[Rick Lee]

I just bought a house with a 10k gal. pool that's always in sunlight and hired a pro to help me for the first month. He immediately suggested a drain and refill, which I did. After a filter rebuild, a DE treatment and four weekly service visits, I decided I wanted to handle this on my own going forward. Yesterday was my first chemical test since his last visit and my readings were through the roof, suggesting I might need another drain and refill. WTF?

I posted my readings on a pool BBS and the resident guru told me test strips are totally inaccurate and I need to get a fancy test kit. That's the opposite of my pool guy told me. I swim just about every day and I really want to get this right. How do you pool guys test your pools and what kits/strips do you use?