New Member, New Pool, Lots of questions

[riverwhiskey]

Hi, I am a new member here and have just installed a new above ground pool.
Doing well with balance and chemical treatments thanks in great part to this forum.
The only question I have at this point is if someone can point me to winterization procedures for an above ground, sand filtered, 11000, gal pool.

Thanks for all the great help this forum has provided and I do look forward to lots of great help both from and to this great forum.

[aylad]

Hi,
Until your registration is completed, you won't be able to follow a link to the thread, but if you'll log out, go to the forum main page, and look in the third set of subforums, about halfway down you'll see topics called "pool startup and shutdown". Open that, and read the second sticky that Watermom wrote for closing procedures for AG pools.

Hope this helps, but if you have any questions, feel free to post them.

Welcome to the forum!

[clark]

Welcome, I am new too and it seems like I need to post int eh general section first.

[riverwhiskey]

Hi Clark, this probably won't be a long thread, just you and Me!

[PoolDoc]

Hi River;

Your membership is upgraded, and your posts have been moved to the opening / closing section. There is some information in sticky's here, but I'll be posting an updated guide this weekend.

Meanwhile, a key component in avoiding problems next spring is making sure your water isn't carrying problems into the winter. And for that you need accurate test results. I've posted some of our cut-n-paste core information on that topic below.

Ben

==========================================

+ Get a cheap OTO (yellow drops) / phenol test kit, or if available at YOUR Walmart (check availability), get the HTH 6-way DROPS test kit, which is compatible with the Taylor K2006. Test the pool as soon and you can, and post the results. If you get the 6-way kit, ALSO test the water you FILL the pool with, especially if it's a well, and post THOSE results as well. (The HTH is the best available kit you're likely to find locally, but it's not the K-2006. It can only provide rough measurements chlorine levels above 5 ppm, and it measures "TOTAL" hardness, rather than "CALCIUM" hardness, which is not ideal.)

+ Having a good test kit makes pool care easier for EVERYONE, but is an ESSENTIAL tool for pools with problems. A good test kit means a kit that can test chlorine from 0 - 25 ppm, pH, alkalinity, calcium hardness, and stabilizer with reasonable accuracy. Test strips (AKA 'guess-strips' ) do NOT meet this standard. Some pool store testing is accurate; most is not. The ONLY way you'll know whether your pool store is accurate or bogus, is by testing accurately your own self. On the other hand, pool store 'computer' dosing recommendations are NEVER trustworthy -- ignore them. They are designed to sell more chemicals than you need, and WILL cause many pool problems.

+ We recommend the Taylor K-2006 test kit, which meets the requirements above, for many reasons. The HTH 6-way drops kit is a great starter kit, and is compatible with the K2006 (it's made by Taylor). There are a few alternatives; for example Lamotte makes an FAS-DPD kit that's OK -- but it costs 3x as much. But, we're not aware of any test that is better, and since we are all familiar with the K-2006 (and can help you with it) we recommend it exclusively ( Test kit info page )

One caution for the 2012 season: Amazon does not stock the kits directly. So when buying at Amazon, Amato is our current preferred seller. However, they often don't list enough stock to last the whole day, so try order mid-morning. You should expect a delivered cost under $60 for the K2006A and under $95 for the K2006C. If you can't find that, wait a day.

+ Here are links to the kits we recommend (you can check local availability on the HTH kit, using the Walmart link):

HTH 6-Way Test Kit @ Walmart
Taylor K2006A (3/4 oz bottles) @ Amazon
Taylor K2006C (2 oz bottles) @ Amazon