Mine seems to be on autopilot. I do nothing in the winter. Once it starts warming up, I put a few chlorine tabs in the floater. Chlorine levels and pH are always right on the money. Helps that we don't have any plants dropping leaves into the water. I love the Baracuda G3 vac. I buy beat up ones at garage sales for spare parts. I brush it every couple of weeks in the summer. After a dust storm I'll use the manual vac to keep from mucking up the water.

I just bought all new equipment to replace the 15 year old stuff... new variable speed pump and new cartridge filter. Having them installed this week. Looking forward to no more leaking, loss of prime and other issues I was dealing with.

Hard water is my main issue. Just spent $500 to have our waterfall refinished and a couple of cracks repaired and another $250 to have the water line bead blasted.

Trouble Free Pool

That is all. Seriously, it's the pelicanparts for pools. Go to Pool School.

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Yes!!!!
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Yes. Same here. My pool maintenance is easy-peasy...and I enjoy it...gets me nice & tan.
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"I'm an old cow hand, from the Rio Grand,
my ass is bold and my legs are tan."
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I say, stay away from Leslie's Pools...I use these guys - my pool renovation guy buys his stuff there and he likes them and they like also him...a regular love fest.
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NPS Pool & Spa Supply - Swimming Pool Equipment
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This little rig is a live-saver...and fun to watch.
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POOLVERGNUEGEN Manufacturer of the finest automatic swimming pool cleaners -- The PoolCleaner
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I'll second The Pool Cleaner recommendation. My first sweeper would always get stuck in the same corner. I've had The Pool Cleaner running daily for about two years without once getting stuck. It's a great product.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

(Sid, I was always wondering what happens if the wire with the lamps fall down into the pool.)

They are up there very securely with 7x7 stainless aircraft cable, but they are also on a ground fault protected circuit and breaker. They should trip if they ever did hit the water.

I use Bio Guard Softswim system, a biguanide, not chlorine. No eye irritation, staining or swimsuit bleaching. Brush vigorously and vac at least once a week. I use Aqua Finesse, a algacide, a water polisher, and a product called Optimizer Plus, in addition to the alkalinity/PH products, oh calcium hardness and metals control since I have a heater. I use a robot vac a few times during the week. Also, I have a skimmer screen that attaches to the side of the pool in the path of the water going to the skimmer to catch floating debris.

I get my water checked for free by my pool supply and my pool is always crystal clear. No chlorine smell or harshness.

BioGuard SoftSwim Non-Chlorine Products! Soft Swim for gentle water. Alternative to Baquacil non chlorine, Splashes non chlorine, Poly Clear non chlorine, Par Pool & Spa

The pool guy was done at the end of April. I just tested our chlorine and its way high! Going to take some water to NPS this week and see what they say. I need to stock up on chemicals too.

I shop at NPS.
My local guys there are sharp...prices are decent, also.

Still loving NPS. Pool is clouding up this weekend so I took some water in for them to test. All good but our undisolved solids are through the roof. Looks like it will stay cloudy until we change the water. I backwashed the sand filter today so hopefully that helps too. Our palm tree is dumping tons of seed pods in the pool too. It should stop in the next few days.




Heard an idiotic statement from a pool guy this week. A client of mine is buying a house with a pool. Has two pumps, one for the filter, another for the pop up cleaning system. The pump for the cleaning system sounds like it is dying a serious death. We requested the seller to fix it and the response we got back is that sellers neighbor is a pool guy, and he says " you don't replace a pump just because its noisy. You just wait for it to die". My client is tired of arguing with them so he said eff it, I'll fix it after we move in. Wonder what pool guys clients would think about him just letting their pumps die, instead of replacing bearings and seals when they start making noise....

Keeping the balance thru the changing Seasons can be a challenge. As the daylight hours and temps increase, the chlorine needs multiply. Plus the hours of filter run time must go up correspondingly.
We use a chlorine distributor in the circulation system that constantly drips the required amount. Its adjusted seasonally . This keeps the chlorine levels very steady. There are clarifiers that can bring it back around if not too cloudy. Got to stay out for a day after use.

Got to stay on top of the balance to avoid algae , a little can be brushed off . But you don't want it to get into the surface of the pebbletec.

And yes the water here in Az is extremely hard and very mineral loaded. Not sure how that is dealt with in pools.
My neighbor keeps telling me about putting magnets on water lines to keep the minerals from building up. No personal experience with that, but interested.

Got to trim that tree and keep the seeds out of the pool.

Cheers Richard

Ya, I need to see if they gardeners can trim it up this week. I don't have the tools to do it, or the will power to climb up the 30' tree...

Pools are incredibly easy to take care of if you do three things:

1. Keep them free of leaves, seeds, and fecal matter (duck poo).
2. Keep the chemicals balanced and shock treat regularly.
3. Keep the filter in good working order and running long enough each day.

I typically spend 10 minutes a week and the pool always looks great. Some folks like gardening, I like puttering around the pool. My DE filter needs cleaning 3 times/year. A 15 minute operation and requires no tools to assemble/disassemble.

