Pool-newb

I'll look around to see if I can find some phosphonate based based sequestrant. I wanted to avoid adding phosphates to the pool but it's gotta be better than this. I also have to say that the EDTA based sequestrant doesn't seem to be working very well either. I guess you get what you pay for in the chemical world too. After reading this, this and this (posts from waterbear found searching for HEDP, EDTA and chelation) I'm even more convinced that I at least need to try the HEDP base sequestrant. It seems I was overly cautious avoiding the phosphonate stuff based on not reading completly and not fully digesting what I did read. The EDTA based sequestrant and the lowered pH was not enough in my case to remove the stains at all once they precipitated. I ahve read in other posts that adding a sequestrant will remove slight and light stains. Maybe that too will improve with an HEDP sequestrant. It is also possible that whatever metal I have doesn't respond as well to EDTA as it does to HEDP. (I'm certain it is metal because ascorbic acid works wonders but the pool store has never been able to find any metals. I assume they found nothing because it was all either sequestered or on the pool walls. But I digress.) I was aware of the ascorbic acid consuming chlorine but as I re-added the chlorine after the ascorbic acid treatment I was able to see pretty dramatic cl usage then a drop as soon as the ascorbic acid was gone. But the cl usage never dropped to what I had last year, and as soon as it got close the stains retrurned. Now they're coming back again and I think I've just made them angry. :-) Sure would be great if there was a flocking or similar agent to actually remove the ions from the water for good. I can see another ascorbic acid treatment in the headlights. Ugh.

Thanks again Richard for the response This is getting very irritating. I had no serious problems last year once I got things balanced, this year it just is not working. I left the SWG at 20 % overnight and still lost 1.5 ppm in 10 hrs. During the entire day i have been testing different settings on the controller to get something that will keep up with demand: - 07:00: cl 2.0, orp ~300 - raised generator to 75% - 08:46: cl 5.0, ORP ~50-100, lowered generator to 50% - 13:09: cl 4.75, ORP ~60, left generator at 50%, removed cover but day was only about 10% direct sun, lotsa clouds & shade. - 16:07: cl 1.25, ORP - low, saw faint stains coming back so added one full dose EDTA, moved controller to 66% - 18:06: cl 1.00, ORP negative, moved controller to 80 I was under the assumption that the percentage adjustment would adjust the current through the cell. It doesn't. There seems to be some kind of duty timer so that it cycles on and off for longer or shorter periods. While I was adjusting it I noticed the "click"point was around 70-80%, and I could hear the relays and see the current reading rise or drop to 0 while adjusting the level. . Yeah, I'd sort of forgotten what was happening on the SWG section so I reviewed. When I added the borates a few weeks ago I also added a bit too much muriatic acid so that has left my pH low. I didn't worry too much about it because I figured the bleach addition would raise it enough over time, and I wanted to keep the pH down a bit to prevent staining. It didn't and because my TA is at 100-110 I am going have to raise pH/lower TA it with aeration. My CYA was also low at about 30 ppm but I added more last night to bring it up to 50-60 ppm. The stuff I am using is listed on the MSDS as "30-60% EDTA. I've been trying not to add much because I was convinced that was causing the problem with CL demand and the cc increase. I had added maybe ¾ the proper dose last week, trying to keep it low but today, once again, the stains are returning. I've removed the cover to help "air it out" but the ORP is going lower if anything. ./. It looks like my only option is just to shock the heck ( = EDTA) out if and ignore the stains until I get the liner - and with it the water - replaced. Are there any ideas as to what could be causing the fluctuating cl load and is this related to the strange ORP values? Are these two even related? Do I just still have algae from when there was no cl? Does this perhaps have anything to do with the ascorbic acid treatment? Could there be some other stuff in the water that is causing all of this?

