CT noob with AG pool
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OK, some tips:
1. Get a HTH 6-Way Test Kit from Amazon or Walmart.
2. Keep your pH between 7.2 and 7.8, your stabilizer between 30 and 80 (higher can be compensated for), and your chlorine -- when the water is clear -- at 5% of whatever your stabilizer is. Do that and you are unlikely to have pool problems with an AG pool . . . until you put a heater in.
3. Gas heaters are typically used until the pool owner gets the 2nd gas bill. They then are turned off. Think $200+/month for a SMALL pool . . . in fall.
4. Heat pumps work well where the air and pools are COOL, and you just want to WARM the pool -- Florida, S. Georgia, S. Alabama, Louisiana, etc. But, they are VERY expensive.
5. Solar heat, especially simple plastic panel solar heat, can be quite useful to WARM cool pools in cool, sunny climates . . . . like Connecticut. But set them up with a SMALL separate pump. If you size your POOL pump for solar heat, you'll end up paying extra for the big pump and piping restrictions, even when you aren't heating. Running solar with a SMALL separate pump makes the controls and valving simple, too.
6. Pool stores almost ALWAYS sell pumps that are TOO BIG and filters that are TOO SMALL with above ground pools. For some reasons, "massive horsepower" mesmerizes both men and women like big boobs do, and they can't see past them. Oversize pumps just waste electrictiy AND FORCE DIRT THROUGH filters!!
This is usually why it is so freaking hard to clean up AG pools after an algae episode.
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