E-Z Glider
Footballguy
size of pool, and pics (especially the rock waterfall)?
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Swimming Pool Thread (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter FatMax
- Start date
James Daulton
Footballguy
pools 20 x 40. I'll grab some pics some time this week. We're super happy with the way it turned out.E-Z Glider said:
The Noid
Avoid me!
I'll snap some pics this weekend, but here was the break down
ool and accessories: $32k (39' x 19' curvey-shaped, 17k gallons)Concrete decking: $3k (300sq ft (3ft around pool) was included in pool price, but our decking design was about 900 sq ft)Vinyl fence/gates: $3kFence Install: $1.5kGrading: $2kMulch, River Rock, Top Soil: $2k Pavers: $2.3K (walkway from existing patio to pool plus an additional paver patio near the pool)Trees/plants: $.5kSo a little over $46k after originally figuring about $40-$42k as my budget. If I get the sprinkler system, it will bring it pretty close to an even 50k. The contractor that did all the non-pool stuff quoted me $3.5k for the sprinkler system considering we just dropped about $8k with him. We've got almost .5 acre with about 12k sq feet of grass/landscaping, so normally it's probably a $6-$8k job, so I might have to jump on it now at that price.
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Ray Stevens
Footballguy
Off topic, but post updates on this. I've got a pretty big lot too (0.3 acres) and am in the middle of a major yard renovation. We just got done replacing ALL the fences around the place (420 feet total - ouch) and the sprinkler system is next. We have an existing manual valve jobber now that one of the previous owners installed. It's a real POS though. Rather than even try repairing/upgrading that, we think it would be better just to start over and get it done professionally.
YSR
Footballguy
Man, pool companies must really be hurting down here (Florida). I just bought a house with a 23' x 40' pool, 3'-9', approximately 40,000 gallons. I've been getting quotes on having the whole thing renovated (re-marcite, new tile, new coping, replace light in deep end, upgrade pump, add a cleaner/return line) and haven't seen anything over $20,000 yet.This is my first pool and we are going to go the saline route. I'm going to get about 6-7 quotes and hope that by that time I'll be educated enough to be able to make the right decision on who we go with. Can't wait to check out poolsolutions.
The Noid
Avoid me!
Early_10
footballgoddess
Looks awesome!
E-Z Glider
Footballguy
Thanks. Appreciate the info and that is one sweet pool!
Ray Stevens
Footballguy
Nice. As a side note, it always amazes me to see back yards on the East Coast with no fences. That doesn't exist in California. Everything is fenced.
The Noid
Avoid me!
We wanted to just fence in the entire yard, but our county code prohibits direct access to the pool from the house. So we would have had to tear out and re-do all of the deck rail (and add a gate on the steps to enclose the deck) so that the railing was pool code compliant. So we just went with enclosing in the pool.
george
Footballguy
I just bought a house with a pool and am loving it. But couple questions for those that have them.
1. What kind of lighting did you have installed. Other than the porch light, there is no lighting around my deck. Trying to decide what to do (recessed deck lighting on stairs/rope lighting around fence, etc) without it being tacky.
2. Do bug lights help with mosquitos? If so, any suggestions for brand/size?
1. What kind of lighting did you have installed. Other than the porch light, there is no lighting around my deck. Trying to decide what to do (recessed deck lighting on stairs/rope lighting around fence, etc) without it being tacky.
2. Do bug lights help with mosquitos? If so, any suggestions for brand/size?
The Noid
Avoid me!
Ok, I've got another week or so before I run out of the initial chemicals they gave me at start-up. Being frugal, tell me about the chemicals I can make myself or buy at the supermarket instead of having to go back to the pool store.