40 is a bit low unless you use bleach and haven't added any CYA in a while. The bigger question is when was your previous measurement and what was it? (assuming the 40 is since you've had the problem). On the other hand, when this bacteria thing happened to me, my CYA went down to about 15, others have reported down to zero. What kind of chlorine are you using? If you are using bleach you can probably just keep adding, filtering, brushing and backwashing until it fixes itself. Keep an eye on combined chlorine and free chlorine. If cc is high it is possibly algae. Once it goes down you should see fc start to hold. Difficult situation and I understand why the pool store is stumped despite having a plethora of junk he could sell you to throw at it.

How much CYA do you have? (I believe our previous two posts were almost simultaneous).

oops - almost forgot: check your CYA levels. I believe CYA cannot be "chemilized" out so if it went down drastically that would be another indication of a CYA eating bacteria. Ammonia dissipates rather quickly in the presence of chlorine so just because you measure no ammonia doesn't mean this isn't the problem.

that very thing happened to me. Certainly check your ammonia levels and keep adding cl until you get . You could also get your own testing kit just to rule out any problem with the store or even the container you use to obtain the water sample.

Usually a 10 psi rise in filter pressure indicates the need to backflush. It is almost always demand dependent; when opening a swamp you may need to do it several times an hour whereas if you have an indoor pool with no bathers and a good cl level it may last much much longer.

Well, I took the plunge (pun ignored) and purchased an SWclG yesterday. The install was simple and probably the fastest major change I ever made to the pool, finishing it within about 4 hours. I got the SwimPure Plus with T-CELL15 (for up to 40 000 gals) . Probably way overkill for my small pool but I wanted some reserve and didn't want to have to replace the cell anytime soon. First thing I found out was that I only needed four 40 lb. bags of salt to get get to 3300 ppm. I now assume that my pool is smaller than 8-8.5k I had calculated. It is rectangular and the calculated measurement of 12*24*4*~7.4 is probably off because the deep end has a slope down to the drain. There may also have been some salt buildup from the use of bleach prior to now. I'm sure glad I checked before adding the last two recommended bags. I also upped the CYA level to just over 60 ppm. Because the cell is so over dimensioned I set it to 20% and let the pump run overnight. Nine hours later (this morning at 7) the fc level had actually dropped from 3.5 to 2.0 with a cc hovering around 1.0, and ORP had dropped from >670 to around 300. I added 4 cups of chlorine and set the SWG to 75. At 8:46 the cl level had jumped to 5.0, cc was hanging at around 1, but the ORP had bottomed out to near zero, fluctuating between about -50 and +150. Most of the higher readings I got with the meters in a plastic measuring cup, the lower readings were with the probe directly in the pool. From what I have googled I believe this low ORP reading is caused by hydrogen outgassing but I never imagined it could push the ORP so low. Btw, the pool has been solar covered since I completed adding the salt and vacuumed it fairly clean yesterday evening. There was some green algae stuck to the walls but I'm assuming it was dead (or?) because the water was very clear and I have maintained the cl levels since last wall brushing a week or two ago. I have also not been attempting to remove the cc because I was assuming that it was coming from the sequestrant added to keep the metal stains from reappearing. I also have two identical pH/ORP/temp (Hanna handheld, one about a year old, the other about 1 week) meters. I was having problems with my original meter that I thought were being caused by having dropped it, but after cleaning and calibration I find that the meters reach "similar" ORP values with the new meter reaching the value faster, and usually being about 25 mv higher. Both meters show nearly identical pH values (± .01), and have about 0.4-0.5°C temperature difference). Questions - is it really possible for ORP indication to be pushed so low in a pool with an SWclG? Do I really need to keep the cl high (shock levels?) until the cc goes away? Can cc be caused by metal sequestrant? Can algae thrive despite cc levels above 1.5-2 ppm with 30 ppm CYA? What else did I miss?

