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I Hate Owning a Swimming Pool...Title Now AAABatteries Approved (1 Viewer)

ClownCausedChaos2

Footballguy
Our kids are a little older now and have reached the age where they have outgrown the inflatable pools that can be blown up every weekend.  Mrs. Chaos and I decided that we would get one of those seasonal 12' x 30" metal frame pools this summer.  I've never owned a pool.  We never had a pool as I kid.  I've never taken care of a pool.  It sucks.

Maintaining this thing is a pain is the ###.  Skimming it, covering it, uncovering it....that's the easy stuff.  The expensive chemicals....Having to balance the pH, the chlorine, the hardness (huh?), alkalinity....What the hell is this stuff?  We had a few days of hard rain and guess what?  The pool turned green...like, Secret of the Ooze green.  Back to the store for more expensive chemicals.  Shock the pool, now the chlorine is too high.  Gotta get that between 1 and 4!  Once that settles down, its in with the algae killer.  But only if the pH is between 7.2 and 7.6!  Good thing I bought pH Up and pH Down!

This whole "owning a pool" thing is like one big, expensive chemistry experiment.  To hell with these things.  

 
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My Mom & Dad bought a house with in-ground pool when I was a teenager and it became my job to take care of it...   and I really enjoyed it!   So much so that when I got married and bought my second house I got one with an in-ground pool but I got job in another city and moved out after only 1 year.  From there we moved in to a community that had its own pool and the HOA wouldn't allow pools in residents yards.  We lived there for 20+ years and built a new house but it just doesn't have the kind of yard that would handle a nice pool.

 
I barely do anything to take care of my in ground pool.  I haven't tested the water in years.  I basically pour in a jug or two of chlorine every 7-10 days.  I also buy a box of the chlorene shock pouches to use if I don't fill up the jugs.

I sweep it weekly at the most, but it's screened.  I'm sure this makes a huge difference on maintenance.

 
My Mom & Dad bought a house with in-ground pool when I was a teenager and it became my job to take care of it...   and I really enjoyed it!   So much so that when I got married and bought my second house I got one with an in-ground pool but I got job in another city and moved out after only 1 year.  From there we moved in to a community that had its own pool and the HOA wouldn't allow pools in residents yards.  We lived there for 20+ years and built a new house but it just doesn't have the kind of yard that would handle a nice pool.
Well, look at you.

 
I barely do anything to take care of my in ground pool.  I haven't tested the water in years.  I basically pour in a jug or two of chlorine every 7-10 days.  I also buy a box of the chlorene shock pouches to use if I don't fill up the jugs.

I sweep it weekly at the most, but it's screened.  I'm sure this makes a huge difference on maintenance.
This

 
Just kidding - we had a pool growing up and maintenance sucked.  We picked a subdivision with a really nice resort like pool that we love hanging out at.  This past year my BIL/SIL put in a pool so now I get the best of both worlds - private pool accesss any time I want and no maintenance.  

 
Bought a house with a decades old in ground plaster pool.  It is a total money pit.  The plumbing really isn't sufficient enough to circulate the 30,000 gallons.  The neighbors have a 200 ft tall maple that shades it and they wouldn't let us pay to take it out (the pool is not heated, so this tree ensures it is warm enough to swim in comfortably all of one week in mid summer.  Either due to the plaster falling apart, needing to be painted, the mass amount of crapped dropped into the pool from the surrounding trees (depending on who you ask), the ph is a nightmare to maintain.  I have finally convinced my wife to take it out.  Unfortunately because of the shape of our lot, that means taking down the garage to get to it, so it looks to be delayed a summer.

But, I'm so sick of pools I don't even want to someone else's house to swim.  I'm so sick of them.

 
Our kids are a little older now and have reached the age where they have outgrown the inflatable pools that can be blown up every weekend.  Mrs. Chaos and I decided that we would get one of those seasonal 12' x 30" metal frame pools this summer.  I've never owned a pool.  We never had a pool as I kid.  I've never taken care of a pool.  It sucks.

Maintaining this thing is a pain is the ###.  Skimming it, covering it, uncovering it....that's the easy stuff.  The expensive chemicals....Having to balance the pH, the chlorine, the hardness (huh?), alkalinity....What the hell is this stuff?  We had a few days of hard rain and guess what?  The pool turned green...like, Secret of the Ooze green.  Back to the store for more expensive chemicals.  Shock the pool, now the chlorine is too high.  Gotta get that between 1 and 4!  Once that settles down, its in with the algae killer.  But only if the pH is between 7.2 and 7.6!  Good thing I bought pH Up and pH Down!

