New pool owner needs help.

[shoogles]

ok, so I'm still having trouble with this shotglass method and its really making me feel dumb. Shouldn't diluting it with distilled water cause the color to change- you know what I'm saying? I'm asking this because its not. at 1:1 it is 2. At 1:6 it is still 2! What the heck am I doing wrong????

I know it has to be more than 2 or 4! I put 30 and 3/4 cups of bleach in this evening as the sun was setting after getting a FC and CC of 1. I just can't figure it out.

[shoogles]

Ok, so I decided to keep diluting the water until it came down to a level of 1. So this morning st 6:30 am and diluted to 14:1 the level was 1. So I am assuming that 14 is my free chlorine level. A little higher than I wanted to go (12), but its something. Unfortunately, I did not have this stroke of genius last night while testing, so I don't know if I lost any chlorine or not. Either way, I think I'll assume we didn't lose a negligible amount and go ahead and let the chlorine come down. Hopefully it was enough to kill any remnants of algae from our last shock and we will have a nice clear pool until the Taylor kit comes. Thank you all for your help.

[CarlD]

14 is fine.

I find I can cool the pool by running my solar panels full blast at night (they act like giant car radiators then). Also, leaving the cover off helps.

And if you can conjure up a thunderstorm, that can help.

It's simple: Just fill your pool up to its maximum with a hose or wash your car. I did the former last night and woke up to a t-storm!

[waterbear]

Another unrelated question- as you may have noticed, we live in FL. Our pool is in full sun, and it feels like bathwater. Any ideas on how to keep the temp down a bit more?

Welcome to Florida! (I grew up in Miami, graduated college in Gainesville, lived in Ft. Lauderdale previously, and now live in St. Augustine and have spent a a LOT of vacation time in the Keys, Sanibel, Naples, Tampa, Orlando, the 'glades and Ocala so I know the climate in different parts of the Sunshine State. Heck, I've even spent time in Sopchoppy before they had a traffic light and in high school got stuck in YeeHaw Junction with 2 classmates and our science teacher when his car broke down on the way to a science seminar we were headed to A YEAR BEFORE DISNEYWORD OPENED (yes, Sopchoppy, population 426 in 2000, and Yeehaw Junction are real places--Google them if you don't believe me!), and took my Barber exam in Winter Park when it was a bigger city than Orlando --Winter Park was a resort and vacation destination, Orlando was orange groves! Point being, I know Florida pretty well.) My pool has been staying around 88-90 degrees this summer in St. Augustine IN a screen enclosure! (For me it's perfect since I heat my pool to 88 degrees in the cooler weather but my heat pump is reverse cycle so I COULD cool the pool down if I chose to.)

The only way to cool a pool is either:
1) a reverse cycle heat pump (not cheap but the best solution here in Florida)
2) solar heating set to run at night instead of daytime (only works when the nights are cooler than the days so it's not the best choice for Florida in August!)
3) evaporative cooling (misters and fountains)--once again, not the best choice in Florida when 78% relative humidity is considered low in summer and humidity in the 80's and 90's is common!

Don't know of any other ways unless you happen to own an ice company and can have a few truckfuls of ice dumped into your pool daily!

[shoogles]

Yikes... didn't mean to leave you all hanging here, but we have been spending lots of time enjoying our crystal clear, warm bathwater pool since I was last here.

Still no Taylor kit- Hubby has promised I can get one though... just as soon as we clear up a few more pressing financial concerns. Probably will order it next week.

Waterbear: We are actually both native Floridians as well. My husband is from Homestead (yup, he made it through Hurricane Andrew), and I am from Lake City. I lived in both Tallahassee and Gainesville for a bit for school, but we settled down back here in my hometown. This is our first pool though so there's a lot we have still to learn, but we both agree that finding poolforum.com saved us a lot of stress and $$$!

So really, thank you all for all of your help. We'll still be lurking around here and we'll definitely post when we get some solid results from the Taylor, just in case there needs to be any adjustments. You guys are awesome!

[aylad]

Thanks for the update!! Too often we help people through a particular problem, but we then don't get the end of the story. Thanks for updating us on yours!!

Glad you're enjoying your pool now....happy swimming!

Janet

[CarlD]

Amatoind dot com has the Taylor k-2006 for $46.25 + shipping. Even this season it will STILL save you more than it costs--several times over.

CarlD

[waterbear]

Glad to hear you are enjoying the pool. That's what it is all about, isn't it?
CarlD is 1000% right about the test kit btw. Even without a heater you still have quite a long swim season left and the Taylor test kit will save you a LOT of money and pay for itself quickly! We don't live very far from each other at all and even here in N. Fl the swim season is long without a heater.

[aylad]

The Amazon site has the same kit for a few dollars more, but if you buy it through this link, then the Poolforum gets a donation from your purchase...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002IXIIG?ie=UTF8&tag=poolbooks&linkCode=as2&camp %20=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0002IXIIG"><b >Ta%20ylor%20Complete%20FAS-DPD%20Pool%20Water%20Test%20Kit%20K-2006</b

(May have to copy and paste into your address bar, the hyperlink isn't working yet)
Janet