Grumpy AG Pool owner wants to share his misery.

[indoorairpro]

I have been pool cursed for years. Unfortunately this year I am financially cursed as well. In the past I would spend hundreds of dollars on chemicals mostly chlorine to get pool open. This past winter for whatever reason I noticed the cover caved in and only about a foot of water in pool in Jan. Since I heard that an empty pool will shrink the liner and having no way to refill I decided to grab the discharge hose from my basement sump pump and stick it in the pool. A few days later we had a freakishly warm winter storm and within a few days pool was full. Cover torn and floating on top. Pool still full so liner was not leaking never really figured out where water went. Now its time to open pool. currently dark green with large frog population. Since I cant spend hundreds of dollars on 5 gallon jugs of chlorine is there anyway to use bleach to get started then switch back to normal chems once I get it going, and advice would be appreciated I only ask that if you advise please be it out of real life experience as opposed to " i had a friend who"
thanks again

[PoolDoc]

Almost everything posted here is based on "real life experience". I try to weed out the other stuff.

Regarding your problem: "less expensive", probably. Cheap: not so much -- cleaning swamps is neither cheap nor easy. If your pool is over 10,000 gallons, your chemical costs will probably be over $100, even using bleach, borax and muriatic acid.

If you want to proceed, the first thing to do is physically remove -- by skimming, leaf bagging, vacuuming, and filtering -- everything you can. Removing algae clumps and piles with chlorine uses a LOT of chlorine. Better to filter and vacuum.

With an AG pool, you can vacuum with a siphon, to remove the piles. With a IG pool and sand filter, you can usually vacuum to "waste".

Repost after you get that done.

Ben

[CarlD]

It's hard to find any chlorine source that's cheaper than 5 gallon carboys of 12.5% Liquid Chlorine. It's equal to 10 1/2 gallons of 6% Bleach. Carboys run $17, so it's like paying $1.65/gallon of Ultra Bleach. Doesn't get much cheaper than that for chlorine unless it's being given to you.

Carl