My mom just bought a house 2 miles from me (southwest Florida). Guess who's the pool boy? Yup, me.
The only thing I know about pools is that peeing in them is discouraged, and if it's not discouraged you don't want to be in THAT pool.
So, what do I need to get to figure out the current condition of the water?
As far as I can see, there is ZERO pool equipment for the daily chores associated with keeping a pool up and running. I know the sides should be scrubbed down weekly (?), and the bottom should be vacuumed daily (?).
Any suggestions for equipment?
My suggestion is a digger and truck full of dirt... At least that is what I did once I started pricing out maintenance costs, equipment, running cost, fixing issues, etc.
This is the test kit that I use:
TF-100 Test Kit
My pool has a salt water chlorine generator so I really don't touch it at all other than maybe adding salt once a month. I do swap the filter regularly, about every two weeks. I have an extra one that is clean and ready to be swapped out to make it easier.
Your big issue is going to be the rainy season and the most important thing to keep an eye on is your CYA levels. That dictates whether the chlorine you are putting will do anything or not.
Be careful with tablets, some have CYA in them and after a while the CYA levels get so high that no matter how much chlorine you put in it will not do anything. I much rather buy Clorox at Costco and do that.
Do you know how many gallons the pool has? I would use this in order to see how much of anything you need to add:
Pool calculator
Pools are not that big of a deal, not sure why people hate them.
Also when it comes to scrubbing I have a robot that I throw in the pool once a week. It will do floor and walls.
In my many years of experience (with an above-ground pool; your in-ground is going to differ in some respects), getting the water chemically balanced is the first thing to work on. Take a sample to a pool supply place, let them analyze it, and get started. If it's way out of whack you'll probably have to make several sets of adjustments, but once you get it dialed in, it's much easier to maintain. Figure out what sort of filtration it uses and make sure the filter media is clean when you start; at least with my DE filter, reduced pump outflow is the sign that it needs to be changed. Vacuuming daily sounds like overkill to me, but I'm also not worried about a few specs of dirt here and there. You may want to look into some sort of robot vacuum so that you don't have to worry about doing it manually.
Thanks Slippery and 02. Follow-up questions/comments:
Slippery, what are CYA levels? Until this very second, CYA had only one meaning LOL.
Thanks for the pool calculator. In Michigan pools are a negative thing because they cost XX dollars a month to keep them running, and you can only use them for maybe 3 months? more than likely 2 unless it's heated. Down here in Florida, it's the opposite. Unheated you'll used it all but 2-3 months our of the year and they increase your home value. I wish we had one.
02Pilot, great idea. I'm going to go over there and get a water sample and take it to a pool supply place not far from the house.
What is a DE filter?
CYA: Cyanuric Acid. Basically a stabilizing agent, but it can go too far.
Around here, a pool is apparently neutral when it comes to home value. The house we bought 4 years ago has an indoor pool and it didn't really affect our decision to buy or not. I've definitely been learning how to keep it happy. It's a LOT easier when it's indoors, but that also makes it easier to ignore and neglect. But we can use it year-round.
I can tell you the under 8 crowd loves it, though.
DrBoost said:
Thanks Slippery and 02. Follow-up questions/comments:
Slippery, what are CYA levels? Until this very second, CYA had only one meaning LOL.
Thanks for the pool calculator. In Michigan pools are a negative thing because they cost XX dollars a month to keep them running, and you can only use them for maybe 3 months? more than likely 2 unless it's heated. Down here in Florida, it's the opposite. Unheated you'll used it all but 2-3 months our of the year and they increase your home value. I wish we had one.
02Pilot, great idea. I'm going to go over there and get a water sample and take it to a pool supply place not far from the house.
What is a DE filter?
DE = Diatomaceous Earth... It's a particulate filter that is very very good at microparticles. We use it in the brewing industry to clarify beer.
In reply to golfduke :
Ok wait. Can my mom use her pool to brew thousands of gallons of beer at once?!?!
Is it above or in ground and how many gallons is the first question. The next question(s) are what equipment is already there as far as pumps, filters, etc.?
We have an in ground pool that uses salt with a chlorine generator. I generally have to fiddle a bit with chemicals to get the PH, hardness, and stabilizer (CYA) balanced and add an appropriate amount of salt when we open it in the spring, but other than that it probably averages about an hour of work or less a week until it gets closed.
I highly, highly, highly recommend a salt/chlorine generator setup. It makes it so much easier.
You’ll need at a minimum a pool net on an extendable aluminum pole to scoop leaves (or pine needles - Florida) out of the pool. A brush attachment that snaps into that pole is needed to brush your plaster around once a week or so to keep it algae free and allow the chlorine to do its thing. A lot of the other maintenance depends on what filtration system you have. Regardless what type, none of them are very complicated to maintain once you understand their needs.
I’ve had four pools having moved around a bit. Three were fresh, one was salt. Each had their good points and each could bite you in the wallet if neglected. Currently have a DE filter, but much prefer the simplicity of the cartridge filter variety. Never had a sand filter but heard they are a lot like DE filters as in requiring periodic back washing to remove the filtered material. Pump back pressure will indicate when back washing is needed.
Take a sample to a pool supply place, let them analyze it, and get started.
Great advice from 02Pilot. Usually the pool supply places will do your testing for free, with the expectation that you’ll buy some/all of your chemicals from them. It’ll be more expensive than online or big-box stores but you will be leveraging their knowledge and gaining expertise for the price difference. A great way to learn while avoiding mistakes.