I think if you follow Wobblys' instruction you'll be fine and it will go quick. But if you want to do it like the $160 guy, you can replace the leaking section. Coming from someone that has replaced all of the plumbing once, several more parts of the plumbing again, and still has PVC glue on his pants from some stuff done today, I can tell you that working with PVC can is easy, can even be fun but it does take time. I'm not sure what you mean by "silicone caulk". If there really is silicone caulk on a 1½" or 2" PVC pipe, I believe there was a boo-boo made somewhere. Usually, when two pieces of PVC are put together, they are first primed with some purple stuff, then bonded with a (usually) clear PVC glue that actually softens the surfaces so that they slightly melt and fuse together. Additionally, the joints of the PVC pipes are slightly cone shaped so that when you push them together they will wedge without seating all the way - they will only seat properly once you have the glue on them. The basic steps are for PVC are: - figure out what you need and buy the parts (glue and purple primer too), - cut out the old stuff (if you haven't turned off your pump by now you will notice ), - cut the new parts to the proper length as needed - do a temporary assembly with the new parts to make sure it all fits - then smear purple primer on both surfaces of one the joints - then smear glue on both surfaces of the joint - and push the joint together within the next several seconds. - Repeat the last 3 steps as often as necessary until you have all the joints done. If you've never done PVC before, your local hardware or home improvement store will be glad to show you (and of course then sell you) the proper parts and glues, and then show you how to use everything. If you take some photos (with a cell-phone perhaps?) of the leaky part with you into the store they may even be able to show you all the parts you need. If you still feel a little nervous you can even purchase some extra parts and practice gluing them together. But don't worry, it is a very easy thing to learn and do, and even if you mess up somewhere, repairing the mistakes are usually not difficult or expensive.

Wow - just read the whole thread, very amazing stuff and thanks to everyone for discussing this. My wife also has had sun allergy problems, and she recently got a slight case of small red bumps mainly on her chest after our pool was either too highly chlorinated or it just had not completely recovered from a recent algae attack. We have since both been in the pool again and no problems, but it is very interesting to know that the cholesterol lowering meds can be the main source of something like this. (My wife is not on any medication). I would sure like to see more "home research" on this. I think if it were me suffering from this I would start doing some blind testing and recording various things to see what if anything can be identified that exacerbates it. I would have my wife mix two buckets of water, labeled "A" and "B". One would always contain pure warm water, and the other would contain a somewhat higher concentration of a suspected agent that is used in the tub. With my wife out of the room (and both of us respectively tracking what went into which bucket) I would then dip my arms up to above the elbows, one arm in each bucket, and see if that created any effect. As the suspected agent I would one by one try everything that got into the pool. Maybe it's just the heat? Maybe it's any sanitizer? Maybe too much or too little calcium? Lots of things to try there.

You have no free chlorine and lots of combined chlorine so you'll need to shock a lot. Barring any odd circumstances (and there are several possibilities), you'll need to maintain shock level until you get your CC level to< 0.5 and You also have no CYA so you will need to add something with it in it, or add it directly, unless this pool is indoors or gets zero sun. Your TDS suggests that you don't have a SWclG so the next questions becomes what do you use to sanitize it? If you use the standard pucks you'll need to monitor pH well and watch that the CYA level does not get too high. Otherwise, many of us here recommend and use the BBB method. This method only requires the use of standard liquid (plain unscented) Bleach as a sanitizer and a small amount of muriatic acid added very intermittently to counteract the slight upward pH tend caused by the bleach. Many pool stores tend to sell you stuff you don't need, and stuff you do need at prices way above what you'd pay if you were to go to a department or home improvement store and buy the not-for-special-pool-store packaged items. While there are things you may need from time to time that you can only get at a pool store, most of the major stuff is a lot cheaper elsewhere. In my signature is a link to The Pool School. You can learn all about this and how to get around it by reading that. While not necessarily the least labor intensive way to maintain a pool, it is probably the absolute cheapest way to keep the water sanitized you'll find. In my signature is also a link to the pool calculator which will tell you how much of which chemicals you'll need once you understand the relationship between all the chemicals.

