fun and enjoy a margarita for us.
Steve

[ChuckD]

No one's mentioned it, so I will:
A maintenance dose of poly60 would be good insurance as well.

There, I said it.

C.

[amyinraleigh]

ChuckD - Are you saying I should expect the worst?!?

How many 3" pucks should I use? Can I put too many, and if so besides raising CYA what would too many do to my pool?

Thanks!! Amy

[chem geek]

How many 3" pucks should I use? Can I put too many, and if so besides raising CYA what would too many do to my pool?

Amy,

Chuck's advice is a good "better safe than sorry". I'm glad he mentioned it though I don't think you'll be running out of chlorine nor getting algae.

I can't find in any of your posts where you said how many gallons of water you have in your pool. I'd need to know that to tell you how many pucks to use and what the effect would be. As an example, one 3" Tri-Chlor puck adds 2.54 ppm of chlorine and 2.1 ppm of CYA into my 16,000 gallon pool and lowers the pH by 0.07 (when the TA is 110). If you use too many pucks, you will have more chlorine (not a problem), lower your pH more (could be a problem if it drops too much), and add CYA into your pool (only a problem if this were a lot). I wouldn't worry at all about the amount of chlorine and even CYA you will be adding to your pool. It's really only an issue if you use pucks all summer long. I'd be more worried about the effect on pH which is why we recommend beefing up your alkalinity level (TA) and starting with a higher pH to somewhat reduce that effect.

I wouldn't worry too much about this. For 10 days, just throw in 3 pucks in a slow flow feeder and I think you'll be fine unless your pool is much larger than mine. Just start out with your pH at 7.7 to play it safe.

Richard

[ChuckD]

I routinely leave my pool for a couple weeks at a time with only someone to add a bit of chlorine once a week. I leave it with a solar cover on that's been cut to fit the water surface and the pump runs twice a day for four hours at a time. No pucks for me, thank you.

I added a maintenance dose poly60 (one quart for my 22,000 gals.) at the beginning of the season in May, and two weeks ago when I discovered a small bit of algae appearing in areas where the water didn't get much circulation. My water's always crystal clear.

As I've said before, I think the Poly60 is a CYA (the other kind) and good insurance.

If your CYA (the real one) is at 20, I agree with the others, three pucks in a floater, cover it and have a holiday. If your CYA was high I'd say the punctured Clorox bottles would be the way to go.

C.