New Owner, first opening, few questions...

[PoolDoc]

Add it DIRECTLY to your skimmer, BUT

1. Make 1,000% sure that there are no chemicals of any kind anywhere in the lines or pump, between the skimmer and the filter.
2. Don't add when you've just backwashed the filter; wait till the pump has run 12 hours and loaded a little dirt into the filter.

Just remember, except for borax, cal hypo reacts BADLY with almost everything, including Coke, stabilizer, trichlor, dichlor, and more. It's fine once it's fully dissolved, and the filter will hold it, till it dissolves.

[agripnt]

And because I ask too many questions

1) Add powder direct into skimmer, correct? Not pre-dissolved in a bucket and then add?

2)What is the advantage of this vs broadcasting on the surface?

[PoolDoc]

If you want to pre-dissolve it, and THEN put it the skimmer, that's OK. It's more work, and doesn't accomplish anything, though.

Without going into the chemistry, you end up with all the cloud from the cal hypo on the filter instead of the pool. There are both physical, and chemical aspects to this.

[agripnt]

just to be double safe, would it be advisable to turn off my feeder for some amount of hours? Is there already a post somewhere that does explain the chemistry? I won't trouble to ask you to type it all out if there is not.

Thanks again for all your help.

[PoolDoc]

Nah. I'd leave the feeder open, just to make sure a high concentration of cal hypo solution doesn't get trapped in there.

Long post? no. I think the longest one is in an old newsletter; I'm not sure if that one is even available to subscribers at the moment. And, the process is not published (as far as I know) except by me -- Chem_Geek is skeptical I think, for just that reason. My understanding of it is 1/4 guess and chemical intuition (which got me started) and 3/4 practical observation.

I'd bet data exists in old Olin (HTH) files somewhere. But, maybe not. John Wojiitowicz was one of their principle developers and researchers and he could sometimes be standing on gold, and not notice.