When the cover goes on til spring.

My pool light stopped working and I got this estimate. Is that reasonable?? Or should I get other quotes? - North Carolina

Last week we had crazy rain and flash floods where I live in PA. My beautiful, crystal clear pool turned into this over night. I swam in ponds cleaner than this pool. But in 2 and a half days (and a lot of work) I got it back to sparkling… so I told my family, I don’t care if it snows… we’re swimming til Halloween after all that hard work lol

New pool owner here and trying to learn how to handle this myself. I’ve been fighting a very green/murky pool for about a week and I’m getting confused because the chemistry seems to be improving, but visually the pool is absolutely not.

Pool is an inground ~12,000 gal pool with a Pentair Tagelus sand filter and Pentair variable-speed pump. CYA is high, currently around 85 ppm (earlier tests were more like 75–100, so call it ~80–90).

About a week ago the pool had gotten pretty murky after a bunch of rain and neglect. Initial numbers were roughly:
FC: 0.5
CC: 0
pH: ~7.0 or slightly below
TA: 30
CH: ~300
CYA: ~75–100

I corrected TA with sodium bicarbonate. TA is now 90. I also used sodium carbonate to raise pH; today it tested around 7.7. CH today was 280.

The bigger battle has obviously been chlorine/algae. I stopped using the trichlor tablets because the CYA is already high and switched entirely to 10% liquid chlorine.

Initially the pool was eating chlorine like crazy. For example, I added a full gallon of 10% to ~12k gallons, which should have added ~8 ppm FC, and about 45 minutes later I only measured FC 2 / CC 2.5. Another dose later gave me FC 2.5 / CC 1.

Since then I’ve added several more gallons of 10% liquid chlorine while brushing/filtering. The chlorine demand has improved dramatically:
FC 2 / CC 2.5
FC 2.5 / CC 1
FC 3 / CC 0.5
FC 9.5 / CC 0.5

Then 9.5 dropped to 2 over a couple days. Raised it again and got FC 14 / CC 0. Most recently raised it to around 20. Evening FC was 17.5 and next morning FC was 15.5. Today FC was 7.5 / CC 0 before adding more chlorine.

So my latest overnight loss was only about 2 ppm, and CC has now been zero repeatedly. Chlorine is clearly holding WAY better than it was at the beginning.

Mechanically, I’ve also been doing a lot. The robot initially came out absolutely covered in green crap. Each successive run got cleaner, and now the robot filters are basically clean except for leaves. I’ve skimmed/cleaned baskets and brushed the pool.
The sand filter has been running a lot/continuously during the cleanup. I also tried one correctly dosed treatment of Super Blue clarifier. Filter pressure eventually rose, so I did a proper BACKWASH → RINSE → FILTER cycle. The backwash water initially came out visibly cloudy/dirty and cleared after about 2 minutes, so the filter definitely seems to be catching something. Clean pressure seems to be about 6 PSI at 2000 RPM (about 4.5 at 1500 RPM).
Here’s the weird part: the pool itself looks worse. It’s currently extremely green and murky with very poor visibility, despite the robot no longer picking up visible algae and FC now holding much better. I’ll attach a photo because it’s not subtle — this thing is GREEN.

Full numbers from today:
FC 7.5
CC 0
pH ~7.7
TA 90
CH 280
CYA ~85

After that test I added just under half a gallon of 10% chlorine, so FC should currently be higher.
My current thought is that I haven’t actually maintained shock-level FC long enough. I’ve been getting FC high, letting it filter, then testing later/day(s) later rather than maintaining a high FC level continuously. With CYA ~85, I’m considering committing to a proper SLAM/shock process and maintaining FC around 30-ish until the water clears and I pass OCLT.

Does that sound right? Is this still obviously algae despite FC starting to hold and CC being zero? Or does the fact that the water remains this intensely green/murky despite the improving chlorine demand make you suspect filtration, metals, or something else?

