new construction

[kenny6269]

Hello, I don't have a real question yet. I know I am glad I found this forum, I spent several hours last weekend reading the pool solutions website. The questions will come tomorrow, they will finally be filling our new pool the rest of the way, turning on the pump, and showing me how to operate everything, I'm pretty excited! Is there anything special I need to ask them during this.process? The pool is an inground 18x33 roman end liner pool with a Champion 1.5 HP 2 speed pump and Pentair cartridge filter. It is a sport bottom, 5.5 ft deep in the center.

[BigDave]

Congrats on your new pool! Sounds really nice.

Learn all you can from them about how the equipment is designed and how to operate it. Take copious notes or even video (might be awkward but...). Learn what you have to do to protect the warranty.

[kenny6269]

The equipment seemed easy enough to operate. They have the pump set on high, they said that would keep the pool cleaner. I thought the whole point of a two stage pump was to cut down on electric? I was also bummed to find out that I have to operate it with the breaker switch. I thought it was standard that they were on a timer. No big deal for this summer but I'll have to upgrade next year. He handed me a bottle of some.stuff called enzyme and told me.to put it once the pool is completely full, he said it helps to kill bacteria and viruses, I've never heard of it. Any thoughts on that? Thank you for the help.

[kenny6269]

So I went and looked at the bottle closer, the brand is called Waters Choice, it just says enzyme. I'm not going to dump it in my pool until someone chimes in on it. I read a lot of the poolsolutions.com tips and dont recall seeing anything about adding enzyme, which makes me think scam. We previously owned a hot tub and I didn't know about this sight, I was sort of reckless when it came to dumping stuff in it, primarily because it was easy enough to drain it and start over. I have ordered the k2006 test kit, it should be in tomorrow or Friday, until then I have the pump running from about 4:00pm-10:00pm, there are chlorine tabs in the inline chlorinator, is that enough to keep the pool from starting to stink and/or the water getting nasty?

[Charlie_R]

Do you have a basic 2 way or 6 way kit from the installer? I understand that your K-2006 should arrive soonest, but you do need to know what your chlorine level and pH are now. Having a basic kit handy is a good idea if you run out of reagents and have to wait for shipping.

2 way kit won't be able to test for stabilizer (CYA -- cyanuric acid), but would at least get you your cl and pH levels.

What kind of tabs in the chlorinator? You might check what the ingredients are on those... I doubt that "a couple of tabs" will be enough to keep you cl levels high enough to prevent problems.

Be ready to buy a couple of gallons of unscented bleach, and probably a gallon of muriatic acid. Do read the sticky on using the acid safely!

Good luck with your new pool!

Note: my siggy is wrong, I do have the K-2006. Best pool investment I've ever made!

[kenny6269]

Thank you for the reply. I'm going Walmart after work tonight to get a test kit and bleach. The pool company just used strips to test, so I didn't put much weight on what there readings were anyway. They left them lay on the pool deck so they all got ruined by a shower of rain. I let the pump run all night and through a solar blanket on as well. Tonight I'll check what kind of chlorine tabs they put in. They put a half can of dichlor to shock the pool when they fired the pump up. I thought I remembered reading that you shouldn't use dichlor. The pool is 16000 gallons, how much bleach would one use approximately to shock?

[BigDave]

Nothing wrong with dichlor. It adds CYA and lowers pH but you need CYA in a new fill and pH can be raised with Borax. I'd say that dichlor is a great way to start a new fill as it dissolves very quickly compared to granular CYA and the sun will consume copious amounts of chlorine until the CYA comes up.
Test chlorine and pH as often as you can until you know how much the pool consumes. Adjust chlorine and pH as necessary (if necessary) after each test. In your pool, a quart of 6% bleach should raise the FC by 1ppm.
You won't know the shock level until you can test for CYA. Once you have a reliable CYA test, you can find target chlorine levels in Ben's Best Guess Chart.

[kenny6269]

Ok, the tabs they put in the chlorinator are Durachlor tabs. I picked a HTH 6 way drop kit from Walmart and here are the first test results:
Chlorine was 5+, over their scale.
Ph was 7.3-7.4
Hardness test did not turn red after adding hardness indicator, it turned yellow so I didn't continue.
Alkalinity was 380 ppm.
With the Cyanuric acid test the black dot did not disappear.
The hardness test is somewhat confusing, I filled the pool with well water, so I went and tried it on the faucet that I filled the pool from and the water turned red after five drops. The only chems the pool company added were the tabs and half a can of dichlor shock. Is the HTH test kit nit real accurate, or is my pool this far out of whack?

[waste]

Kenny, welcome to The Forum!

Congrats on the new pool.

It sounds like you've got a decent grip on what to do and will have a pristine pool for you and your family and friends to enjoy this season.

If you have ANY issues with the pool, come here and the great mods and members will help you.



HAPPY SWIMMING!!

[kenny6269]

Ok: got the k2006 test kit in tonight, here are the results:

PH: 7.6
ALK: 350
Free chlorine 9ppm
Combined chlorine 0 (did not turn pink after adding drops so i assume that means 0)
CA: black dot did not disappear

Any suggestions as to what to add? I haven't put anything in the pool yet, I'm waiting on some of your all's expert advice! I believe I have all chemicals on hand to add. Thank you all again for your input and any advice you can give!