Right now this is what I'm doing weekly:
- 2 chlorine tablets in each skimmer basket
- 6 oz. of algecide
- 6 oz. of a stain protector
- 2 bags of shock pellets
- 8 lb. bag of some powder after backwashing
Right now this is what I'm doing weekly:
- 2 chlorine tablets in each skimmer basket
- 6 oz. of algecide
- 6 oz. of a stain protector
- 2 bags of shock pellets
- 8 lb. bag of some powder after backwashing
=Smackdown=
Footballguy
I haven't seen that many houses on the East Coast with no fences - everything is wide open in his pics - that would drive me crazy. I would plant a whole bunch of Leyland Cypress along my property lines in the back. In 3 years you wouldn't see any neighbors.With that said - beautiful pool.
Philo Beddoe
Footballguy
Maybe a stupid question but do you test the water? 2 bags of shock weekly seems a bit much. I have a 20x40 40K+ gallon pool and I shock 2 bags every 3 weeks. Your free chlorine must be through the roof. I would also get one of the floating chlorine containers. Putting tabs in the skimmer basket makes them dissolve too quickly. Does the pool have algae? I dont use algaecide either.
The Noid
Avoid me!
I've had it tested three time over the last 2 weeks at the pool store. I'm just following the instructions they gave me. I have PH strips but PH as been fine during those 3 tests. I'll check it again tonight as I did the weekly maintenance this morning.
Cheesy McGee
Footballguy
RBM
Footballguy
The people at the pool store told you to put your chlorine tablets in the skimmer? That doesnt seem possible.
RBM
Footballguy
Wooo wooo wooo....please explain this tidbit?
5Rings
Lurker
and 
Great pics
tommyboy
Footballguy
simple really.what is chlorine? yes that's right its just sodium hypochlorite (6% solution, 94% water). What is "shock" - usually calcium hypochlorite. The portion of that mixture that provides the "chlorine" oxidation function in your pool is the hypochlorite. The advantage of using bleach instead of shock bags or chlorine sticks is no additives in bleach, just chlorine and water. Shock bags contain other items you don't need to add to your pool, like cyuranic acid, calcium (if you have vinyl liner, you don't ever need calcium), etc. If you want chlorine the purest form is bleach.in a typical pool that is maintained regularly you need to set your Cyuranic or Muratic acid level at the beginning of the season and it will usually stay at that level most of the summer. You might need to add some at some point, but a little goes a long way. I keep my CYA between 10 and 20. Anything more than that is overkill. What happens is the higher you keep your CYA the more Chlorine you have to use to get the equivalent cleaning power in your pool. If you run CYA at 40-50 you 'd have to keep your chlorine in the 3-6ppm range to provide the same killing power as 1ppm chlorine at 10ppm CYA. Calcium (if you have a plaster pool) is one of those chemicals you need to add once or twice a year. You don't need to add it every time you "shock" your pool.Same thing with your PH and Alkalinity measures. You set those early and they'll usually stay right there assuming you maintain your pool. what i noticed in my pool the last 5 years is it doesn't smell. You know that smell when you go to a public pool, it burns your eyes and nose? That's massive amounts of CYA or Muratic acid, which they use to extend the life of the chlorine. you can go with lower CYA and lower chlorine and have a pool full of velvety smooth, soft, clean smelling water that doesn't burn your eyes or nose. Thats why I use bleach.
FatMax
Member
I didn't shock my pool at all last year, and only used two bags at the beginning of the season to get the milkiness to drop out of the water.
Just got to www.troublefreepool.com for full instructions on how to correctly run your pool on grocery store chems and have great water. The "Pool School" section will get you started.You won't spend much on chemicals...just get one of the test kits they recommend and follow the instructions.
