Pool out of control or Pool maintenance man out of control?

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James007

Pool out of control or Pool maintenance man out of control?

Postby James007 » Sat 10 Oct, 2009 15:03

Patrick's Pools, you are clearly an idiot. Your advice is worse than worthless, it's downright dangerous.

patrickspools wrote:I am no chem wizard


Well, there's the understatement of the century.


parickspools

Pool out of control or Pool maintenance man out of control?

Postby parickspools » Sat 10 Oct, 2009 20:50

James you are resorting to name calling? I don't understand you when you say chlorine levels and ph levels need to be monitored daily. I feel like not many people on earth do that, yet there are millions of pools that have no problems. I guess if I wasn't an idiot I would get it though. Only a few people have died from from my chemical doses so my methods can't be quite as dangerous as you say ;)


Richard you really are a chem geek. That was some write up on chlorine costs. For my personal costs your formulas didn't work though. I buy in large bulk so obviously my prices are much lower than your Leslie's prices but they are all at about the same rate compared to each other, except for the sodium bicarb. I get it for about 1/5 of your listed price. The other chems I get for 1/2 to 3/4 what you listed. That means when you do the math to figure out my true cost of trichlor, after adjusting for ph, my cost is much lower than your calculations, since I am paying almost nothing to raise PH. My company is only at each pool once a week so we don't really have much choice in what we use anyway, not that I would ever change it.

We pump out our pools about 1/3 of the way twice a year and backwash weekly so we must be diluting our CYA sufficiently. I don't have my guys test for it in chlorine pools. We do occasionally use cal hypo and about 16 oz of algaecide per year on average, but for the most part its strictly tabs. We really only use cal hyp when the chlorine level drops below 1 ppm.
James007

Pool out of control or Pool maintenance man out of control?

Postby James007 » Sat 10 Oct, 2009 23:49

patrickspools wrote:Once a week is easily good enough


When a person is just learning how to manage their pool they need to check their chemical levels much more often than someone who understands how the chemicals change over time, and how they change as a result of chemical additions.

patrickspools wrote: I think if I tried I could keep 90% of pools algae free doing the chems once a month as long as they had a chlorinator.


Part of your problem is that you think that as long as there is no algae then the pool is OK. There is a lot more to it than just preventing algae.

patrickspools wrote: I also don't think filters in general are even needed to keep a pool algae free....just the right chemicals. My company has maintained plenty of pools for extended periods with no filter/pump.


Very bad advice.

patrickspools wrote:This year we maintained a pool for 6 months with no filter/pump. The only filtration was once in blue moon my employee would do a cartridge vac. The pool never had a hint of algae.


Please explain why you did not have a filter and pump on the pool.

patrickspools wrote:We pump out our pools about 1/3 of the way twice a year and backwash weekly so we must be diluting our CYA sufficiently. I don't have my guys test for it in chlorine pools.


Not testing cyanuric acid levels is foolish. It clearly shows that you do not have the first clue about proper pool chemistry.

patrickspools wrote:Only a few people have died from my chemical doses.


You think that you're joking. I would not be a bit surprised if many of your customers had serious health problems as a result of your incompetence.

I call you an idiot because you really are an idiot.
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Pool out of control or Pool maintenance man out of control?

Postby chem geek » Sun 11 Oct, 2009 12:01

parickspools wrote:Richard you really are a chem geek. That was some write up on chlorine costs. For my personal costs your formulas didn't work though. I buy in large bulk so obviously my prices are much lower than your Leslie's prices but they are all at about the same rate compared to each other, except for the sodium bicarb. I get it for about 1/5 of your listed price. The other chems I get for 1/2 to 3/4 what you listed. That means when you do the math to figure out my true cost of trichlor, after adjusting for ph, my cost is much lower than your calculations, since I am paying almost nothing to raise PH. My company is only at each pool once a week so we don't really have much choice in what we use anyway, not that I would ever change it.

We pump out our pools about 1/3 of the way twice a year and backwash weekly so we must be diluting our CYA sufficiently. I don't have my guys test for it in chlorine pools. We do occasionally use cal hypo and about 16 oz of algaecide per year on average, but for the most part its strictly tabs. We really only use cal hyp when the chlorine level drops below 1 ppm.

Thanks for the update on prices that you get -- the write-up was for residential pool owners who can't get the great pricing available to you in bulk. Yes, I can see that in your situation using Trichlor is very economical and pH adjustment isn't expensive. And yes, for pool services it is often much easier to use Trichlor for consistent dosing since they typically only visit once a week. In your situation, the water dilution is keeping the CYA in check and you are using higher FC target levels than "standard" recommendations of 1-3 ppm which would likely cause more trouble at higher CYA levels. What you are doing is perfectly fine, of course, and I wasn't saying you were doing anything wrong, though it would probably be a good idea to test the CYA level once in a while just to see where it's at (I'm curious besides, and like to collect real-pool info for comparison). I just didn't want residential pool owners maintaining their own pools to think that it was the only approach. In my area, we have water restrictions and fairly expensive water which is why cartridge filters are usually used.

