New pool owner, trying to get my chemicals balanced

[PoolDoc]

Their recommendations are about right, if your pump runs 24/7. Otherwise, not so much.

The only reason to clean the pump / skimmer basket is to keep you from dumping stabilizer out when you clean them. If you clean the pump and skimmer basket first, on most pools they won't need cleaning again till after the CYA is fully dissolved.

On a 26k gal pool, 5# of CYA fully dissolved will give you 23 ppm of CYA, so a measured level of 15 ppm is well within the range of error.

[Watermom]

If you put it in a sock in front of a return, you don't have to worry about throwing it out when you backwash.

[mitchryan912]

I bought another 5 lbs at my last trip to the store, just to save a trip. Should I put some of this in (dissolved in a sock) to bump it up a bit, or should I save it for the inevitable rain storms that have been hitting the midwest? I was told that stabilizer should last a whole season, but with all the draining and backwashing I've had to do after storms, I'm sure I've lost a lot of it.