tommyboy
Footballguy
might "shock" you but the pool store is not your friend. They are in fact lying through their teeth to keep you coming back to buy more chemicals which, as it turns out, you don't need at all. Now if you like swimming in a chemical bath, have at it but...I had my pool water tested 3 weeks ago when I first opened my pool. They told me I needed to add, i kid you not, 100lbs of chemicals, ranging from PH Buffer, shock, algacide, clarifier, alkalinity increaser...you name it. all I wanted from the test was the printout of my chemical levels. I noticed my PH was a little low so I add one box of 20 Mule Train borax (4lbs). I have a 27K gallon pool. That raised my PH 0.2, perfect. I need to increase alkalinity slightly, I added one box (4lbs) baking soda. Perfect. I needed to add some Cyuranic Acid, I bought that at Walmart, 4bs cost me $18. I needed to add a little calcium, I bought 10lbs of it for $29 at the pool store. I added 4 gallons of bleach (cost $5) and that was it. No algacide, in fact I've never used algacide. You don't need it as long as you keep chlorine at proper levels. You don't need clarifier, you don't need most of what the pool store wants you to buy.
also, don't use the test strips. Go to walmart and buy this http://img39.imageshack.us/i/img9400d.jpg/ test kit. Its easy and accurate. The strips are not accurate at all.
after the initial pool opening and the little bit of chemicals I added above, for the rest of the summer all I'll do is add bleach when it gets low and keep the pool clean (vaccuum once every couple weeks). One time this summer I will ahve to add some calcium and some cyuranic acid. My total chemical expenses for the entire summer including bleach will be less than $200.
tommyboy
Footballguy
i just buy a new one each year to be safe. They cost like $14 at walmart
tommyboy
Footballguy
learned it all here:http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/index.phpRBM said:
never had a pool until 5 yrs ago, and when we bought the house by the time I started thinking about "hey i need to do something to this pool" the water had turned dark green and I had ducks living in it. I didn't have a clue how to maintain a pool but everything I know now I learned at that forum and at Ben's main site http://www.poolsolutions.com/ and more specifically http://www.poolsolutions.com/gd/grocery.html
one of the theories the guy has is that if you run your PH high, like 7.8-8.2 your water smells nicer and feels nicer, which I can attest to. Everyone that swims in my pool says they can't believe the water is so nice. They are all used to the rec center pools with tons of acid and high levels of chlorine combined with lower PH. He wrote a preliminary paper on it here...http://www.poolsolutions.com/gd/hiphpool.html
the guy obviously knows what he's talking about and everything they've recommended to me in 5 years has been spot on. I couldn't be happier with my pool and it takes hardly any time to take care of.
The Noid
Avoid me!
Pulled the trigger on the sprinkler system yesterday, goes in next week. $3500 for 8 zones, 38 heads. Hunter control box with everything else Rainbird.
Mr.Pack
Footballguy
RBM
Footballguy
I am going on a week of nothing but household bleach and my pool looks cleaner than it ever did using those stupid tablets. And any amount of those tablets were never enough to register enough chlorine in the pool. It was a constant battle to maintain my cl level. The bleach has been a breeze. My CYA is around 55-60, so I need to watch that cl level closer than Id like but at this point in the season I really dont want to drain half the pool to lower the CYA.
Very happy with this so far. Thanks to tommyboy and aquaman for steering me in the right direction.
Very happy with this so far. Thanks to tommyboy and aquaman for steering me in the right direction.
FatMax
Member
BTW, I started the math problem thread because my stabilizer levels got out of control. My chlorine levels were 5+ and I still had algae growing. I was using solid tablets only.I guess you can say that I'm another liquid chlorine convert, because this is a real PIA.
FatMax
Member
I have to use muratic acid in my pool. My water is on the basic side naturally. People in my area use only acid and chlorine, typically. Never heard of anyone using borax or anything like that to decrease acid levels.
Pick
Footballguy
Screw that! I'll pay to have someone keep it up first.
jomar
Footballguy
does anyone have any idea how much you get get a pool contractor down on his initial price to install a pool? I got a few quotes, all of them for slightly over $50k for a good sized in ground pool (gunite or fiberglass, no vinyl) with a decent amount of concrete, fence, etc. I'm trying to get them down to the $40-45k range but I have no idea if this is reasonable.
