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new pool owner with questions

October 24th, 2004 · 2 Comments

I have a 26,000 gallon in-ground pool that just had all new water put
in after some work was completed. We bought the house in the fall and
have never had a pool before. I hope someone can help me out with
some basic questions.
1. The filter has settings for rinse and recirculate. When would
these be used?
2. Yesterday afternoon we put in the chemicals that the pool store
sold us after testing the water. Can we swim today or do we need to
wait longer?
3. How often do you add chlorine? What other chemicals do you add
routinely?
4. We already have 50 pounds of chlorine granules. The pool store
wants us to use tablets. What are the differences?

Tags: pumps

2 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Patty Sarita // Oct 25, 2004 at 7:22 pm

    Whoops! Hit return before answering all questions ….

    The frequency of adding chlorine to maintain normal levels depends on the
    form you are adding it in.
    You should never add any chemicals by guesswork. They should always be
    added when there is a known requirement to modify the water chemistry
    because it is out of specs or heading that way. I would suggest that, in
    your early stages of owning a pool, you should test the water frequently,
    document the results and look for trends. Changes in pool chemistry are the
    result of many factors most of which are constantly changing …. amount of
    sunlight, bather load, type of pool surfacing (plaster, paint, glass,
    etc.), quantity and type of foreign matter such as leaves, airborne dirt
    etc., top-up water chemistry and so on, so it is important you understand
    how your pool reacts under your particular environment and usage.
    This is a fraught area. There are as many answers as there are people

    expressing opinions. My 2 cents worth … if you are not using an
    electrolytic converter (which I think is the best way to go), you should
    first consider liquid, tablets the granules in that order. The downside of
    the solid sources of chlorine is the “rubbish” they leave behind which is
    the result of the chemical reactions that takes place in the water plus the
    binders used in the tablets. Often these are too fine to be filtered out by
    a sand filter.

  • 2 Carlo Twyla // Oct 26, 2004 at 1:54 pm

    What’s an electrolytic converter?
    Susan
    This is a fraught area. There are as many answers as there are people
    expressing opinions. My 2 cents worth … if you are not using an
    electrolytic converter (which I think is the best way to go), you should
    first consider liquid, tablets the granules in that order.

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