Swimming pools blog

Hello!
Looks like this group will be a very useful resource for me after having a
quick skim through the message archives First of all I know bugger all about pools :). Me and my wife moved into
our new home about 5 months ago and we’re still getting to grips with the
pool. The pool is in reasonable condition considering we were told it’s 30
years old. We have a 30ft x 12ft indoor inground fibreglass lined pool that
we’re told is 30 years old. Apparently the pool was outside for the first
10 years of it’s life but the bloke who had it built got sick of raking
leaves out of it so had a room built around it (as you do!). It’s running a
20 year old far too small sand filter with the pump and filter multi valve
being only 5/6 years old. It’s solar heated via a hell of a lot of ever so
slightly leaky black pipe on the roof of the pool room. We managed to move
in just in time for summer here and we’ve had the pool running at a lovely
30 degrees which is perfect for the 40+ degree days we have here. My first

summer in Australia incidentally and coming from the North of England I’m
rather glad we have a pool to cool off in :).
We haven’t had any major problems with the pool so far aside from spending a
fair amount of money on flocculant. Living out in the country our water
comes from the irrigation system (in other words straight from the river) so
filling the pool instantly turns it to pea soup. We don’t have an automatic
vacuum so we’ve been letting the flocculant do it’s job then vacuuming to
waste.. and losing 5/10cm of water from the level of the pool in the process
so it’s a sort of a never ending refill
so on. I hope there is a better way of getting the pool clean. We did try
just vacuuming to filter but it must be too fine and the filter just does a
better job of spreading around the gunk.
We’ve had the sand changed in the filter after I noticed the gauge creep
into the red/clean and backwashing didn’t help but it hasn’t made too much
difference really.
One thing I’d like some advice on (please ) are the black spots on the
sides of the pool. The pool sides are covered in black/dark brown spots.
Some of the spots have a white rather disgusting looking blob in the middle
that comes off with brushing but the dark main part of the spot only vaguely
comes off after about ten minutes of scrubbing. I’ll try and upload a
sketch of what the marks look like exactly if that helps at all. The local
pool place has told us to leave the pool full and pour undiluted
hydrochloric acid around the sides and leave it for a few days then scrub.
I’d like a second opinion as we’ve had a small falling out with the local
pool company due to bad customer service. They moved the entire filter when
changing the sand and broke the gasket on the valve in the process and after
losing a couple of thousands of litres of water they charged us for fitting
a tap on the waste to stop the leaking. And they told us running the pump
8/10 hours a day didn’t use much electricity.. after a $500 bill from
running it all day every day we think we’ll run the pump as little as we
can.
And so ends my saga. Must apologise for the long winded intro. I’m looking
forward to pestering the group..erm asking for advice of the group :).
Cheers.
Daniel O’Brien.