I was thinking of just telling the best guy I talked to (who also happened to be the cheapest and with the best equipment/upgrades) that my budget is $45k and see what he can come up with for me. but I don't want to do this if I can get him down ever further, maybe in the $40-42k range.
I'm in Michigan so the swimming season is pretty much over and each contractor has told me that they are not exactly busy building pools in Michigan, so I got that going in my favor.
any advice would be appreciated.
I was thinking of just telling the best guy I talked to (who also happened to be the cheapest and with the best equipment/upgrades) that my budget is $45k and see what he can come up with for me. but I don't want to do this if I can get him down ever further, maybe in the $40-42k range.
I'm in Michigan so the swimming season is pretty much over and each contractor has told me that they are not exactly busy building pools in Michigan, so I got that going in my favor.
any advice would be appreciated.
jomar
Footballguy
did that include the fencing and landscaping?the guy I want to use quoted me something like this:
$40k - approx 18' x 36'pool with upgraded tile, heater, etc. anything up to 9' deep with gunite, the fiberglass pools were a little more
$6k - 200' black aluminum fencing and @600 sq ft of concrete
$2500 - a really sweet slide
$1800 - salt system
$50,300 - total
the only other thing I'd need is probably 15-18 Arborvitae trees plus a small retaining wall. I would sign a contract tomorrow if he could do everything for $40,000 but might go up to $45k if I really needed to.
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YSR
Footballguy
Didn't end up doing this after all, which is a really good thing as we hit a big money crunch last summer. BUT, we are putting the house on the market ASAP and have come to the conclusion that something needs to be done to the pool. Right now, it looks like a pond. A guy stopped by our garage sale last weekend and said that we could just dump several gallons of insta-shock in there and have it look decent for showing, etc.Problem is, there is a lot of dirt/algae/who-knows-what down on the floor of the pool. We borrowed our neighbor's net and have started digging some of this stuff out - and there's a LOT of this stuff. Does anyone here have any experience with cleaning out a pool by themselves? Is there a vacuum specifically designed for this? I don't want to empty the pool for fear of floating it, I just want to get enough stuff out to be able to get some more water in, turn on the pump, and have the shock and pump take care of the rest.Pulling the trigger on having the pool redone this week. Hope to be swimming in 3 weeks.
jomar
Footballguy
ended up getting a gunite pool closer to 17x35, 3.5 deep on the shallow end, 6.6 on the deep end. construction finished in early June and the kids have been enjoying it since.
like someone mentioned earlier in this thread, the only chemicals I've used to date have been bleach from walmart and muriatic acid from Home Depot to bring my Ph and TA down. pool has been absolutely crystal clear once I got all of the plaster dust cleared up in the first 2 weeks.
Also, a good test kit is a must. got one of these and input the test results in here and it tells me exactly how much of what to put into my pool.
the initial cost of the pool is still adding up as the credit card bills roll in. had a boulder retaining wall put in and had to spread 20 yards of top soil and almost 400 yards of sod. also put in 30 arbor vitae trees, bought all new deck and pool furniture, floats, and other pool toys which I didn't factor in to my initial budget.
I'd do it again in a heartbeat though. we've had some incredibly hot days that have been made downright nice hanging out poolside
like someone mentioned earlier in this thread, the only chemicals I've used to date have been bleach from walmart and muriatic acid from Home Depot to bring my Ph and TA down. pool has been absolutely crystal clear once I got all of the plaster dust cleared up in the first 2 weeks.
Also, a good test kit is a must. got one of these and input the test results in here and it tells me exactly how much of what to put into my pool.
the initial cost of the pool is still adding up as the credit card bills roll in. had a boulder retaining wall put in and had to spread 20 yards of top soil and almost 400 yards of sod. also put in 30 arbor vitae trees, bought all new deck and pool furniture, floats, and other pool toys which I didn't factor in to my initial budget.