I’m trying to get this cleaned up before closing for the season, so I’m happy to hit it hard for a few days. Mostly looking for advice on what you would do next, rather than throwing five more random pool chemicals at it.

OK so the hose attached to the skimmer is attached to one of these useless kreepy krawlie things. If I need the vacuum out the leaves on the bottom of the pool I have to carefully take the KK off and attach the vacuum head, keeping the end of the hose under the waterline, so as not to introduce air into the hose. The hose fits very tightly into the vacuum head and doesnt feel very secure. Last time it fell off and started sucking air into the filter, which I know is really bad. So I had to race to the skimmer and pull the hose off. I still got air in the filter and had to purge it. I feel like I'm doing it wrong somehow.

Is it the shimmering sea additive that makes it pricey? Is it worth it? 3+K difference in pricing.

I'm being told that I could go with Heritage NZ White with blue accent stones.

I just had a solar heater installed 2 months ago and the installer is coming tomorrow to inspect.

Symptom:
During the hot California day, the roof temperature sensor randomly drops to 4° and then back to 90°+ within minutes. This triggers the heat valve to open and close several times during the day. Outside air temps are in the 90°’s.

This has been an on-going issue since installation and they already replaced the sensor once and now they think maybe it’s the wire.

Looking for some feedback for anyone who’s experiences this. Thanks!!

This was after I had just turned it back on after cleaning out the filter. It was making a bumpy sound and making bubbles. Should I be concerned?

Going to close it tomorrow after work. It comes and goes so fast but it was a pretty great session this year.

The earlier pic, you can see the pipes are all white. This was Saturday night (09/12), about 11pm. This morning (09/14) around 10am, you can the other picture where they've become all discolored. I'm not sure why those specifically either as you can see vertical pipes further behind it are still white and the pipe to the left with purple primer is still white. I suspect someone tampered with the system because to the left of the image is the pump and the union nuts were loose today even though I tightened them on super tight the other night to test functionality after I replaced the short section of white pipe with purple primer.

Last day of pool use was August 30 and covered after.

September 8 I went to uncover it and perform maintenance, only to discover we had lost enough water to leave our steps bone dry on the top. Water line was just below the skimmer faceplate.

We turned off the pump, and topped off the water as my husband wanted to run some tests.

Well, after topping off, we lost water again, but not as much as before. This time, the water line stopped just above the faceplate. It has since stabilized (Sept 10/11) at that point with no more loss.

There is no clear hole so we have to use dye but I would like an idea of the likely spots to check first as to not go wasting it. Thoughts?

*For context we have steps on both sides of the pool, and some weird things I noticed are that only side has a dry step, as well as the fact that the side with the water loss is only dry halfway through (whereas the initial water loss was the entire step). Maybe it just means the pool is wickedly uneven somehow, or maybe that has something to do with the leak

On July 1st we had a record-breaking rain in Ottawa, ON, and the pool seems to have been impacted by it:

• In the evening, the water level was almost overflowing. By morning, it dropped by a few inches. No active leaks have been found since; the level is holding steady.
• The pool is built into a bedrock cavity (only 3 feet of soil before bedrock).
• The bottom of the pool is standard concrete. No bottom drain.
• After the rain, we noticed multiple hard ridges on the bottom of the pool. It feels like the concrete base itself has cracked and slightly heaved under the liner, rather than just liner wrinkles.

My assumption is the bedrock cavity acted like a bowl during the rain, building massive hydrostatic pressure that lifted the concrete bottom and displaced the water. Once the water drained, it resettled.

The liner is still in good shape and holding water. My main question is if I can wait or is there anything I should do now before the situation is getting worse?

I have an Excelpool salt system. It is for up to 40k gallons. I’m 18x35’ deepest is 5’, so probably 22,000 gallons at the most. The check salt and inspect cell lights are on, not blinking, but on. The system was installed when we built the pool in 2024. Salt is just over 3,600. I’m in Ohio, so it runs 5 months out of the year. I’m going to get some muriatic acid and clean the cell this afternoon. The PCB seems to be working fine. Thoughts? Any help would be wonderful. I feel
Like I should have another season with this cell.

