🏡 Better Homes Aquatic crew assemble: All things pool...

[Blownbyyou]

Any of you guys on a well and fill your pool with well water? If so any special things you guys do?
My nephew is getting his pool installed June 13th, he wants me to help him get it started and train him how to maintain it.
I just realized Lake Zurich has well water, and I'm not sure if anything different has to be done

I would definetly run it through the softener…

 

[cdh027]

I would definetly run it through the softener…

No way you are gonna fill a pool through the softener. It'll need a recharge a least 4 times depending on the size of the pool.

 

[DEEZUZ]

Any of you guys on a well and fill your pool with well water? If so any special things you guys do?
My nephew is getting his pool installed June 13th, he wants me to help him get it started and train him how to maintain it.
I just realized Lake Zurich has well water, and I'm not sure if anything different has to be done

I've had to fill my pool like 3 times now. What's it like 17,000 gallons???

Softeners regen at like 500 gallons. It would never ever get it done.

Anytime I fill it I run through rv spin on filters. Then you usually have to use a fuck ton of iron out to clear the water.

Every time I top off it's well water. And this well is the nastiest dirtiest one. It never poses an issue after the initial fill. Just filter it.

 

[DEEZUZ]

My hot tub Def gets softened water but that's only because I use hot water from my tankless to fill it.

 

[DEEZUZ]

What I suggest is getting 5 trash cans. Filling them the night before or morning of and get 2 or 3 sump pumps. The pool people won't leave unles there is a few inches of water to set the liner.

For me they used my well water which trickles and just that, a few trash cans and sumps pumps

 

[DEEZUZ]

Pool Mate 1-2550-02 Metal Out Swimming Pool Mineral Remover, 2-Pack https://a.co/d/7FQ422A

I use these to wash my cars too cause the water from my well is literally brown...

Waterdrop RV/Marine Water Filter, Camper Water Filter, NSF Certified, Inline Water Filter for RV, Garden Hose Filter, Greatly Reduces Chlorine, Bad Taste, Odor, 2 Pack https://a.co/d/6iTbrTr

 

[DEEZUZ]

Hopefully he has floor drains. I started filtering my pool as soon as the water covered the drains.

 

[Flyn]

Just test and get your chems right with well water. It will be fine once the numbers are good. Filtering can't hurt.

 

[Z28Camaro]

I changed the sand out in my filter yesterday, vacuuming all out the old sand is the worst. I don’t know exactly how much sand was gone from the tank but I would estimate about 100lbs. Took 325 to fill it back up from empty. I took the downpipe and laterals out and washed and cleaned out everything in there.

The only photo I took was one looking down into the tank before touching anything. You can see a lot of debris on the sand. Apparently this is stuff that backwashing would not remove.

 

[DEEZUZ]

 

[Shawn1112]

View attachment 167459I changed the sand out in my filter yesterday, vacuuming all out the old sand is the worst. I don’t know exactly how much sand was gone from the tank but I would estimate about 100lbs. Took 325 to fill it back up from empty. I took the downpipe and laterals out and washed and cleaned out everything in there.

The only photo I took was one looking down into the tank before touching anything. You can see a lot of debris on the sand. Apparently this is stuff that backwashing would not remove.

Is sand filter the best option for your pool?
Any updated pool pics, last pics I seen it looked like a swamp

 

[Pewter-Camaro]

View attachment 167459I changed the sand out in my filter yesterday, vacuuming all out the old sand is the worst. I don’t know exactly how much sand was gone from the tank but I would estimate about 100lbs. Took 325 to fill it back up from empty. I took the downpipe and laterals out and washed and cleaned out everything in there.

The only photo I took was one looking down into the tank before touching anything. You can see a lot of debris on the sand. Apparently this is stuff that backwashing would not remove.

I’m sure it smelled lovely too. Replaced the laterals and sand on a couple pools with my FIL. The smell from old sand, especially one that was basically a pond before we got to it , is just gross.

 

[Z28Camaro]

Is sand filter the best option for your pool?
Any updated pool pics, last pics I seen it looked like a swamp

I’m not sure if it’s the best or not. The location is prone to a lot of contamination from shit falling out of the trees. Sand seems to deal with that pretty well if you don’t mind throwing away water and chemicals.

I underestimated the time it would take to get it under control but I can see the bottom in the entire shallow end now. Maybe if I had new sand to start with it would have gone faster. I was backwashing at least twice a day and sometimes way more when I was brushing the liner. Still can’t see fullt to the bottom of the deep end but the pool shop who has been helping me told me that my water tests look realistic good considering the circumstances.

 

[DEEZUZ]

I’m not sure if it’s the best or not. The location is prone to a lot of contamination from shit falling out of the trees. Sand seems to deal with that pretty well if you don’t mind throwing away water and chemicals.

I underestimated the time it would take to get it under control but I can see the bottom in the entire shallow end now. Maybe if I had new sand to start with it would have gone faster. I was backwashing at least twice a day and sometimes way more when I was brushing the liner. Still can’t see fullt to the bottom of the deep end but the pool shop who has been helping me told me that my water tests look realistic good considering the circumstances.

View attachment 167507

Flock the mother fucker and be done

 

[Z28Camaro]

Finally swimming. Had it basically swimable before we went on vacation but didn’t have anyone taking care if it for a couple weeks with the solar cover on it. It went totally green and got a bunch of leaves and acorns in it anyway, SMDH. I probably should have just left it open but I don’t know what I am doing and thought it would help.

