What is the worst "pool store" info you have heard?

[littleHeidi]

All pool stores are in the business to make money -

If you walk in the door with your pants around your ankles and your wallet out, you deserve to get taken to the cleaners.

If people would A) Do a little homework B) Quit being so lazy and looking for a chemical fix for their failure to just check their water balance daily then the pool stores would change their ways.

However that's not the world we live in. So those of us that do our homework, and take care to stay ahead of our water will always get a good laugh watching the person in front of us at the pool store stroke out at their total as they reach deep into their wallet to pay 'the man'.

Pool stores are the Car Dealership of the water lesiure world. . .

I don't agree with this either. It's not that people are stupid or lazy when it comes to pool maintenance. It's that they DON'T KNOW there's an easier way to do it!!! I had NO clue the first year we had our pool that you didn't HAVE to go to the pool store every month (like my landlord had us doing). The other day when he (my landlord) was up here he looked at the pool and said, "Hm. And you do ALL that w/ just bleach?" He'd had a pool for over 20 years and had NEVER heard of this method. Don't be so harsh!!

[gonefishin]

Well...it's not a pool store story. But a recent story while looking for some muriatic acid for my pool.


I was in Walmart looking for some muriatic acid (for a TA problem). I looked everywhere, but couldn't find any. So I asked a Walmart employee for some assistance. He answered that he didn't know and would ask (via two-way) if anyone knew if they carried it. One person replied that he thinks they had some in the pharmacy.

I wonder what that would cure

take care all

dan

[CarlD]

I think the message is if you are truly unwilling to take the time to learn about your pool and caring for it, then you are a ripe pigeon to get "Pool Stored".

I don't think ANYONE deserves to be robbed, but to NOT have your guard up out in public is inviting the chiselers to home in on you.

"But, Jim, I didn't invent pigeons!" -- The Rockford Files

[haze_1956]

Back in May I went into the nearby pool store to get a quart of Polyquat. I saw a bottle of "Black Algae Killer" (60% Polyquat) above a sign that read 14.99. But when it was rung up, it was 22.99. So I argued that was not what the sign said so the girl called the manager who took me back to the aisle.

There he showed me that it was 30% poly that was 14.99 and the bottle I grabbed had been misplaced from further down the shelf (Identical Bottles by the way just percentage on the ingredients were different.)

Manager then said to me. "Your water would have to be totally black to need the 60%"

I smiled (and did manage to resist laughing) then left.

[poolmom06]

Well I have two pool stores that I go to, last week after my pool was cloudy and turned green I took two different samples to the two stores, JUST to see what kind of answers I would get.. I got two different results and of course two different recommendations. I told the guy at the "chain store" I have more green cloudy water( I had been going in there all week to get help, just to walk out with $50 or $60 worth of crap each time) I wanted to kill green before I worked on the cloudy... he just wanted to work on the cloudy.
Thank GOD I found this site and in one application of a bottle of bleach... i had blue water again in less than an hour!!
So I am going to make one more trip to the pool store... just to let "cute flirty manager guy" know what worked for me and see how "Shocked" he is!!!
he is gonna flip a lid when I tell him I cleared my pool with less than $10 worth of household items from WAL MART!!!

[Gracy101]

First time I walked into the pool store for a water reading and explained I would be doing the BBB method, the OWNER gave me a looooong speech in which he said and I quote "I not only own this store and been in business for 13 years but I have a minor in chemistry" and then launched into all the reasons why I should not try to take care of this "very big investment" on my own since "there are people who make their living FT doing this!" Twenty minutes later:

When he gave me my Cl reading and I asked if that was FC, he said "no it's TC, we don't test for anything else; you don't need to know that in Miami."

When I asked what my Ch was - again "that's not important right now, you just need chlorine and acid"

"don't let your pool get above or below a 2-3 Cl level - it will dry out your skin"

Finally - when he tried to sell me chlorine in tablets but I said I would rather take it in liquid form (yes I caved! , he ACTUALLY said "you realize those are 2 1/2 gallon jugs - they'll be very heavy for you to carry."

Those were just the highlights I could remember after my head stopped spinning.....

[rak70]

Went in to my local store chain about 2 weeks ago with a water sample. I had just purchased a 5 way test kit from Wal Mart and tested my CYA at only 20ppm. I went in the get some stabilizer so brought a water sample in just for the hell of it. Sample tested at 80ppm. What? I had just tested it at 20ppm at home. Ask him to retest so he did and it came out at 80ppm again. Ask can I see the test vial to look at it myself. He says sure and hands it to me. I said this is showing 20ppm. He says I'm reading it wrong that the max is 100ppm and you have to subtract what you see on the scale from 100. Hence if you have a reading of 100 it really means 0 and if it reads 0 you really have 100.

[sevver]

Well, that is not what my instructions say to do.

[DavidD]

...He says I'm reading it wrong that the max is 100ppm and you have to subtract what you see on the scale from 100. Hence if you have a reading of 100 it really means 0 and if it reads 0 you really have 100.

The scary part about this is what about the poor sap who brings in his sample that actually has 90 ppm of CYA and does not know any better so he takes the 10 lbs. of CYA the guy sells him...

Dave

[rak70]

The scary part about this is what about the poor sap who brings in his sample that actually has 90 ppm of CYA and does not know any better so he takes the 10 lbs. of CYA the guy sells him...

Dave

Yep and after that his CYA mysteriously drops to zero, so better add another 10lbs....