We just bought a house that has a IG plaster pool that I'm guessing is about 22kgal (somewhat irregular shape) and have been trying to get it in order while preparing to move in. A good friend pointed me at this site and I'm immensely thankful for it.

My CYA seems to be off the chart... probably above 250ppm. I've read all the recent threads on high CYA and understand that the choices are pretty much dilute or run higher Cl. The water table is really high and we just had our wettest March on record, so I'm leery about the drain-and-refill turning into a drain-and-float. I'm thinking I'll drain 25% or so, refill, then repeat over the course of a few weeks to at least get it partway down. Or I could just extrapolate the "best guess" chart. Thoughts?

Here's some more background:

Yes, the previous owner loved their pucks. Yes, the pucks are gone.

I'm guessing the pool was last drained when resurfaced about 7 years ago. Not really any winterization here in rainy California.

The water has been clear (i.e., I can see the drain clearly) for at least the last three months (when we first looked at the house), although there was plenty of pine needles, dirt, other debris, and a family of earthworms in the pool when we took possession at the start of the week. I'm pretty sure there's been little-to-no maintenance done over the winter.

I've had the pump and Polaris 380 running a few hours each day to sweep up. The cartridge filter was running about 35psi, which I've now cleaned (lots of earthworms parts, *really* nasty slime, and other grossness). Backpressure dropped to 16psi. The Polaris started flicking it's tail in joy after that cleaning .

I also discovered that the skimmer float valve was broken and, in the process of replacing it, found a good sized wad of pine needles and *stuff* in one of the two pipe openings below the skimmer. The wad is gone and I have the replacement valve to install tonight.

I've pre-ordered Ben's test kit. In the meantime, I used the former owner's DPD kit to check Cl and Ph, getting 0 and about 8.0, respectively. Added 1 gal 10% Cl and 16 oz ph down (also left over) yesterday morning.

I then found the CYA and FAS-DPD test kits at Leslie's, so this morning I used them to check the effect of yesterday's work. My Ph was down to 7.8 (expected lower), and the FC was at about 4.6 (expected much lower or 0) with CC of 0. I was surprised by the FC and that's when I started to suspect I wouldn't like the CYA measurement (see how well the forum educates? ). The dot "just disappeared" with maybe 1/4" in the vial and so far away from any marks that it wasn't worth guesstimating .

Wanting a second opinion (first pool and all), I filled the Leslie's water sample bottle and (skeptically) let them take a shot. Here's their numbers:

FC 4.8
TC 4.8
Ph 7.9
TA 170
Ca 375
CYA 275+
TDA 1000

They also used the Taylor CYA kit but couldn't get a meaningful reading, so the other, more experienced guy, used a test strip (yes, I know) that went up to 300ppm and with those the CYA was just a shade below the 300ppm max color. I have to say they did a good job by recommending that I not buy anything since I should consider at least a partial drain-and-refill.

Anyway, sorry for the long post. I've been accused of being somewhat AR about things and know the lack of background can make helping harder.

thanks,
--Scott (a happy new pool owner )