I'd do it again in a heartbeat though. we've had some incredibly hot days that have been made downright nice hanging out poolside
jomar
Footballguy
check out troublefreepool.com and read the Pool School links. you need to fish out the debris, bring your chlorine levels up to shock level and hold them there consistently until your Combined Chlorine is below .5 ppm, and you do not lose chlorine overnight. also, brushing the walls and vacuuming when possible will help speed the process along. it will take a week or two minimum if its really that bad at this point. that means buying alot of chlorine (or bleach) and adding it multiple times a day to make sure your chlorine levels are high enough to shock the pool. just adding shock (shock is a verb, not a noun, so really there is no such thing as adding shock) as a one-time or two-time thing is not going to clear this up. it'll take some effort on your part. adding bleach, testing, adding more bleach, brushing walls, vacuuming, backwashing (cleaning) filter, and keep at it until it is clear. if you stop before all of the green is gone, all of the bleach/chlorine you added to that point is for nothing.
Phil Elliott
Footballguy
Another vote for troublefreepool.com We had our pool refinished in March (went from plaster to SunStone). Our pool is about 15x32 and we added a heater also to extend the swimming season. I switched to following the troublefreepool process of using chlorine (from Costco) and acid. Our water has been crystal clear since refilling it in March.
We had our pool refinished in March (went from plaster to SunStone). Our pool is about 15x32 and we added a heater also to extend the swimming season. I switched to following the troublefreepool process of using chlorine (from Costco) and acid. Our water has been crystal clear since refilling it in March.
glumpy
breeze
Good link.Another vote for troublefreepool.com
huskers15
Footballguy
Dang wish I saw that poolsolutions link earlier before spending $120 on Alk Up, box of shock and Phos Free this weekend, I'll probably be going to salt system in the spring.BTW does anyone know of any good cleaners that will get the grime/black stuff off your vinyl walls?
ffjunk
Footballguy
Bump as I moved into a house with a pool. Following tommyboys advice here. How long before the initial start-up and cleaning before I see results on a clear pool? Water was clear to start but green bottom. After vacuuming, water is obviously cloudy now. It's an inground, vinyl and about 22k gallons.
And yes it is way early where I live but the big boss wanted it done and I have some time to do it.
And yes it is way early where I live but the big boss wanted it done and I have some time to do it.
culdeus
Footballguy
I just got a pool in Feb. It has a 400kbtu heater. Most, if not all heaters that are not just for a spa are about that size. What questions do you have?
culdeus
Footballguy
Just keep running the filter 24 hours for now with your robot cleaner if you have one 3 hours just to keep the stuff stirred up. Watch your DE filter pressure because you will need to backwash eventually.
PolishNorbi
Footballguy
Used to be a sales consultant for pools. Depending on if technology changed much in the last three years here is a quick breakdown;Gas - Cheapest of the 3, most expensive to use. Fastest to warm up though. Great if you plan on heating up the pool once or twice a month. Heat Pump - Middle tier in pricing. Very low in monthly cost. Takes about 2-3 days to warm up the pool. Won't work in sub 40F weather.Solar - Was most expensive. Best to upgrade pump to a variable speed, so you save on electric. I wouldn't call this really a heater since all it does is run water through black tubes essentially. So you will be able to extend the season by a month or two, depending where you live.
culdeus
Footballguy
I'm still reading the poolschool stuff, btw. I'm planning on taking care of it all myself this fall and onwards. Right now I'm just getting the hang of keeping the equipment running.
One thing I'm considering is swapping my 2hp pentair for a 1/2 hp dual speed pump. That would have a payback of about 2 years compared to what I'm running now. Getting some quotes to get this built and installed.
One thing I'm considering is swapping my 2hp pentair for a 1/2 hp dual speed pump. That would have a payback of about 2 years compared to what I'm running now. Getting some quotes to get this built and installed.
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