Helping neighbor with pool

[Watermom]

Glad the pH is almost there. Keep at it.

Regarding next steps -----

The best thing would be to have your neighbor register here at Pool Forum and let him/her learn to take care of their pool themselves. Otherwise, the job will be yours forever! Seriously, if they are going to be pool owners, they really need to know how to take care of their own pool. Hopefully by now, they see that what you have learned at PF has been working for their pool and should be convinced that our methods will work. Send them on over!

(In all honesty, we typically don't help via a third party most of the time, feeling that is usually best for the pool owner themselves to get educated about pool maintenance. We have kinda bent our own rule in this thread. So, please don't be offended. We all should have as nice a neighbor as you!)

[jilted]

Thanks. I didn't realize the third party rule. :-)

Besides being a nice neighbor, I just wanted some more real world experience in dealing with a troubled pool. I like to learn stuff. :-)

[jilted]

OK! Water totally cleared up overnight and this morning and after adding 3 more boxes of borax pH is pushing 7.5 this afternoon. FC is still high.

[Watermom]

7.5! Perfect! When you can go from sundown one evening to within two hours of sunup the next morning without losing more than 1ppm of chlorine, you might want to hold the chlorine high one more day for added insurance and then let it drift down. Take a look at the Best Guess Chlorine Chart in my signature below for what chlorine levels will be needed for maintenance. No more stabilized forms of chlorine for this pool meaning no more trichlor pucks or dichlor granules. With a CYA of 140, high chlorine levels will be needed all the time or they'll be right back with a green pool again in no time!

[jilted]

What about the CYA level? Should we try to gradually reduce it? They only need 1 more season out of this water before they get a new liner.

[Watermom]

Your choice. They can run a pool with high CYA as long as they run high chlorine levels per the Best Guess Chart. Or, they can do a few partial drains and refills. But do NOT totally drain the pool.

EDIT --- Just went back and looked at your original post to find out the volume of this pool. They have a big pool. That would be a lot of wasted water to do drains. Since they are planning on replacing the liner next year, I think I'd just live with the high CYA if it were my pool.

[BigDave]

I agree with Watermom. As you help them finish the algae battle ( lose almost no FC overnight and no CC ) start transitioning them to taking care of the pool themselves. Encourge them to start an account here and get a K-2006. They will be able to use the water they have this season - they'll need to run appropriately high FC levels for thier CYA, but no need to dump all that crystal clear water. Thanks for helping your neighbors.