This whole "owning a pool" thing is like one big, expensive chemistry experiment.  To hell with these things.  
My BIL was gonna put an inground pool in his backyard this year but decided against it when they had to replace their AC unit. So they decided to get one of those Intex pools. It took them weeks to build it because the ground wasn't flat. They had to buy hundreds of bags of sand to keep it level. They put it on wood blocks and that thing still slid off of one of the blocks. The $400 pool ended up costing him $1500 in total.

 
Ooze green.  Back to the store for more expensive chemicals.  Shock the pool, now the chlorine is too high.  Gotta get that between 1 and 4!  Once that settles down, its in with the algae killer.  But only if the pH is between 7.2 and 7.6!  Good thing I bought pH Up and pH Down!

Stop going to lelsies and use the pool cslculator at trouble free pool 

 
FYI most of my son's friends and family own a pool. He #####es and moans he wants one (we live in a small townhouse and dont have the backyard space for one) but Im kind of glad we dont have one.

 
There's a learning curve but it's not that bad once you figure it out. Troublefreepool.com as mentioned above is the site you need. Get a good quality test kit (I use Taylor), understand how to use it and what the levels mean, and test daily for at least the first season to see how things change.

Most important thing is staying ahead of the chlorine level. Once chlorine gets too low and you get algae, the water gets cloudy, then it's a pain in the ### to get it clear again. Chlorine level a little on the high side won't hurt anyone. And especially before you have guests, shock the hell out of it. A bunch of people with their sweat, suntan lotion, girls menstruating etc. all deplete your chlorine level quickly. Make sure your cyanuric acid (CYA) level is at least 40 and no more than 80 so that your chlorine isn't either dissipating from sunlight too quickly, or locked up and unavailable. To add CYA I just use chlorine tablets until my level reaches 50, then switch to calcium hypochlorite for the rest of the summer. To remove CYA, you need to drain & replace water. There's supposedly a chemical that will do it too, but it's expensive.

 
I spend between 30-60 minutes per week maintaining my pool.  It hasn't been green in years.  you're doing it wrong.  troublefreepool.com

 
Ooze green.  Back to the store for more expensive chemicals.  Shock the pool, now the chlorine is too high.  Gotta get that between 1 and 4!  Once that settles down, its in with the algae killer.  But only if the pH is between 7.2 and 7.6!  Good thing I bought pH Up and pH Down!

Stop going to lelsies and use the pool cslculator at trouble free pool 
I've been getting it all at Home Depot.  I'd never go to a pool store, but I'm starting to get the picture that even that may have been overkill.

 
There's a learning curve but it's not that bad once you figure it out. Troublefreepool.com as mentioned above is the site you need. Get a good quality test kit (I use Taylor), understand how to use it and what the levels mean, and test daily for at least the first season to see how things change.

Most important thing is staying ahead of the chlorine level. Once chlorine gets too low and you get algae, the water gets cloudy, then it's a pain in the ### to get it clear again. Chlorine level a little on the high side won't hurt anyone. And especially before you have guests, shock the hell out of it. A bunch of people with their sweat, suntan lotion, girls menstruating etc. all deplete your chlorine level quickly. Make sure your cyanuric acid (CYA) level is at least 40 and no more than 80 so that your chlorine isn't either dissipating from sunlight too quickly, or locked up and unavailable. To add CYA I just use chlorine tablets until my level reaches 50, then switch to calcium hypochlorite for the rest of the summer. To remove CYA, you need to drain & replace water. There's supposedly a chemical that will do it too, but it's expensive.
Ewwww...and you know what I'm referring to.

 
I use a mix of calhypo and trichlor in the summer. Bleach in the winter. 

At some point you can just look at your pool and know what it needs.

 
i hope you did not pay too much for that pool brohan i made one back in the late 70s out of an old sail i found in a dumpster near the harbor and some cinder blocks and wood i scavenged out of a construction dumpster on an office build out it was good times for me and mine and we did not go in to the poor house building it like the fancy folks sitting on wicker furniture anyhow i am sure you did a good job on yours take that to the bank brohan 

 
Any of you know it alls who think troublefreepool and a few minutes a day is all it takes to maintain a pool, I will wager any of you ctsu style to come and get my pool clear as quickly and simply as they make it sound without pulling your own hair out first.

 
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Eh. I wouldnt mind the maintenance. I just wouldnt want a town full of kids in my yard every sunny day. 
Yeah, we had neighbors move in with kids last August and I still haven't spoken to them. Thankfully the rest of the neighborhood is mostly 70-80 year olds.

