New house, unwinterized pool

[poms302]

Hi Jason;

If the filter is OK, it's large enough for your pool.

I'd recommend the following steps:



2. Get a cheap local OTO/phenol red drops kit (or an HTH 6-way drops kit, if available). Test the water. The main issue for now is whether the pH is between 7 and 8. If it's not, post your readings here.

We have been a little busy with the new house, but I finally cleaned the pool a little, patched two holes and tested with the HTH 6 way for pH. It was above 8.2, I'm sure you have told many people what to do to get it back down so I will go search.

[Watermom]

How high was your chlorine when you tested pH? If it was above 5ppm with that kit, it will cause falsely high pH readings. If that was the case, retest pH before deciding that it needs lowered by diluting the sample as follows. Take 1/4 cup pool water and 1/4 cup distilled water. Use that mix to run the pH test as normal.

If you repeat the test with dilution and still find that the pH is high OR if the chlorine was no higher than 5ppm when you tested the pH originally, then you can lower it with muriatic acid. But, please read the info at this link first:> http://pool9.net/muriatic/

Hope this helps.

[poms302]

I appreciate all the feed back. I had clear pool besides some left over debris from previous owner, I was waiting for a leaf vacuum from amazon when my pump all of the sudden wouldn't prime. Background, the main drain hasn't really been able to prime the pump on its own. I have it narrowed down to the skimmer line being clogged but I am unsure of what to do to unclog it.

This is what I have tried so far:

Water bladder...doesn't work well with the immediate 90^ elbows at pump and skimmer. Made a 2' threaded pvc fitting for bladder still nothing but broken bladder.

1/4" snake 25' long from both ends, thought I got some stuff but nothing in the basket. Pipe is ~60 feet so I wasn't getting all of it.

From the 2' pvc fitting I made a attachment for a garden hose, I was trying to prime the pump with volume but garden hose couldn't even come close after 10 seconds. But I did find some weird looking rocks in the basket, then picked one up and it crumbled. Smelled really clean, so I am thinking Borax or stabilizer. I used both the previous days before the pump stopped priming. I spread the Borax out from the box, 6lbs over 2 hours. Stabilizer I put in some pantyhose in front of a jet. I think it may have clumped up and got vacuumed up.

Any ideas how to get this stuff dissolved or moving?

[PoolDoc]

I'm not clear: is the pump priming a NEW problem, or one you had since you had the pool?

You can test the 'rocks'. Both borax and stabilizer can 'clump' up or solidify, but borax will dissolve fairly readily in hot water. Stabilizer will not. Dissolved borax will make the pH HIGH, if tested with phenol red. Stabilizer will tend to make it lower.

If you find it's borax or stabilizer, I'd try to hook up a sump pump, placed in the pool, to a hose, and hook the hose to the pool pipe. If you can force even a small amount of water continuously past the borax or stabilizer, it will dissolve eventually. You could use the hose connected to the house piping, but you'd need to be very careful not to overpressure your piping, and damage it.