Closing the Pool for Winter
Wow! You've been "pool-stored"! You almost NEVER need to change your sand. While I don't know for certain, of course, I can guess:
You've almost certainly had an imbalance of chemicals you couldn't ID because your pool store either doesn't know, or doesn't want you to know so it can sell you lots of stuff you don't need.
I'm guessing you have a masonry pool--you cannot empty a vinyl pool and it CAN be dangerous for a masonry pool if you have a lot of ground water.
What you need is a good test kit and an understanding of how surprisingly simply pool care is. But without the test kit you are flying blind. We recommend the Taylor K-2006 or K-2006C FAS-DPD test kit.
And I suggest you go to our sister site, PoolSolutions.com, and start reading about testing yourself, getting your chemicals at the grocery store, and the centerpiece of our methods: The BBB Method, for Bleach, Borax and Baking Soda.
Pool care shouldn't be tough. It comes down to 2 1/2 things:
1) Sanitation--that's making sure you have enough chlorine and we can guide you on that.
2) pH--remember that from your high school chemistry.
1/2) Stabilizer, which is Isocyanuric, or Cyanuric acid, which is usually called CYA. Stabilizer is like sunscreen for chlorine, that keeps it from breaking down too fast. But the more you have, the more chlorine you need as a base.
Combine that with daily testing and chlorine/pH adjusting, which takes 2 to 5 minutes, with once-a-week full testing and maintenance, 15-60 minutes, depending, and you'll have a clear pool that doesn't drive you crazy.
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