Corners

I need to get a safety cover soon and was wondering who has the best price/quality ratio. Also, what other things should I be looking for in a cover? My pool has oval ends, is 32.5' long, 17 ft wide, and 8' radius ends.

Good stuff. About adding the bleach, it was suggested above to add into the skimmer. That makes sense to me, as it would be throughly mixed. Is this the best way? How quickly would you dump bleach into the skimmer?

Thanks a lot guys! Question, what is the advantage of using "laundry" bleach (6% sodium hypochlorite) vs some of the chlorinating chemicals at the pool store? Cost? Effectiveness? Why not run the sand filter? Too much debris?

Thanks for the reply. Got the system up and running. There was no power getting to the pump. The switch was bad. Re-wired that, but the pump wouldn't turn over (seized). Popped the end cap off the motor to gain access to the shaft, put a wrench on it, got it to turn over, and that was it. It all runs. I tried your garden hose trick, but I couldn't see any flow out of the skimmer, so I took a shot at which suction valve was the skimmer, and I was right! Left the system running for about an hour just to check things out. I can hear a slight vacuum leak in the pump suction piping, so I may be re-doing that in the near future. I shut the system down and went back to my temporary housing (parent's) for the night. Didn't want to leave it running, as the skimmer basket fills up pretty quick with all the debris in the pool. Now, onto your reply. You said to check the pool chemical levels. Is this a worthy effort, considering all the debris in the pool? Also, would you replace the sand in the filter? I was thinking I'd want to replace the sand after I clean the bulk of the debris out of the pool. Thoughts?

Hello, First time pool owner here, and I have a “bit” of a project ahead of me. I recently purchased a home under foreclosure, and this home has an in ground pool. I’ve been putting all my effort into the home making it livable for my family, but now it’s time to turn my attention to the pool. The pool is oval, 17’ by 34’, and vinyl lined (20,000 gallon estimate). What I do know is that the pool holds water, and there is no evidence of any liner seam separation or tears on the walls. However, I cannot see through the black/brown pond water. The pool has been sitting for a year uncovered. It is not known if the pool was properly winterized. The water level was left about a foot below the jets, so I do hope something was done, but there were no plugs in the strainer basket or jets (crosses fingers for broken underground lines). I called a local pool company to see if they’d come out, but they have a week of so lead time, so I was going to see what I can do on my own before hand. My background is, I’m a mechanical engineer, to items like plumbing or electrical don’t scare me one bit, but I am a complete novice when it comes to pool chemistry, nor to I know the best way to get things up and going without possibly making things work. In talking with the pool company, they told me if there’s no sign of liner damage, go ahead and fill up the pool halfway up the skimmer basket. Ok, done. Yesterday, I went out back and checked out the pump. I hit the switch just to see if it’d fire up, and nothing happed. Pump might be dead, but I’ve yet to fully investigate the issue. The breaker is on, the GFI next to the pump switch is on, but the switch could be bad or what not, so the next thing I’m going to do is see if the pump is getting power and go from there. This isn’t too big of deal to me at the moment. I do have a question, though. On the pump, there are 2 suction valves. I assume one goes to the skimmer, and the other to the bottom of the pool. I do NOT want to pull suction off the bottom of the pool, as I assume there’s about a foot of leaves down there. I want to only pull off the skimmer. Any ideas on how to determine which valve is which? I was going to take a shop vac and push some air back into the sand filter. I don’t see a check in the piping, so I’d assume if I put a little pressure on the system, I could see water being pushed out of the skimmer, or maybe air, but I don’t think a shop valve is going to provide enough pressure to do anything like that. Just looking for a little water movement. Now, after I get the pump running, I’m kinda at a loss as to what to do. The pool guy told me not to go poking around the bottom of the pool with a net without being able to see through the water. He was worried about damaging the liner by dragging some things around. I could add chemicals, but I don’t know what or how much. I really want to at least get the pump running and filter out some of the crap, mainly mosquito larvae. There’s a bazillian mosquito larvae swimming around inside the skimmer cover area, and I’m sure my neighbors would appreciate it if I could suck those little buggers right out of the water. So, assuming I can get the pump up and running, where would you start, and what chemicals would you add to facilitate clearing up the water, at least enough to where I could see down to the bottom for additional raking and vacuuming. That, or anything I can get a jump ahead of the pool guy coming out, which every little bit of time I take off his work saves me money. Thanks in advance. Pictures are below… Pretty water… Mechanicals…