When we had our pool built this summer, a similar thing happened to us. The pool builder contracted with a local pool guy to provide service to our pool for a month. What that meant, really, is the guy was going to come over to our home just once a week or so for a month to add chemicals to get the water balanced.

While we were into this, I bought a cheap test kit and started testing my water to find that there was no chlorine in it, so I just called the pool guy and told him there was no chlorine in the pool, and when was he going to come out next because I didn't want algae to grow in our brand new pool? So, he actually visited a little more frequently than once a week because I called him. I think it was on his 2nd visit he added some stabilizer which helped to keep chlorine in the pool, but even with stabilizer, the chlorine get dissolved pretty quickly (within a few days) of his visiting.

Although we didn't have an algae problem, I think we could have -- there was at times during that first month 0 chlorine in the pool. That gave me a bad taste in my mouth for using a pool service to care for my pool.

I noticed that he used test strips to test our water -- this was before I came to this forum and learned anything about water testing and how to care for one's own pool.

I initially thought I'd use his services all summer long, but through the advice on this forum, I cut him loose after our summer vacation in July. I feel like no one is going to test my pool's water as carefully as I do. And so no one gets more accurate pool water test results than what I can get (using the Taylor K-2006).

Our water has been gorgeous all summer. I don't realize how great our water is until we visit someone else's home, and my kids report to me how cloudy the other people's pool water is compared to ours. I credit our sparkly water to three things: this forum's advice, the K-2006 test kit, and my daily and weekly testing of pool water. I think it's Carl who has a tagline that says something like, "Take 5 minutes a day to care for your pool" -- great advice, that.