Let's assume a 1.5 ppm FC per day chlorine usage since I suspect that the CYA levels are fairly high so having a lower than average chlorine demand. If only Trichlor were used, then this would result in an increase of 27 ppm CYA per month. Let's say you dilute by 1/3rd every 3 months. So the steady-state CYA level would eventually be 27*3 = CYA*(1/3) so CYA = 243 ppm before dilution and 162 ppm afterwards. That's pretty high so the weekly backwashing contributes to additional dilution I didn't account for and maybe rain overflow helps as well. Perhaps the daily chlorine demand is lower at 1 ppm FC which would have a steady-state of 162 ppm CYA peak and 108 ppm CYA after dilution. If you find that in some pools the chlorine is dropping to 1 ppm FC in spite of Trichlor tabs in the feeder, then unless there was unusually high bather load or something getting dumped in the pool, the chlorine demand could be nascent algae growth that isn't yet visible.

You didn't mention whether you shock your pools weekly or regularly. Is that something that you do? When one maintains a sufficient FC/CYA then one normally does not need to shock as the chlorine is consistently killing algae faster than it can grow so never gets behind.

There are some pool services that use only unstabilized chlorine (with CYA already in the water) and visit once a week, but they have large FC swings. One example is a pool service in the hot sunny areas of Arizona, Texas and some other states where they use 100 ppm CYA and raise the FC to 14 ppm on their weekly visit using chlorinating liquid or chlorine gas. The FC drops to around 4 ppm by the time they visit the next week. Though 14 ppm FC with 100 ppm CYA may sound scary, it is technically equivalent in active chlorine (hypochlorous acid) concentration to around 4 ppm FC with 30 ppm CYA or only 0.15 ppm FC with no CYA -- that is, far less than found in indoor pools that have no CYA in the water. To minimize pH swings and to provide additional mild algae prevention, one can also use 50 ppm Borates.

Richard
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Pool out of control or Pool maintenance man out of control?

Postby nocturnalsheep » Mon 12 Oct, 2009 11:48

patrickspools wrote:"I think if I tried I could keep 90% of pools algae free doing the chems once a month as long as they had a chlorinator.

I've been successful with my methods for about 20,000 weekly services so I'm pretty sure tabs alone is OK.


I dare you to try this in western Washington State.
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Pool out of control or Pool maintenance man out of control?

Postby czechmate » Mon 12 Oct, 2009 18:24

James007 wrote:Patrick's Pools, you are clearly an idiot. Your advice is worse than worthless, it's downright dangerous. :thumbup:

patrickspools wrote:I am no chem wizard
:crazy:

Well, there's the understatement of the century.
:lol:

Patrick, you should have finished your middle school, before you started messing with kiddie pools.
Do your parents know about it?? :(
John76

Pool out of control or Pool maintenance man out of control?

Postby John76 » Sat 10 Mar, 2012 19:23

Hi there! Have you read this guide about pool design, construction and maintenance http://www.indoorpoolguide.com
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Pool out of control or Pool maintenance man out of control?

Postby cpo2go » Wed 23 May, 2012 13:17

While this post has turned into a name-calling forum, I wanted to mention just a couple of things that I don't see addressed.
If you've had this pool guy for 6 years and he's been doing the same thing for this entire time, you definitely have a problem. Putting trichlor in the skimmer, and worse, crumbling up a tablet into the pool, is wrong and amatuerish. There is a reason they have tablet feeders and I recommend, if you intend to keep using trichlor, you get one. Don't use a floater, the renters can remove it (and will) and they can drift and find a home in a shallow swin-out or over the steps and cause staining.
The reason they shouldn't be used in the skimmer is they are acidic. 6 years of putting tabs in the skimmer has been eating the inside of your pump basket, impeller, your heating element and, if you don't have PVC plumbing, it's been stripping your plumbing which results in many other problems.
It can also effect your sand. I disagree with the guy who says changing the sand is a myth. Fast moving water (even slow moving water) flowing over/through sand/stone will smooth the surface of the sand/stone. The filterability of the sand relies on the rough, porous suface of the sand. Remeber, the Grand Canyon was carved through the earth by water flowing over land/rock over a period of years.
Also, the higher acidity of the high pressure water, due to the tabs in the feeder, can cause the break-down to occur even faster.
Your low pressure in the filter could be related to your impeller due to it being slammed with acidic water for 6 years. It's threads could be worn and it may not be spinning as it should or it's channels could be worn down and your flow is insufficient. This would also be a cause algea growth. Bad flow and poor filtration mixed with the higher levels of Cyanuric Acid and hot temperatures is a perfect storm for algea blooms.
Much of the other advise you have already received addresses the issues well. I just wanted to clarify on those issues which had not been addressed.
Good Luck!
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