From my experience, once you have the water in good shape, maintenance is not bad for an in-ground pool. Netting out leaves depends on how many trees are nearby, but maybe once or twice a week if there's only one or two trees nearby. Your other regular maintenance would be dumping the filter baskets (pre-filters that grab large surface crap) and replacing any chemical pucks, this depends on the pool setup but might be twice a week at most. That's the quick and easy stuff. Vacuuming would be weekly or monthly (this is probably the biggest PITA overall), and scrubbing the sides and doing maintenance on the pump filter might be needed a couple times a year (big tasks but not needed too often).
Above-ground pools are a lot more maintenance-intensive, as things you basically never need to worry about with an in-ground pool such as the integrity of the lining material and the walls of the pool and any deck you may have around the pool are now also issues. My experience is with freshwater in-ground and above-ground pools with sand filters.
My mother has a pool as well. The best thing we did was give critters a means to climb out of the pool. I think it was called a frog saver Lilly pad.
Before she bought one, I was getting calls weekly to fish out dead or dying squirrels, chipmunks, mice, and frogs.
Im sure there are other solutions. If this one meets its end I think a pool noodle tied to the latter would serve the same purpose.
So the pool is in ground, and I forgot to measure it to figure out many gallons it is.
i took a sample to the local pool supply place. They said 1 gallon of chlorine is all it needs.
They offer an orientation. They'll look the while thing over, showing me everything from the filter(s) to the timer to the o-rings. They'll label everything and really get me up and running the the paltry sum of $20!
I want to do a salt water pool, but the looking around showed about $2K to convert it. I don't see my mom ponying up the money for that.
Slippery said:
Your big issue is going to be the rainy season and the most important thing to keep an eye on is your CYA levels. That dictates whether the chlorine you are putting will do anything or not.
Be careful with tablets, some have CYA in them and after a while the CYA levels get so high that no matter how much chlorine you put in it will not do anything. I much rather buy Clorox at Costco and do that.
Quoted for truth. I had a pool for 20 years and didn't learn the above until the 17th year. Any form of solid chlorine (including the powdered shock) has CYA in it, and if the CYA levels get too high you need more and more chlorine to have any effect. The only practical way to lower CYA is to replace water. I replaced 1/2 the water in our pool to get the CYA down, then started using liquid chlorine (generic non-scented bleach from Walmart), baking soda, and dry acid to adjust levels. Before that, we would have at least one algae episode every season, after it stayed nice and clear all season.
Start by testing daily with the TF-100 or equivalent, once you do it for a while you will get a feel for how much chlorine it needs and you can just test once or twice a week.
My education in all this came from troublefreepool.com
There's lots of helpful info on TFP. Also, if there's a water treatment supply house near you, you can get Cl in 5 gallon containers for less than walmart price. Cl concentration is also nice & high, approx 12%
Troublefreepool.com is worth the hours of reading. It will save you hours of headache.
They need a lot less chemicals than your pool store tells you they do. They will screw up your balance.
Salt water FTW.
Get the big test kit and learn to use it. I used the Taylor K2006 kit.
Ours was used 5 years before everyone lost interest.
I'm glad I didn't shell out the money for an inground.
This has been interesting reading, thanks for the advice folks.
If you want a pool with little maintenece. Consider an organic pool.
TL;DR filter your pool water with plants.
I've been watching David Pagan Butler's videos on YouTube, they outline how to do it. He has books on the subject as well.
You can build one from scratch or convert an existing pool. Just to get my feet wet, i bought one of those snap together pools from Sprawlmart.
I planted everything in mesh baskets filled with granite gravel. Granite is important because it helps keep nutrients low. Low nutrients are what you are aiming for. Without going into a long explaination as to how it works, organic pools are more akin to a swimming in a healthy lake, than a pool.
This will be the third year for the snap together pool, in winter i just let it freeze over all the plants overwinter just fine. I have never changed the water. I filled it with city water, after the chlorine gassed off it turned green from algae. This is when I added the plants, it took about a week to clear up, but has been crystal clear ever since. The only maintenece has been cutting down bullrush stems in fall, and cleaning fallen leaves in spring...
I am slowly building a permenent version. When It is done, i plan on transfering everyting to the new pool..
A friend in Germany has a pool like that. It's quite nice to swim in, it feels like a lake with that soft feel to the water. Looks good in the backyard, too - his is in-ground and looks more like a pond with brick lining than a pool.
As someone who almost pulled the trigger recently on a salt water conversion, here's why i didn't do it. Of course, your mileage may vary, but there was a very important factor i wasn't considering that my pool lady pointed out to me that I'm glad she did, because it saved me a TON of heartache.
Anyway, we're on a well, and our ground water is highly metallic. So by converting to salt water, we wouldn't have to worry about chlorine since we'd me making our own, but rust would be a constant issue. So we'd basically trade constant chlorine maintenance for constant phosphoric acid maintenance and all the other associated issues that come with super metallic water like we have. But if you have treated water, or softr ground water, salt is a really sweet solution.
I also highly recommend getting a pool person. NOT from a professional pool service associated with a pool care store, because they'll bend you over and put it to you dry, but an independent contractor with a rusty pickup full of pool brushes and chlorine buckets who never uses a test kit but can just look at your pool and tell exactly what it needs who rattle into your yard whenever the hell they feel like it and leave when your pool sparkles. I think we pay like $60 a month for our pool person and she's a damn sorceress when it comes to all matters chemical. We also get some sweet second hand gear like automatic vacuums that are hand-me-downs from her rich customers that have to have the latest and greatest every season. Anyway, at first i was like "nah we can do this ourselves" now it's the easiest money I ever spend. We even turned Tim and Margie on to her and she does their pool now, so we can always commiserate because we both hide when she comes over.