"Trouble Free Pool" is a very good online resource. Spend some time there to get familiar with common terms and weekly duties.

From your description (visiting ducks, high TDS, overhanging trees, sand filter, AZ summers) I suspect that this pool will be more difficult to maintain weekly than most. High CL2 levels were probably being maintained to combat the bacterial effects of a regular influx of fecal matter (duck poo). Be diligent because if it gets away from you it will turn green very quickly and be a bear to get blue again without a complete drain and refill.

Good luck!

$80 actually sounds pretty cheap for pool service as here it is typically $110/mo. In AZ expect to spend $40-$50 per month in chemicals during the summer.

My parents pool has a pebble tec finish. Seems the old pool guy retired last spring without telling anyone. Just upped and stopped coming, never sent the last invoice (or maybe he did but the last check was returned to my parents by the USPS?). Either way, I noticed algae on the steps and side walls. Parents had the neighbors guy come over. At first he said it was pollen. Um, I think I know the pool pretty well and never had I seen "pollen" like that before. He finally admitted after a couple of visits that it was algae. Which was dealt with, but I have noticed small flair-ups.

The old guy must not have really tested and just dumped chlorine in. I had remembered that the prior summer, the pool was not that fun to swim in, as your eyes burned and you stank like chlorine until showering. They also had to empty half the water to correct another issue. That wasn't cheap, nor good with the drought (even last year).

The ducks are winter visitors. Haven't had any issues for a few months now from them.

We'll see how it goes, I plan to spend about an hour a week fiddling with it. I do enjoy doing it. The chemicals seem to be cruising along nicely, but that can always change. I don't think it would have gotten so cloudy today if I'd been able to vacuum it before the kids jumped in a stirred up the sediment. As soon as I opened the back door they headed out too. They don't mind murky water.... ;)


One of the guys in my office has a guy that puts in the salt equipment and maintains it all for $40/month... He may get to handle ours if it gets to be more hassle than I like. I'm still mixed on the salt though. I did like the one I swam in, but I'm not in love with what the salt does to the decking and pool fence on the ones I've seen here.

Speaking of decking, our cool deck is chipping up, and the pebble tec top edge of the pool is looking sad. Its a 15yr old pool, I suppose its time to have the deck redone. We'd like to get rid of all the damn gravel around the pool too and have concrete about 2' wide at least all the way around.

I agree that salt pools tend to be hard on the finish and pool equip. Some say it shortens the life of the pool pump by 1/2 due to corrosion. I have been using regular CL2 for a long time and have no interest in changing methods now. A salt system is around $1500 installed and the pool then needs a lot of acid added weekly to neutralize all the NaOH produced. $40 sounds too cheap to stay in biz very long.

Some of those pool robots work better than others when it comes to each individual pool. It took some sleuthing to figure out why ours kept getting stuck in a corner. The base of the pool also ramped up, so the pool cleaner would climb it and flip. Ended up jury rigging some longer curb feelers and a half filled with jug with some air suspended above it by a rope to give it just enough buoyancy to still have traction, but not to flip. The curb feelers extended the turning bars so it didn't get stuck. Jury rigged 100% but worked like a champ.

Much much clearer today once all the crap settled and the pump ran all day. Here it is yesterday
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1433211355.jpg

Here it is just now
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1433211378.jpg



Still lots more crap to come out of the tree. :(
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1433211406.jpg

I haven't had any issue with the vac getting stuck once I swapped our pumps around. Seems the primary pump had seal going bad and once it kicked the bucket I just moved the waterfall pump over while I could rebuild the main pump. They are identical. The more pressure the good pump is making means the vac hasn't gotten stuck since.

A few things I've learned from NPS & pool pros...
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Brush the pool often...you'll scrape what's there but can't see.
I've been reading about stainless steel brushes for Pebbletec.
They say the SS brush won't hurt PTec.
Need to read more.
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Pool activity is good - keeps the water cleaner.
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Shock the pool more often than it appears to need.
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To clean a cloudy pool, add your chemicals and let pump run a couple of days straight.
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Those expensive testing kits are vital.
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Any pool has much clearer water and has the best appearance when filled with good looking poosy.

Pool maintenance
 

The first thing you need to know about a pool is if it is a chlorine pool or a salt pool. The chlorine pool uses chlorine tablets from a dispenser while the salt pool uses bags of salt poured directly into the water. You will have to check and maintain the chlorine level, the pH levels, free chlorine and stabilizer levels. I have had both a chlorine pool and a salt pool and have found that the salt pool is a bit easier to maintain. Usually, in the spring, the pool will start to get an alge bloom but that can be treated fairly easily and won't come back for another year. It is important to know when to backwash the sand filter and clean the chlorine generator for the salt pool. The biggest headache for me is in the fall when the trees start losing their leaves. From about late September to the end of January the filters require extra attention (like every day!) to keep them from clogging up. I have a Polaris pool cleaner that vacuums the pool floor automatically. It runs around like a small vacuum cleaner, does a pretty good job but has a bag that has to be emptied periodically. We have enjoyed our pool for the last 15 years or so but I doubt that I would build another one.