To kick this off, here are my numbers:

I was just wondering how we all feel about the temperature of our pools and I really appreciate your feedback. Take the poll and leave a comment if you'd like. It would be especially great to hear what you have or had to pay: - To purchase the heating equipment - To install the heating equipment - To heat the pool every month (annual avg divided by 12) - for any failures or replacements - how long any pool heater lasted - what brand/type it is and was and - if you're happy with it on a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is worst and 10 is best. Thanks!

I tend to believe you. I recently installed my wood fired heater and in the decision process I found out about heat exchanger design. The best design incorporates rounded pipes, not 90° or even 180°. Looking at the parts diagram your heater has exactly that; the water enters several pipes, circles the flame to reverse direction and then comes back out in the opposite without ever hitting a corner. As I understand it, that will help reduce erosion wear. That makes sense. I was wondering if the cost was perhaps too high. I was looking at gas heaters and I may still get one but a local Lowe's employee recently told me it cost him $500 in gas the first month without a solar cover so I'm a bit leery of the cost. Our back yard is in shade for a large portion of the day and I want to (intend to) swim most of the year in 83°+ water. But judging from the water temperature changes I've had so far and the time it takes to heat, I may not be very successful, even here in Atlanta. But if I can at least swim from march till November, I'll be ok. That's possible. I'm a warm freak though. I can't swim in water much cooler than 80°F, and if I had free heat I would probably keep it at around 85°. constantly. Anecdotaly it seems that while most people I ask prefer to use the pool as a refreshing break, I tend to use it to get some exercise and fun, and I don't need the cooling so much. If you install it and never use it you've only wasted some time and a bit of PVC tubing and valves, but it does leave you more options. I checked today, when I have the water running exclusively through the heater and the pump is on high speed I have a pressure increase of about 5 psi for a total of 25 psi at the filter. That's a lot but the plumbing to my heater also adds about 10 ft to the flow path, plus whatever the heat exchanger adds. I googled forever and it took a huge amount of time before I finally found the one I wanted at the lowest price. My absolute favorite was the Pentair variable speed pump but at the time it was about twice the cost of the Hayward Northstar that I ended up with, and it would have been overkill for both the pool and the budget. But I am very happy with the Hayward dual-speed just the same and I can recommend this configuration very well; get a pump that is well overdimensioned on high speed and use the low speed for most of the work. .

I agree with the two inch plumbing and it is too bad that your pool builder didn't do it. That half inch really makes a difference on the resistance to water flow. I have an older pool with 1½" plumbing in ground but I replaced all the above ground stuff with 2". The other decision I made that I'm very happy with is a dual speed pump. I also get about 20 psi (goes up to 30 if filter gets really dirty) on the Hayward sand filter with the 1½ HP pump running at full speed, but when I reduce it to low speed I only see about 4 or 5 lbs and I still have great circulation and pressure at the outlets. An abridged excerpt of the installation manual for this heater says ... """ I didn't see anything about the heat exchanger material in the manual so I assume it is copper. The heaters with Cupronickel cores generally advertise that fact. So knowing that you have a SWG and a copper core heater I would tend to disagree with txpoolguy and ps558 and install the bypass. I think your concerns are appropriate. - First of all, depending on the plumbing design, the bypass it could reduce flow resistance in the entire system and reduce the head a bit. I know it does in mine, and since I have valves on all three sections it helps to leave all three open when I want a high flow. - Secondly there are corrosion issues associated with higher flow rates. The flow of chlorinated salt water through copper pipe (especially if your heat exchanger had a lot of right angles in it but yours is round-ish) - will tend to wear off any protective corrosion layer that builds up. This becomes more important considering your larger pump. - Third, if you do let the pH drift downward - even accidentally - that will cause more and faster corrosion (I have a rusted out heater from the previous owners that used tabs and monitored neither CYA nor pH), and - Fourth, salt water is corrosive. With the rush of SWclG installs recently there have also been lots of problems with copper core pool heaters mixing with salt water - they do corrode fast and don't last long. There are heaters with cores made of alternate materials - cupro for example - and these should not have as much a problem with salt water. If it was me I would install the bypass and drain the heater whenever I wasn't using it. So why do you not use the heater much, anyway?

