Help a newbie?

[waterbear]

This is probably the BEST site for a newbie who wants to learn how to take care of their pool; have safe, clear, sparkling water; save money in the process; and make a bunch of great, new friends!

Fist, get a drop based test kit. Walmart has one for about $15 that will get you started but you really should invest in a better kit such as the one sold on the sister website www.poolsolutions.com or a kit from Taylor (the K-2006 is a good choice but the kit on poolsolutions is a better 'bang for the buck'!)

mwsmith2's bleach calculator can be found on the link at the bottom of each of his posts but I will post it here to make it easy for you
Get BleachCalc 2.6.2 here: http://www.hal-pc.org/~mwsmith2/BleachCalc262.exe

The BleachCalc program will let you determine how much bleach and other chemicals you need to add based on your pool and your test results. Most of us on here use it.

Go to www.poolsolutions.com and read EVERYTHING on it that you can! It has just about all you need to know to get started! Then read all the 'sticky threads' and FAQ's in this forum. Don't worry if you don't understand some (or even most) of what you read right now. You soon will!

Post a full set of test results including Free Chlorine, Total Chloine, pH, Total Alkalinity, Calcium Hardness, CYA (stabilizer or cyanuric acid) and, if possible iron and copper since you are using well water. Most pool stores can test for these things until you get a kit. Well water might or might not have metals present or might or might not have very high hardness or alkalinity. This is why test results are SO important.

Post the name of the product you bought at Sam's Club and the ingredients in it if they are listed.

With the above info posted the good people on this forum can then help you get your pool where it needs to be and keep it there. Don't be afraid to ask questions. We were all newbies once!

One more thing for now....Welcome to the forum!!