New Pool Owner...need Some Advice

[theateamx3]

I had a pool company come ut and open my pool. 24 hours later I collected a water sample and took it in. The results were

TDS: 400

CYA: 0

TC: 7

FC: 0

pH: 7.9

Alk: 85

Hardness: 168

My question is this....The company said I need to add 26 lbs of Bioguard burnout extreme to the pool. The directions on the burnout package say 1 lbs per 10,000 gallons. I have a 20,000 pool. The water is pretty clear in the shallow end, hard to see bottom in the deep end. Does 26 lbs sound right. I know I am new, but that seems like a whole lot of chlorine to put in. What do you all think?

Any responses would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Pool-newb]

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.

[PaulR]

For a 20k gal pool, the pool calculator says 26 lb of 47% cal-hypo (i.e. Bioguard Burnout Extreme) will raise FC by 57. That is just ridiculous. Each 1 lb would raise FC by about 3. Maybe they meant 2.6 lb? That's worth about FC 7.5.

Reiterating what pool-newb said:

1) You need some CYA pronto.

2) You need to raise FC to shock level and maintain it there until you get rid of your CC.

3) Adding the CYA will tend to reduce the pH some, but once it's all dissolved you should pay attention to the pH, TA, and CH.

--paulr