Snow - ugh. I moved to a warmer climate mostly because of that! Actually it can be fun to swim in a steaming pool with snow laying all around. I'm assuming even in Alberta the May snows don't last long but whether the do or not I assume the bigger problem would be getting from a warm house into an outdoor pool without losing a body part to frostbite. :-) Sounds like a great area for an outdoor sauna too.

For normal long term filtering I believe you should have all skimmer and drain lines as fully open as possible so the pump has as little resistance as possible. Unless this is a spa-pool combination or there are other temperature balance considerations (heater installed somewhere?), and if the water is circulating properly you should not have much difference in temperatures between drain and skimmer. Of course if you're running the pool cleaner it will need to have the valves opened for that. On the return side same thing. I assume the valve labeled "drain" will empty the pool. If so you of course don't want to have that one open. Otherwise make certain everything that can bring water back into the pool has everything open. Another think you could do is make a few photos of the valve positions, print them out, laminate them and leave them attached to the plumbing.

Sounds logical to me; - You've fixed one area and the leak slowed. - You see another area that is damaged. So the first fix did change something and there is another area that could be fixed? I would fix the 2nd area and consider redoing all the tiling - maybe even letting someone professional do it. It sounds like the grout and tile glue has finally reached an age where it is failing and will keep on failing in sections until you've patched it all - and then maybe your patches will start failing. Let us know how it works out!

Here's the rundown as I see it: - Solar pool cover: no brainer, everyone who wants a pool warmer needs to have one - Gas: cheap to install, expensive to very expensive to run - Solar: medium-low purchase and installation costs, requires a lot of sunny space, costs nothing to run, not good in cloudy or cool weather - Heat pump: Expensive to purchase and install, cheap it run but only heats best when you don't need it - Wood: Self-built is cheap, purchased is medium expensive to install, there are smoke and fire stoking issues but cheap to run if you have the wood and they heat all year round. Barko - can you post photos of your heater??

Did someone say wood-burning or wood-fired pool heater? Search for my posts for some photos. I installed one from "Extenda-Swim" and I really like mine but there are some challenges. First of all, the decision for me to go with wood was based on the following: - Gas was cheap and easy to install but prohibitively expensive to run - Solar will probably eventually be an addition but I only get a decent amount of sun on the house roof, and I mostly get sun when I don't need to heat the pool - Heat pumps have great efficiency but they are expensive to buy, still need a good amount of electricity to run and installation was complicated. BUt the worst part is that they work the worst when you most need the heat, and vice-versa. - I am a little bit green and I liked the concept of burning a renewable resource to heat the pool. I also had a lot wood in the trees on the property. So after researching my options it was wood heating, either self build or buy. I don't have the facilities to build a proper heater so I went with the Extend-Swim middle model. First of all you need a wood source. I had 8 large hardwood trees taken down in my yard and that will probably keep the water warm for 1 to 3 years, depending on whether I heat in the winter - which I plan to do. I also have a old pickup truck which will work well for hauling wood, and I have some friends that can supply me free wood if I cut it down - and I need the exercise. The next challenge is that you need to feed the fire. Depending on the kind of wood you have you'll need to be out there every 1 to 3 hours. Built correctly and fire can last overnight though the temperature rise is not huge. But, this is kind of a man thing, and again I enjoy taking care of that fire. Another problem that I ran into is that you need to be certain the pump always runs when you have the fire burning. In my case we lost power while the fire was good and hot, and it didn't dawn on me that I need to put out the fire until some time into the outage, and by then it was too late; the water had reached boiling and some of that heat traveled out and "softened" the PVC plumbing. Fortunately it didn't destroy the pump or filter, and I was still able to run the pump but it left several joints leaking so I did have to spend a Saturday and over $100 to replace the plumbing. I won't forget that again. The smoke from the heater can also be a problem. I detailed the design issues I have with this particular heater in another post but suffice it here to say that it is not an insurmountable problem. In general, there is often a lot of smoke when the fire first starts, and more if I add too much of the wrong kind of wood so I am learning how to make a fire that smokes less and burns better. Smoke is almost never a problem on the deck despite the close location to the heater, and I have repeatedly asked the neighbors in our smallish-lot sized neighborhood if it is a problem but no one has complained. Don't let all this put you off wood heating. Despite the challenges I also have to say I really love the heater and I use it a lot. .

