To Baquacil or not to Baquacil...that is the question.

[brent.roberts]

If you have a BIG water heater, start dumping the water tonight and you might get it warm enough for the kids on the weekend. That will be the biggest issue.

Going with chlorine from the start up will be dead easy with the help you will get here. Read up on the www.poolsolutions.com site. Also run by the host of this site Ben (aka pooldoc) The navigation there is not so easy but follow the FAQs about using Bleach Borax and Baking Soda.
see http://www.poolsolutions.com/tips/10things.html and follow the little more tips at the bottom.

Hit the Walmart of similar store, get a couple of pounds of borax and baking soda, a gallon of muriatic acid and maybe 5 to 10 gallons of plain unscented bleach 5.25 or 6% and in the pool section, about 2 to 4 pounds of stabilizer ( aka CYA, cyuranic acid, conditioner etc. That's essentially all you should need to get going and keep going for nearly a month. ( Maybe a bit more if your pool is larger than normal) You will see that the $$ savings are going to start to ring in very soon.
After the water is balance most folks here use a couple of quarts of bleach a day and a couple of cups of muriatic acid ( to control PH ) a week. The CYA basically is a one shot deal to get going and adding a bit more a couple times a year to maintain it when water gets splashed out by kids or diluted by rain.

So, what to do for the weekend. Put up with what you've got or dump it and try to get it warm enough.

When you're ready to fill. Post back here with
- your pool volume
- your pool construction concrete/plaster, vinyl liner etc.
- maybe the PH, alkalinity and Calcium hardness or your fill water

Then we can give you a recipe to get started as your fill water is going in.

Good luck

PS download this small program by one of the member here MW Smith.
It will help caluclate pool volume, and how much of all the chemicals needed to
give certain results.

Ie with a 25000 gallon pool how much muricatic acid to I add to lower my PH 0.5 PPM

http://home.earthlink.net/%7Emwsmith...achCalc262.exe
Put it on the desktop of your computer. You'll use it several times in the next week or two.