Welcome to Pool Care Secrets - A Regular Weekend Warrior’s Guide to Keeping It Blue
We purchased our first home nearly a year ago, and with it came an in-ground swimming pool. I was excited to do a lot of swimming, because the weather here in Sarasota, Florida is gorgeous year-round. Little did I know that I’d spend more time caring for my pool than swimming in it.
It’s this constant struggle that led me to put together a compendium of the Web’s (and print’s) best (and worst - where noted) information on taking care of that big hole in your patio, the one that insists on being anything but clear, blue, and inviting.
PoolCareSecrets is somewhat of a misnomer, because there are NO SECRETS to having a sparkling blue swimming pool. At least, that’s what they keep telling me.
Filed at 6:11 pm under Chris' Pool Blog and Green Pool and chemicals by Chris
My blue pool, that is. It’s back to green now, a mere week after my previous post.
Dejected, frustrated, and beginning to resent my swimming pool, I grabbed my once-again empty jugs and water sample and headed back to Pinch A Penny. On the way there, I thought back to the past few days. I had purchased a Basic-4 Pool Chemistry Test Kit and was shocked to see that my chlorine levels, both free and total, were dropping faster than bad habits at a nunnery.
“I must be out of, or low on, stabilizer.” I learned at Pinch A Penny that I was right. (see, I’m learning! Maybe the pool’s plotting against me. This is a test.)
So sure enough, my chlorine levels were again at 0 and my stabilizer was sorta low (38ppm, where the ideal range is 40-100ppm).
Before tackling the algae-suffering pool again just now, I had this brilliant idea about physical filtration and how a little pre-emptive vaccuuming prior to adding my chemicals could make all the difference in the world. We’ll see how it works, of course, but here’s the order of what I did just now:
1. Vaccummed the entire bottom of the pool with the tube and long-handled vaccuum (same as the brush, just a different head)
2. Cleaned my filter - it was PEA GREEN. Ick.
3. Added 1.5 Gallons of liquid chlorine shock.
4. Brushed the sides.
5. Broadcasted 1.3 pounds of Stop Green.
Tomorrow around this same time I’ll add another 1.5 gallon jug of liquid chlorine and about 2 pounds of stabilizer, as Pinch A Penny advised.
Filed at 6:47 pm under Chris' Pool Blog and chemicals and Happy Pool by Chris
Well, the 5 gallons of liquid chlorine, 3 stabilized chlorine tablets in the floater, vigorous side brushing, continuous filtration, and 2 pounds of Stop-Green did the trick. The pool was ALMOST blue when our guests arrived, but they’re good friends and understood that the pool MIGHT
not be totally ready. It wasn’t, but by the second day of their stay, it was blue enough to swim in after going to the beach (ah, how refreshing). It’s still cloudy though, so I plan on taking in a sample to the pool place again to see how to clear it up. Blue is good. Clear and Blue’s where I want to be.
My friend suggested trying an automatic chlorinator, the kind that fits inline with my plumbing and gets fed weekly with fresh stabilized chlorine tablets. I’m going to look into this, as he claims to have a relatively stable pool (stabler than mine, at least) and his automatic chlorinator keeps his free and total chlorine levels in a good place. I’ll give that a try and report on what model I chose, its installation, and the results.
Filed at 2:16 pm under Chris' Pool Blog and Green Pool by Chris
As if it wasn’t bad enough that I had to suffer the indignity of my Mother in Law seeing our home (and our pool) for the first time with the swimmer in such a greenish state, and that it never REALLY turned back to blue before her 10 day stay…
but we have friends coming to visit again this weekend, and the pool is uh, almost ready to get up and walk away on its own.
The rains this time of year where we live, Southwest Florida, are horrendous. Daily downpours, complete with impressive lightning shows, occur with clockwork precision. This brings all the pollen and such in the air right into our pool, turning it a brilliant, then dull forest green. Lovely.
So, with the time crunch before tonight’s guests arrive, I dumped 2.5 gallons of liquid chlorine, and 2lbs of Stop-Green. I also cleaned the cartridge filter (also green) and swept the sides and bottom of the pool. At the moment, 4 hours later, it’s still incredibly ugly with algae. My HOPE is that it’ll be blue (or at least bluish) in the morning when we wake up, as thankfully our guests don’t arrive until after dark.
