BBB Method has been $$$'s for me: what about the clearwater system.

[darylrue]

Needed to post first thread so I could search. As I was typing it made me realize I have several questions I need to research. Here you go.

1. Heater company said no to salt unless I spend $800 on titanium heat exchanger. not worried about the up front money more worried about spending it and having salt not work out for us.

2. Wondering if $900 clearwater system would at least pay for itself in "lowering chemicals" over its life with out bad side effects. Wondering why these guys don't sell on amazon and allow for customer reviews/ratings. Always skeptical of the opposite.

3. BBB seems like it costs us a ton. So much chlorine and spikes of cloudiness throughout summer, wiping algea off back corners of pool every week or two, and several other sweet spots it seems with clean rags.

4. I did buy the intex salt system and now wondering if I can just run it in copper mode to "assist" as well without side effects.

5. Slide cracked smack dab in the middle where you land into water. Bought elmers fiberglass repair, hoping it is strong enough...

14x28 sports bottom w/safety ledge Vynl ~15k gallons.
Omaha Nebraska
We are weenies and keep our water very warm

[PoolDoc]

1. I'm pretty sure a titanium heat exchanger will do fine with salt.

2. Gimme a link to your "clearwater system", and I'll look. BUT, so far we haven't found ANY system (SWCG or otherwise) that will save money compared to simply following BBB methods of pool care. SWCG are convenient, but not cheaper, and not much easier.

3. Huh. How can I put this?
if BBB costs you a ton, you aren't doing it right!

Get a K2006 test kit, let us know what you're doing, and we can fix that problem. On a pool your size, BBB costs should be less than $250 per summer for chemicals, maybe a lot less. By the way, when you get the K2006 . . . do NOT over test. Read the instructions, and test carefully, and send us the results. ALSO, buy a local OTO/phenol red kit for quick (but reliable) chlorine and pH tests.

Thought of something else. A lot of people take the name ("Bleach, borax, & baking soda") more literally than I do . . . and the BBB Method was MY idea (CarlD's name, however). In your case, it may not be bleach, borax and baking soda -- you probably don't need any baking soda, and if you have a Sams nearby, BBB for you may be dichlor (50# bucket) and borax . . . and NOTHING else!

The BBB Method is just taking care of your pool with the fewest and cheapest chemicals you can find, in the simplest and easiest way possible!

One caution: if you are a messy desk, do it when I get around to it, sort of guy (like me), you NEED a way to continuously feed chlorine. This is the benefit of a Rainbow trichlor feeder or an SWCG -- it keeps adding chlorine when you forget. As I wrote years ago, pools aren't hard, but they aren't forgiving, either! You can NOT let pool care slide -- it takes 10x or even 50x as much chlorine to clean up a mess, as it does to avoid it -- you have to maintain your pool on a schedule! We can reduce the time and the $$'s required . . . but you STILL have to be there as often as needed.

I can help you set up a 1x per week dosing schedule . . . but you can NOT skip a week!

4. Uhm. No. Copper has side effects. Period. I like Intex pools, and think they are a great value. But their copper-salt Frankenstein system is an evil hodge-podge. If you can sell it (or give it away) honestly do so.

5. Dunno about that one. Do know it will work better if you get a piece of stainless steel or (better) fiberglass to bridge it.

[CarlD]

I agree with Ben. As soon as I saw your post that BBB was costing you beaucoup bucks I thought "Uh-Oh--doing it wrong!" The idea is that ONCE you get your pool stable, you'll be adding, at most, a gallon of bleach every other day. No way that gets expensive over a summer.

So, let's review how you are implementing our B-B-B system.

[darylrue]

Ok... I my wife learned about the BBB thing and bought all that stuff you were talking about. I will try to keep more of an eye on what she is doing like for example she was puttin g bleach in the morning after testing. I just told her to do it at night so the effects will last longer and probably take less bleach. I remember last summer we were putting in 2 bottles of bleach a day and then a bunch at times to shock it (almost always during the day). We have a sock hanging onto the slide over the pump jets into the pool that I think stays filled with stabalizer too and that stuff isn't cheap. I know we use borax when needed to adjust ph but not all the time and I buy allot of ph+ or - from walmart too when I am told too . I will post back as I watch more about it. $250 sounds reasonable to me. - back to the pool and thanks for giving your minutes to respond. ~daryl

[PoolDoc]

Your somewhat vague remarks about pool chemical levels just confirm: you need to get a K2006 testkit.

One other observation -- from years of operating large commercial pools via 16 - 22 year old staff -- the person running the test kit needs to be the SAME person as the person dumping chemicals. If your wife is testing, then she needs to be dosing, too. If you're dosing, you need to be doing the testing. The results are MUCH better that way.

In your case, there are three important values: #1, chlorine; #2, CYA; #3, pH .

That's pretty much it!

Unless you are ADDING calcium (via cal hypo) or have VERY hard water (well water from a limestone well), you shouldn't have to worry about calcium. And, if you manage the pH, the alkalinity will take care of itself.

If you are having to add stabilizer, it might be better to simply go to Sams and get a 50# bucket of dichlor ('PoolBrand' chlorinating granules) and go to Walmart, and get 20 boxes of borax. Those two items -- ALL BY THEMSELVES -- should run about $170, and take care of you for most of the season! There's a bit more to it than that, but that's still a realistic goal.

In order to give you a more exact prescription, I need test results from the K2006 and to know what sort of filter you have, and how often you have to clean it.

[darylrue]

I suppose I need to get more involved. Traci says that the CYA uses up the whole bottle on one test and she says it doesnt read it so apparently that is not being tested. She has the hth 6-way test kit. Hopefully she is doing something wrong. We backwash filter from time to time with the pressure gets too high and after manual vacumming. I guess I will poke around for a PDF / guide here on pool maintenance & BBB, make it into a checklist or something and make sure we are doing what we need to do, when we need to do it. Will report back.

I still am sort of stuck that how could a copper floaty ionizer or similar could hurt anything and provide some additional algae protection...

Daryl