NEVER put a pool up under trees!!! HELLLP!

[denanbob]

I'll try to keep this brief:

Our pool is surrounded by trees. Bad idea. We never get the winter cover on "in time" and are always fishing out leaves before we cover. We do the best we can. This winter, our cover blew off on one corner and we never fixed it. Good news and bad news came of this ~ we opened to a BLACK pool filled with leaves, but the temp is already 68 degrees!! We usually open to a green pool at 52 degrees. So I put in TONS of bleach. I know it is over 40ppm (I diluted my WalMart drops kit....8 viles of water with 5 drops STILL shows orange color at level 5ppm). It FINALLY started to barely clear and turn a blackish/green shade instead of blackish/brown. Now I've got a bubbly white foam covering the top of my pool. I've put NOTHING but bleach in it. Our skimmer basket keeps clogging after 20 minutes with leaves, so the water is not filtering through and the return jet is almost at a stand still. I don't wan't to burn out my pump but I work and I cannot be there all day to keep emptying the basket and bumping the (D.E.) filter. I also tested this morning for PH and it is pretty low. Barely 7.2. When I ran the CYA test, I could clearly see the black dot when the water was all the way to the top of the testing tube. I can't imagine adding MORE bleach because I'm worried it is dangerously high as it is (we have a vinyl liner, 11,000 gal above ground 15x30 4ft. deep pool). Should I add Borax to raise the PH? We keep trying to vac the bottom (can't see it), but the leaves are getting stuck in the vac. hose. ANY SUGGESTIONS????

Thanks sooooooooooo much!!

[b2001]

I’ve been there and done that several times. I work a lot, have a lot of family responsibilities, and am pretty much the only one who opens, closes, and maintains the pool. The pool does not get opened and closed when it should, but instead when I find the time. I have 5 large oak trees over the pool; so I get lots of leaves in the fall and pollen crap in the spring. I’ve opened several times to green and black water with lots of leaves in the pool. I’ve learned many things about the problems you are having with leaves and I am still learning.

I have an 18x36 foot above ground vinyl pool. It’s 4 feet deep also, but I have a deep end scooped out to about 6 feet so I also have issues with a lot debris accumulating in that area. I have a Zodiac Ranger Baracuda cleaner and a Polaris 65 sweep.

I just pulled my cover off today - first time I've been on this site since last fall - and the water is clear with some dirt on the bottom. Two things that I did different this last winter was to get all of the leaves out before covering and I bought a new cover – the old one was several years old and had too many holes to let the dirty “leaf” water to go through.

My suggestions would be first that you need to get all of the leaf matter and debris off of the bottom. My experience has been no matter how much chlorine that I put in, the vegetation matter will quickly “eat” it up. I spent tons of money battling black water last year and I finally decided to quit putting chlorine in until I got the debris out. It’s hard to get it out when the water is black and you can't see anything. I used a net on a long pole to get a lot of it out even though I couldn’t see below the surface. At the point where it quit being productive, I ran the sweep. I had to keep checking it, at first, as the bag would quickly get full. As time went by I could go longer and longer without checking until finally not much was being trapped in the bag. At that point I knew most of the debris was gone. That went on for many days – like you I also work so I worked on it in the evenings when I could and on the weekends. It always takes me longer to get results because of this – that’s the way it is for me. With the issues that you are having you might not be able to run the pump and filter during the day - just when you get home for several hours until you go to bed. That's what I did until I "turned the corner".

I don’t have the issue with the skimmer getting clogged with leaves that are in the water or on the bottom of the pool – only with leaves that fall on the surface of the water. Vacuuming is a lost cause when you have that many leaves in the pool; as you noted the hose and skimmer quickly get clogged – it has consistently happened in less than a minute for me so I don’t even try that anymore.

