Durham, you are overlooking a key point: when people test pH 6.8 or 7.0, that does NOT (depending on their testor) mean that the pH is 6.8 or 7.0. Rather it means that their pH is 6.8 (or &.0) OR BELOW.

The reason is, their testors only go to 6.8 or 7.0, so they read any result that is that yellow OR yellower as the low value on their kit.

You made two mistakes.

Your first was to overlook the fact that the pool had not been 7.2 and then drifted down to 7.0. Rather it had been largely untested, which means that none of the moderators really knew what the pH was: for all they knew, it WAS 5.0, because that pH level would have produced the SAME reading -- for many pool owners, using many of the standard kits -- as if it was actually 6.8 or 7.0.

Now, I'm not sure that everyone who posted understood WHY it is important to get the pH above 7.2, or that an ACTUAL pH of 6.8 is not damaging to liners. But, the bottom line is, whether they understood or not, THEIR advice was operationally correct and yours was wrong . . . because neither you nor they could be sure the the OP's pH was NOT 5.0, until they raised the pH to the mid-range of their tester!

Your second mistake was in challenging the moderators in the middle of a post, rather than here.

The advice given here is not perfect. I'm aware of many flaws in some of the posts, including some of mine. But the fact is, the advice given here is, all things considered, probably the best advice a residential pool owner can obtain on operating their pool effectively and economically.

But . . . it only works, when people follow it. And when someone challenges the moderators mid-stream, what users tend to do, is not wade through all the complexity of the various points in the argument, but rather they retreat to a what is familiar and thus psychologically more comfortable: pool store advice.

So, not only was your advice wrong in its substance (if not in all the reasoning behind it) but also your challenge in the form you presented it likely to result in the OP bailing out and proceeding to follow even WORSE advice.

I'm not sure whether you belong here or not.

Once you transition from asking questions, to posting answers, our expectations of your behavior go up considerably. We have an area for public debate, that's been heavily used over the years. But that place is NOT in the middle of threads from someone about to go on vacation.

So, if you feel yourself unable to offer my moderators the respect they've earned from 10 years of trying to help 1000's of people, by bringing your challenges to the right section and posing them with a polite and careful manner . . . then I agree, the PoolForum is not for you. There is no shortage of forums where rudeness and disorder are the norm.

Sincerely,

Ben Powell