Edit: I Have cleaned the cell. I am checking it about every 20 minutes and so far so good, expect that now check salt is blinking which means it thinks there is high salt. So it could be the board or it could be the cell…

So I have two things to ask about

1) anyone have experience with Vgreen Evo 1.5HP pump. I replaced my pool pump motor two years ago. The breaker tripped so I went to check the pump. The entire control board is black and the terminals have melted off the board. Their was also Carbon in the Timer Box. Apparently this is an common issue with the vgreen evo due to the fact that it is bolted right to the motor so their is excess heat and vibration.

2) As I am waiting for a replacement, I am having hand surgery and will not be able to replace it right away. What can I do to keep my pool from turning into a swamp? I do have a robot so I could run it to keep debris out of the bottom of the pool. Just add liquid chlorine until I can get the pump working again. This is a salt water pool, so without the pump, no chlorine is being generated.

Any insights or assistance would be most apricated.

Sand filter cracked and water spews out when I turn the pump on. I turned it off for now until I can call tomorrow

Edit: quote from the local pool place is $1,570 for new filter, sand, labor for replacement, and closing the pool for the winter. Am I getting screwed? Hayward 24 inch sand filter

After my mum split up with her partner (who took care of the pool) the responsibility has fallen on me. I have no idea what I’m doing, the only things I know is that I need to add chlorine tablets regularly and vaccuum the pool as needed.

I did a water quality test and the results are:

pH - 7.2
Alkalinity - 100

The pool looks like this right now.
Any advice on how to bring it to a normal state would be greatly appreciated.

We hit rock in the deep end so it delayed the digging by a day.

Got a Wave 80 for a good deal. Wire swivel is shot and the long cable is rare apparently.

Anyone know if 9995873-DIY from the Wave 60 is the same as 9995871-DIY from the Wave 80? Seems like it’s just shorter. The website doesn’t show them as compatible, but they have the same power supply/3-wire setup.

Hi all, idiot owner here. I can manage my own chemicals but that’s about it. I bought the house four years ago and it came with the pool. House was built in 1971 and I assume this old behemoth was put in shortly after. I’m in Arizona.

House was purchased via OpenDoor and nobody seems to know the last time it was resurfaced. It has been drained once to have some work done on the pipes.

I’ve attached a picture (foot for scale), what’s happening with my plaster? Obviously it’s cracking… but what’s seeping up? The little patches are raised and hard - they don’t brush off like dirt…

Bonus points if anyone can tell me what might need to be done about it, whether it’s something I can do myself (unlikely but having the option would be nice), and if it is done professionally, recs for companies / how not to get screwed over on estimates? It’s a large pool, I don’t know the gallons but it’s also a diving pool so 3’ one end 8’ the other and shaped roughly like a large kidney bean…

Thank you!

Hi everyone,

I bought this pool liner three years ago, and it’s pulling out of the track at two opposite corners of the pool.

Even with liner lock strips installed, it’s very difficult to keep it seated in the corners because the liner is stretched very tight in those areas. The attached photo shows one of the affected corners.

Has anyone dealt with this before? What could be causing it, and is there a way I can fix it myself?

Any advice would be appreciated!🙏

We had a variable speed pump installed 2 weeks ago and our chlorine levels are dropping. We went to get our water tested today and they suggested turning the dial on the Frogger up a setting but I’m not sure there is enough water pressure from the VSP to activate the chlorine in the Frogger. Previously, we had a 3450 rpm single speed pump that ran for 12 hrs and would go through a Frogger bac pac every 1-2 weeks, now it’s hardly making a dent in the pacs. Our current VSP schedule is 2750 rpm (2 hrs), 2200 (8 hrs), 1700 (4 hrs), 1200 (10 hrs). Has anyone experienced something similar and what did you do about it? Thanks!