 
Any of you know it alls who think troublefreepool and a few minutes a day is all it takes to maintain a pool, I will wager any of you ctsu style to come and get my pool clear as quickly and simply as they make it sound without pulling your own hair out first.
Getting it there may take some if it's a disaster.  But once you have it where you want it, a few minutes each week is all it should take. 

 
Any of you know it alls who think troublefreepool and a few minutes a day is all it takes to maintain a pool, I will wager any of you ctsu style to come and get my pool clear as quickly and simply as they make it sound without pulling your own hair out first.
If all else fails, floc & vacuum, then keep chlorine around 10. If you have cloudy water with chlorine that high, you either have CYA way too high or someone is sabotaging you.

 
You people are nuts, owning a pool is fantastic.  I'm in mine almost every day after work and  most weekend days.  Unless you're "dim", lazy and super unattractive owning a pool is the bees knees.  
Exactly.  Take a water sample to the pool store once a month and have it tested.  They tell you exactly how much of what you need to put in there (stabilizer, etc.)  In the interim, test the water with a home test kit every few days.  Add a little bit of muriatic acid when the pH rises, turn the chlorinator up or down a bit if the chlorine level is too high/low.  Takes maybe an hour a month all-in.  MAYBE.

I'm the least handy guy in the world - if I can manage it, anyone can.

 
Keep chlorine levels up, run the filter about 4-6 hrs/day (mine has a timer which is nice), keep it clean.  I skim it for about 10 minutes each day.  Worry about the chlorine and ph, the rest will take care of itself.  Bag of shock once a week.  On really  hot days/weeks, a little moreso on each of these.

ETA: Also, make sure to keep the filter clean.  Check it every other day.

 
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Baking Soda, Borax, and Liquid Bleach are the exact chemicals that the pool companies will sell you for ridiculous amounts.  Only stuff you will need from them is some pucks and algae killer. If you have a liner you do not need calcium no matter how much they try to sell it to you. Calcium is only for gunite or plaster. Everyone who has a pool keeps saying trouble free pools. Go there and follow what they say. It really is easy to do.

 
Quez said:
I barely do anything to take care of my in ground pool.  I haven't tested the water in years.  I basically pour in a jug or two of chlorine every 7-10 days.  I also buy a box of the chlorene shock pouches to use if I don't fill up the jugs.

I sweep it weekly at the most, but it's screened.  I'm sure this makes a huge difference on maintenance.
Years of having a pool as a kid, and years of owning one as an adult, and I never found it harder than the above. Never once have I tested the water, cared about PH or hardness or whatever. I use a chlorine floater, put a 3" tablet in every few days, and have never had an issue. I don't care what the chlorine level is - if it's clear, it's fine. 

I own a hot tub too, and that's another story - that needs to be tested/etc (but it's still easy). But a pool? What are you people stressing over your pool water for? Clear = good. That's it. Nothing more than that. 

 
Getting it there may take some if it's a disaster.  But once you have it where you want it, a few minutes each week is all it should take. 


If all else fails, floc & vacuum, then keep chlorine around 10. If you have cloudy water with chlorine that high, you either have CYA way too high or someone is sabotaging you.


Exactly.  Take a water sample to the pool store once a month and have it tested.  They tell you exactly how much of what you need to put in there (stabilizer, etc.)  In the interim, test the water with a home test kit every few days.  Add a little bit of muriatic acid when the pH rises, turn the chlorinator up or down a bit if the chlorine level is too high/low.  Takes maybe an hour a month all-in.  MAYBE.

I'm the least handy guy in the world - if I can manage it, anyone can.
It's not always that easy.  I've gone every route anyone in this thread has mentioned.  The first two summers, my wife did the "bring the water sample in to the pool store" route.  Went every other week or so.  Everytime she went in, she came home with some new bottle of whatever.  I'm pretty sure at the end of summer 2, my pool was 25% water and 75% chemicals.  It was rediculous.  And it still wasn't perfect.  We even changed out the sand in the filter based on their recommendation.  Still no magic bullet.  So I said enough of that, went the pool website route and we did it ourselves.  That was a disaster.  We were monkeying with the stupid thing on a daily basis.  Tried everything under the sun, still a daily struggle.  Struggled with it for a few summers, and last summer we didn't even open it up (now two summers in a row).

Had a plaster guy out this spring to give us his estimate to get it up and running. Well, he doesn't do the chemicals, but he'll re-do the plaster (which, you know is the cause of all our problems) and do some work on the tiles for an easy 21k.  No way in heck that is happening.

TLDR, not every pool is "easy and just takes a few minutes a week."  Everytime I hear (or more appropriately read) someone say "you probably just need to [insert bottle of whatever I've already put in my pool]" I want to throat punch them.

 

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