sharkypoolpro

Whichever of your local dealers seems "best" is what spa you should get. All the major brands are similar, all are good, and all have minor issues from time to time. So your relationship with the sales and service people is paramount. 10-13k will get you the top of the line dimension 1 spa by the way, which is loaded and fairly luxurious.

Depends on what kind of pool you have and where you live and also what type of soil surrounds the pool. For example if you have a Gunite and plaster pool, there is nothing that seals the concrete coping to the tile below it, so filling the pool to the brim will let all the excess water leak underneath your coping and decking which can cause a variety of problems.

i have one of my commercial pools in the same neighborhood as a few others and it seems to grow algae like its a petri dish. the only way to rid it (i have tried everything!!!) is superchlorination (last time i used 25 lbs calhypo and its a 36k gal pool with a 9' deep end) for about 24 hours, then a quart of floc for 2 hours, then pump off for 24 hours, then vac to waste. i didn't even let my chlorine level come down past 8ppm and still within 4 days it started to bloom again. i am putting a lot of chemical and a very lot of time into this mystery. just yesterday i put 8 cups cal hypo, then 1 qt silvertrine, then at the end of the day 1 qt floc. i have like an inch of dead algae that i need to go vac up now. what can i do to keep this growth down?

you have given not even close to enough info to help you determine what you should charge...

i haven't spent hours on this forum (which rocks!!!) yet to see what info is here, but i struggle with CYA at ALL of my public pools that run trichlor tabs. my options are let it get high and then drain it every year, or drain it little by little, or hand add calhypo or something else once it starts to creep up. is there a better way?

However, it's more important that you add enough FC for your CYA level to be able to kill algae faster than it can grow. wait a minute, unless i'm completely misreading this, it sounds like you are saying that your CYA level is doing the killing. cya is not a sanitizer. it's a uv shield. that's it. the FC is doing the killing, the cya is allowing the fc to be able to do it... did i misread? and no to the original poster, a lower ph has no correlation with the 'chlorine being able to be at a higher level.' the ph has to do with the balance of the water, making it fit for humans to be able to be in it. the chlorine is just there to kill kill kill, keeping the water free of hazardous bacteria. you might want to have your local shop clarify, because the only thing i can think of that they might be saying is, like chem geek said, taking a proactive step by first lowering the ph, then adding (liquid) chlorine to the water will get you back to the ph you want, instead of adding the liquid first, then adding acid to get it back down to where you want. but that's not really what you need anyway. you just need a slightly higher level of sanitizer (chlorine of some sort) then you need some vigorous brushing to get all the levels of algae, then you need good filtration to filter out the dead algae that you just killed and brushed. none of that involves acid... since you don't plan on swimming any time soon, just get your chlorine level up to a 5 or so and keep it up while you brush daily. some algaecide will help too, but if you don't have it, don't go buy it. i'm not a chemistry pro, but i take care of a ton of pools.

awesome. i'm going to try this today. i have to add tons of hose water every single day to one of my commercial pools, and so i'm going to just put a nozzle on the hose and fire it into the water instead of letting putting the end of the hose into the water like i normally do. firing it into the water will create the turbulence and pull air down simultaneously! i'm excited to have a new technique that i've never heard anyone local discuss!!!

k just read your article. nice work. i tried to email you this direct but couldn't find a way to contact individually so my response will have to go here. and yes, this is still related to the original post and question. your article was about the effects of cya in the water under different conditions and levels, etc. i only read it once, so obviously i missed some things, but basically that's what it was about. the only part that talked about Ph was the short paragraph that discussed the outgassing of CO2, but it didn't discuss the actual ph of liquid chlorine. so i still am of the opinion that when this member of the forum added 8 gallons of an above-11 ph chemical to what was probably a 7.5 ph body of water, they will definitely have a portion of the pool (the spot where the liquid was poured in) that is instantly way too alkaline for a human to get into(10000 times too alkaline). yes there are other factors too, like the granular chlorine they also put in, so at that spot they will have a too-low-ph area. and once all this is circulated together, the overall ph of that pool is going to be well above the 8.0 that our regular test kits will read accurately. i don't think there's any way in the work a residential pool has so many contaminants in it that all of the liquid he put in is gone already (after only a day or two). his pool probably has a fairly high CYA level because he has been buying at the local pool store (and likely putting in tabs). so last year's residual CYA would have been plenty of protection for the free chlorine that was inserted this spring. i still think you are bleaching out. in fact i just re-read his initial post. he put in shock (a couple of 1lb bags, i assume) then put in 8 gal liquid, then prob about 5-8 pounds granular (dichlor?). all into a 20k gal pool. it's just been way way way over chlorinated. better go pull $100 out from under your mattress because you are buying your wife a new suit if she got in... (i would love to know more about the outgassing and the way to keep the ph in check without having to dose a lot of acid, if that's what you were saying.

ok i will check the link. i didn't see that last post before i put mine...

interesting. i haven't studied this stuff as much as i should have, just experienced it! why are we constantly adding acid to liquid chlorinated pools to keep the Ph in check?

i'm afraid you way over-chlorinated your pool. you are very likely 'bleaching out' your test sample. 15 gallons of chlorine usually last a few weeks with heavy swimming at my pools. what test kit are you using? if it's a taylor kit, there are instructions in the lid on how to dilute your sample to get higher readings. i have used 7.5 gallons to fire up a city pool before that had about 100k gallons. did your pool store recommend that much?... a couple other things: liquid chlorine has a ph of about 11. that is about 10000 times more alkaline than you want your water. you will wisely test your ph and get it back in line in addition to getting your chlorine brought back into range before you let anyone in there and before it starts ruining things. and to directly answer your question, 'free chlorine' is the chlorine that is available for sanitation. chlorine is free immediately when it is added; there is no waiting. used up or 'unavailable' chlorine becomes that way once it has attacked an impurity. it then is called a combined chlorine molecule, or a chloraMINE.