Next get your ph and other chemicals within correct levels. Again, last year I was having a hard time getting the water to clear up and pouring lots of chlorine in and discovered that my ph was low. I brought it up and it cleared up pretty quickly. I use borax to bring the ph up. I’ve never had my chlorine level as high as what you put yours to.

You should be able to get up and going from there. Just be patient and tackle the problems one at a time.

One final note; my wife wants to cover the pool each winter to save electricity costs. I’m ok with that but I have to do all of the work to cover it and uncover so I’m not as enthusiastic about saving the electricity costs. I especially hate the dirty and nasty task of removing the dirty water and leaf debris off of the top of the cover. My sump pump will get most of the water off of the top of the cover in spring but not all and it takes a lot of effort to remove the leaves. They are wet and very heavy – I can’t get the cover off without removing them.

I waited longer last fall and let most of the leaves fall into the pool. I found it much easier to scoop the leaves off of the bottom of the pool with the net and pole. It is especially easy when you can see the bottom. I pushed the net to get the water to move the leaves up slightly and I then scooped them into the net. The entire bottom was covered and in about three hours I had 95% of the leaves out. I used the sweep to get the remaining leaves out and then covered the pool. I will do that again this year.

Hope all of this was of some help …

BTW, I didn't think too much about the trees either when we put the pool in but it wouldn't have mattered - the family wanted the pool. As time goes by and I'm getting a system down for dealing with the leaves, I'm getting less bothered by it.

[gordyjamz]

I have two large maple trees that dump an enormous amount of leaves in our yard and pool also each fall. I made the same mistake the first year we had our pool. I waited till the spring to clear all the leaves off the cover, and it was a PITA. My suggestion is opposite of that previous post. I get my cover on before the leaves fall. This, to me, is the easiest way. I usually clear the leaves off the cover as they fall, consider it part of the whole leaf blowing and raking chore that comes with having these beautiful trees in my yard. Usually, I find myself spending about 2 to 3 hrs a week during the 3 or 4 weeks of leaf shedding we get during the fall. I also purchased a small utility pump from menards for about $30. I use it in the fall, winter and spring to pump the water from the top of the cover, when its not frozen. This way, come May, opening is easy, water is clear, and no extra hassle with dirty water.

[denanbob]

Thank you to both of you for your suggestions! Since I posted that, I have FINALLY had success:



We had to buy a leaf bag attachment for our skimmer pole and that helped to get most of the leaves out. Then we just kept adding chlorine and vacuuming best we could. We realized we were bumping our DE filter way too often which was blowing DE back into our pool. So once we stopped doing that, the filter started doing it's job better and the pool finally cleared. This year, I'm looking into buying a leaf net instead of a winter cover and allowing all the rain water to go into the pool. But either way, we are buying a new cover! Thanks again for the advice and more importantely, sharing your story!

[freddyttt]

Im also a busy beaver-. but iv learned to do things right and on time as it will save me the BS down the road.

just a thought

[cleancloths]

Sounds like it is time to buy a good chain saw to solve the leaf problem

[l8nite4me]

I have the same problem with trees, but I came up with a solution that seems to save me a lot of trouble in the spring.

A couple of years back I purchased a large round fishing net. I secured some good nylon ropes to the net and added some "S" hooks to the rope. Before the leaves begin to fall I drape the net over the pool and let it sink. I then periodically go out and raise the net to empty the leaves. When the water is cool enough to close and cover I leave the net in just in case something happens.

I live in the deep south so my leaves don't begin to fall heavily until mid October.

Hope this helps someone.

[aylad]

That's a really good idea!

Janet

[bonni]

I have battled the leaf problem for many years as well, what I recommend is to invest in a leaf net. Make sure to cover your pool before the leaves begin to fall. Put the leaf net over the winter cover. When the leaves have stopped falling take the leaf net off. You can replace the leaf net if you want and do the process again before you uncover your pool, but I usually don't. The leaf net saves many hours of scooping leaves from the deep end of the pool as well as the dark water.