Jandy SWCG's "optimal" water conditions: why raise CYA?

[waterbear]

Thanks Evan. I appreciate your reply. I am embarrased, and publically admit you were right about the CYA. I must have read the Pool Info, Not the SWCG info. Please accept my apologies.

In my case a few years ago, the Problem with the CYA was on a Fresh fill. I drained my pool to less than 1 inch of water and refilled. After adding the CYA, and discovered the "high CYA Problem", I had the water tested at three different pool stores (before I ever heard of this Forum) and not one could find anything wrong with my pool chemistry. The unanimous consensus was high CYA as the cause of the eye irritation. I cannot explain how 4 Lbs. of CYA took me to readings in excess of 110 PPM in approximately 11,000 gallons of water, nor can I explain why draining 2/3 of the pool water (the following year) and refilling with fresh water took me to 100 ppm. But that pool and all its water and problems are long gone, so it will remain a mystery.
No mystery at all. I have seen it many times. When CYA levels are very hiigh for an extended period of time CYA tends to deposit in the plumbimg and pool surfaces and when you refill it residdolves and brings the level higher than you expect. As far as the pool store folk not knowing why the water was making burning eyes...well, since I used to work in a pool store I don't have a lot of respect for a lot of people that work in them, 'nuff said?

Yes I am a slow learner, I don't just go out and buy or do everything everyone tells me to until I investigate it. After all when your own children and grandchildren tell you that their eyes burn in your pool, I will err on the the side of caution.
But how do you know which way to err? Less is not always best (as the best guess chart shows with chlorine levels!)
Hypothetical point, If there were burning eyes and the pool store said that everything was fine (because their testing method bleached out at high chlorine levels and could not detect the combined chlorine in the water--actually, I have seen this happen--and someone else said to add more chloirne to get rid of the burning eyes but your chlorine was already high (and your CYA was high). would you give it a try to see if it worked? I believe you know enough about pool chemistry now to know it would!

As far as the test kit is concerned, my old one was barely adequate, but wouldn't test CYA, so yes, I ordered the Taylor.

Have you received the Taylor kit yet? I think you will find there is a BIG difference between 'barely adequate' and a good test kit. If I remember right your old test kit was OTO and not DPD. There is a reason that the Taylor kit is recommended, otherwise we would probably recommend getting a cheap '5-way' kit from Ace Hardware and adding a CYA test to it. The end result is so different it is a case of apples and oranges!