Hi there! Hard to know where to start, but let me say I've read Pool Solutions as well as the Pool School, and both main pool forums forever. My situation: moved into a house with a 10 year old pool. Since then, I've followed the previous owners instructions, and it's been just fine, and I thought I had this figured out, and, oh, how easy it all is, no problems even in the hot, humid, and rainy Florida summer I had NO problems whatsoever- but after reading all day yesterday, I'm starting to worry that while everything seems fine, I'm doomed long-term (keyword stabilizer?!).

My specs are (water amount is based on what Pinch had on file, but I wonder if that's not too small, hard to measure it's freeform) 10,400g gunite pool, solar panel heated, Hayward Pump, Hayward Cartridge Filter, Hayward Auto-Cleaner, Hayward Inline Chlorine Feeder.

Here's what I do, based on prev owners advice. Every two weeks I add 4 Trichlor from Pinch A Penny and shock it with 2.5 gallons of sodium hypochlorite 10.5 % also from Pinch, only about 5 bucks for that. Brush the walls a little, check the filter (usually rinse it out once a month). Have been running pump at 7.5 hours all summer.

I have been taking about 5 samples to Pinch for a test, usually toward the end of the two-week cleaning cycle. Ech time, everything was within parameters. Last result was

TC and FC, 4.0
CC 0
pH 7.6
TA 85
CH 340
CYA 100
TDS 2,200

This is from Sep 6, as I have been busy and not taking in anything to test since then, and everything looks fine. Remember, I thought I was doing swell and the water looks OK to me. The prev owner told me he never got it tested because "by now we just know this works." Plus, when I first read the Pool Solutions guide, I remember reading that you focus on CL and pH and the rest falls in line, so since that's always totally stable and in range, I've not worried about it at all - was pretty smug about it, in fact. I have to add, however, that I would not consider my water "sparkling" - it's clean, yes, for sure, but it's not magical.

I guess I'm not concerned with a number of things. That stabilizer test probably tops out at 100, so what if it's sky high? Should I switch to BBB? I'm not good at reading colored tests, and it seems a lot of work to test every day, plus handling the chlorine each day. In getting a test kit like the Taylor 2006, is cost a factor in doing so much testing? How come my pH isn't lower and stable from test to test when the CYA is supposed to do that? Does the bi-weekly shocking help with that in any way? Am I just a time bomb waiting to go green? If I decided to stop using the tablets, will the CYA eventually come down just due to rain, replacement of evaporation water, etc? Could it be that there is enough rain and evaporation to keep this in check, as we are in Florida? Even after reading so much, I guess I still don't trust my skills in going totally liquid, even though it seems to make so much sense. CarlD says a couple times Trichlor can be used if you do it right, so that's what I was looking for (HOPING) but couldn't find the answer I was looking for - that being, just keep doing what I'm doing it's fine.

Pool service is a huge business here, and these guys come weekly - I've been wondering how they do. Obviously they all have to use some kind of stabilized CL, so are they all ruining everyone's water? Would make sense, then they can get paid to clean it up.

Thanks for any answers to this initial rambling!!!