Can you post the rest of your test results? Other factors can influence how much fc you have too. How much combined chlorine do you have? Do you have your own test kit? If not I would get one and compare your results with the pool store. I got the TF-100 and I'm happy with it but basically any test kit that uses the FAS-DPD method to measure fc & CC would be appropriate. My pool store uses the normal DPD test method and that can measure only up tp 5 ppm accurately. If you have a really high amount it may "bleach out". The OTO test kits won't bleach out but can also measure a maximum of 5 ppm and include combined chlorine. How warm is the water? Warmer water will use cl much faster than cooler water. I recently performed an ascorbic acid stain removal treatment and now I am routinely adding a metal sequestrant. I believe the sequestrant has greatly increased my cl usage and it gives me a constant but low cc level. Does the pool get direct sunlight? If so and your CYA is low you can lose fc very quickly, and if your pool was green you may have had some "CYA consuming bacteria". I didn't know it existed until about a few weeks ago when my CYA level went from over 60 down to near zero within a few days. Check the cl drop overnight to be sure on this. You said you added "20 Gallons" of chlorine - I assume this means that you added bleach. If the bleach is old (from last year perhaps) it may have lost a large proportion of it's strength.

Hey TX When I replaced the above ground part of my plumbing I put in ball valves and disconnects and all 5 pipes (skimmer, drain and 3 return lines). I am very happy I did for several reasons; - When I clean the pump basket I don't lose prime, the basket, filter and plumbing stays full of water. - when I vacuum I can close off the drain and leave only the skimmer - when I have any sort of problem I can troubleshoot - for example if air is coming into the pump or I'm losing prime for some reason All in all it just gives me much more flexibility.

pH should be low when beginning the ascorbic acid treatment, chlorine should be as low as you can get it but when I started my first treatment it was at about 8 ppm. That wasn't a big problem; the ascorbic acid just burned off the rest of the chlorine so I lost that much ascorbic acid doing the stain removal. I would be very interested in understanding the effect of the water softener on the well water. Are you saying that it removes iron? So you don't have any iron stains in the clothes you wash after shocking the well? If so, I wonder if I could "borrow" a water softener and run my pool water through it a couple of times to remove the iron? Your pool guy was spot on regarding the vitamin c pills. A citrus fruit also works well; cut it in half and stick the cut half on the stain and let it sit for a few minutes. I tried this with half a grapefruit that I had already eaten most of and it left a reappy nice clean white spot on the tan stairs. I think after my experiences I just need to be very careful about maintaining my cl levels; not too high that it forces the metals to precipitate but not so low that a shocking becomes necessary.

Yes, check my signature below for the links and go to the pool school. It will help loads. Look especially for the BBB method. .

Oops, also regarding the heater - if you are installing an SWG (very common now) make sure you get one that is specifically recommended for salt water. Warranty lengths have decreased recently and they have new metals - like cupro - that should abate this but make sure whoever sells and installs heater is aware that you want one that won't rust out and dump metals in your water while doing so.