Right when we opened our pool after getting the liner replaced, I didnt have Bens test kit yet. Just for fun I took the water to a local pool place and they tested it with their fancy dancy equipment.

No chlorine (I knew that, I had just filled the pool with tap water), but the pH was like 5.1. I didnt even know it read that low, and the pool store employee actually started whipping out the chemicals to fix it all. I told them no thanks, bought a $5.00 test kit from Kmart and surprise.......pH was 7.0.

I had learned a long time ago not to trust pool stores.......my parents had a pool and for the first couple years we did whatever the pool stores said. After that we started "winging" it, and it came to the point where we wouldnt even test the water anymore. Just drop some chlorine in every day, shock it after every big rain storm, and adjust pH when the water looked "cloudy" (it was a small AG pool, I wouldnt recommend winging it for an inground).

-Chris