I can see us cutting down more trees this fall. I looked at motorized covers but they are really expensive.

By recommendation of my pool place I dumped in 45 lbs of Supreme Plus. Waited a couple weeks while dumping shock in every couple days and slowly it came around. Wife is really happy now.

Need to figure out how to test water on my own.

 

[Shawn1112]

Finally swimming. Had it basically swimable before we went on vacation but didn’t have anyone taking care if it for a couple weeks with the solar cover on it. It went totally green and got a bunch of leaves and acorns in it anyway, SMDH. I probably should have just left it open but I don’t know what I am doing and thought it would help.

I can see us cutting down more trees this fall. I looked at motorized covers but they are really expensive.

By recommendation of my pool place I dumped in 45 lbs of Supreme Plus. Waited a couple weeks while dumping shock in every couple days and slowly it came around. Wife is really happy now.

Need to figure out how to test water on my own.

Why didn’t u put your pump/filter on a timer when you left town? 2 friends that are waiting on their inground pools to be built bought the motorized covers. I think one paid $6500 and the other was over $8k.

 

[Z28Camaro]

Why didn’t u put your pump/filter on a timer when you left town? 2 friends that are waiting on their inground pools to be built bought the motorized covers. I think one paid $6500 and the other was over $8k.

It was running the entire time. I have a old school timer for the power supply at the breaker box in the house but I think it’s set to be on all the time.

I bought a new variable speed pump that I need to install. I thought my current pump was going out so grabbed it along with the rebate from Ameren. I’ll bet my current pump costs about $100/month in electricity by itself.

 

[blakbearddelite]

I guess I should have been cleaning our salt cell on a regular basis. Pool has been getting algae but has high salinity. It just kicked off a couple of service codes for cleaning the salt cell. It seems pretty simple, just have to find the right size bucket to soak it in. I did see that a company sells caps that you can put on the cell so that you just fill the cell and not waste filling up a bucket. But the caps are like $50. It just seems cheaper in the short run to fill a 5 gal bucket with water/acid.

 

[Fish]

Ive had my little intex clone set up all year. Its been a PITA since day 1. There was a god damn pinhole leak in the pool proper. So I slapped some flex tape on there so hard Phil Swift would have been proud. Reminded me of an ass that Id love to slap it jiggled so well. That piece of shit tape needed a second helping, but still got it to stop.

Then the inflatable ring started losing air. Was inflating it daily and I put the cover on after pumping it up and it lost a crap ton of air super fast and the pool started losing water due to the cover being tied up and it being on not so even concrete. So had to inflate it again, sprayed the entire ring with soapy water and found my hole. Slapped some more flex tape on that bitch. Inflated again. Still inflated after 2 days. 2 days after that, it was looking flat again. Did it AGAIN. Found another small hole in the ring. Flex taped that bitch. Lasted 4 days again and started going flat. Running out of space where I can find pin hole leaks in this thing and no bubbles coming from the flex taped areas.

I think this pool has seen its last summer. Which kinda sucks cause its only been 2. Also had to buy a new pump filter, cause fuck me thats why. I almost wish I bought the big one meant for the bigger intex pools cause of course the chlorine levels would just go all over the map and had a couple times the water was looking like Chicago river on St. Patricks day. Shocked and scrubbed and filter got it all back but not much use during the week along with the pool being so small and the filter being a POS that needs daily cleaning means I cant neglect it for more than 2 days or Ill be in for hours of work and no pool use for the rest of the day.

 

[cdh027]

Wife found these pics from 2017 last night. This was the morning after me and 2 nieghbors.

 

[Blownbyyou]

Jesus fuck you peed into that pool a lot.., I hope you shocked it lol

 

[cdh027]

Jesus fuck you peed into that pool a lot.., I hope you shocked it lol

Nope, I put a bathroom in the shed and believe it or not we all got out ALOT to pee. The other 2 guys also had pools so they knew the deal. I would shock it all the time after a night like that regardless.

 

[Yaj Yak]

had a great pool year this year.

first day in was april 15th and we were in two weeks ago still.

7 months out of the year is fucking awesome.

i "kept it clear" this year myself... for the first year ever.

i dont know what the fuck i was doing and never checked levels but it stayed crystal clear all year without any serious chlorine smells or effects.

i backwashed 1-2 times per week, always after heavy use, and added chlorine and city water weekly.

i also kept it covered always unless we were in it, which some other pool people told me i couldn't.. so i dont know what the fuck i was doing maybe just solid luck.


i was also super conscious to run my robot vaccuum 3-5 times per week to keep the water agitated as i dont have a center drain

 

[FirstWorldProblems]

7 months is awesome, for unheated pools this year sucked. I think we were at the in laws maybe 5 times max, normally we're there at least once a week all summer

I didn't want a pool (strictly because $) but my wife does, but I got her to wait until 2025 so there's that. We'll prob end up tearing the back yard apart as soon as the ground thaws in a year and a half

 

[Yaj Yak]

7 months is awesome, for unheated pools this year sucked. I think we were at the in laws maybe 5 times max, normally we're there at least once a week all summer

I didn't want a pool (strictly because $) but my wife does, but I got her to wait until 2025 so there's that. We'll prob end up tearing the back yard apart as soon as the ground thaws in a year and a half

i dont really think i ran my heater much more than end of may and then start/middle of september and it was normally around 85-88* and there was a day too where it was straight too fucking hot at like 94*... the cover REALLY heats it well.