Neighbors Pool

[jhk49]

Thanks for the input. I am sorry that I have taken so long to reply but I have been out of town visiting friends.

I did have an opportunity to see my neighbor before I left to visit friens. She said that she was at wits end and willing to try anything that would work. So, here is my plan. Please comment as needed because I understand most of what is happening, I am a novice with trying to fix big problems.

First, I plan on draining about 2/3 of the pool so as to decrease the CYA. Then, upon refill I will test the water and correct the pH, FC, CYA and TA as needed. Upon getting the water chemistry right, I will add a copper based algaecide. We will let the pump/filter and polaris run all night. The next day, we will vacuum the pool and retest.

I have always been told that I need to backflush my filter about every two weeks. I am not sure how often my neighbor does this. With all of this heavy algae/dust in the pool, there is a good chance that the filter will clog. Any advice on this potential issue.

Thanks.
Jim K.
Leesburg, GA

[aylad]

Your plan sounds reasonable, as long as you understand that once the algae is dead, you're still going to have a pretty big chlorine demand to overcome due to the ammonia in the algaecide.

Does your neighbor have a sand or cartridge filter? If it's a cart, then it's going to clog very quickly, and the only solution I know is to keep a couple of them rinsed and ready to be switched out. If it's sand, it will still clog, but not as quickly and is a quicker job to backwash. You want to backwash a sand filter when the pressure rises 6-8 psi over "clean" pressure, since a dirty sand filter cleans better than a clean one does.

About the Polaris--unless your neighbor has the silt bag, and unless it's much better at the smaller stuff than the regular bag, I would leave it off and save the electricity. My Polaris doesn't do worth a flip when it comes to small stuff like algae. Better to kill it off and then filter or vac to waste.

[Watermom]

Jim, it is awfully nice of you to try to help your neighbor but we find it is usually best if owner's are on the forum themselves and we are helping with them directly instead of via a third party. Maybe give her the link to the forum and encourage her to become a member.