Home Swimming Pool

[Rastus]

Any of you guys have experience with a swimming pool at home or maintaining them?  I am thinking of installing an inground pool in 2019.  Saltwater or fresh...  Ideas, caveats, helpful hints?  I am picking up on this because I want one and the subject of pools just came up in the thread "Getting a Building Permit" http://www.downrange.tv/forum/index.php?topic=33087.50 . 

Luckily, I don't need a building permit.  I would like to have a vanishing edge situated so that, hopefully, you don't see the neighbor's homes below but you do see the lake.  Help with things that will reduce future maintenance like better brands (not necessarily more expensive) of pumps, heaters, filters, etc. will be appreciated. 

I'd like to have a walk-in to the pool also as well as steps.  I'm getting old and hopefully older so an alternative to steps is good.  An "island" with some rocks and fire would be really nice but there is that thing called money which is a constraint.

[billt]

Any of you guys have experience with a swimming pool at home or maintaining them?  I am thinking of installing an inground pool in 2019.  Saltwater or fresh...  Ideas, caveats, helpful hints?

If you are going to go through the trouble and expense of getting an in ground pool put in, look carefully at going with a Caretaker In Ground Cleaning System with the pop up heads. It was the smartest move I ever made. They are more expensive to install, but I only vacuum my pool twice a year.

Without it you will have to vacuum every couple of weeks. Sometimes every week if you have dusty conditions. They really cut down on daily maintenance. And forget those crawler cleaning robots. Good one's run close to, if not over $1K. And every time I go to my pool supply place, someone is either dropping one off for repair, or else picking one up. They're a PITA. Not to mention if you have a large radiused pool bottom, (which most today are), they can approach the wall at a shallow angle, ride up the wall and tip over. Rendering them useless. Also you always have the thing in the pool with the hose connected to it.

I had my pool put in in 1999, almost 20 years ago. and I've only had to replace one Caretaker cleaning head in all that time. I sent it back in, and they sent me a new one free of charge. Just like a Craftsman wrench. My pool is Pebble Tec, and it has held up very well over the years.

 https://www.zodiac.com/en/united-states/pool-products/explore/brands/caretaker

https://caretakersystem.com/

http://www.pebbletec.com/

[Big Frank]

One of my friends had a tub of water right next to the pool so everyone could step in and rinse their feet off before getting in the pool. The less you have to clean your pool the better. I knew of the cleaning robots but not about all the problems they have.

Everything I heard about pools is that you need to check the pH and other things, add whatever chemicals you need to add, check again the next day, add more chemicals and check again if necessary, and repeat until everything is right. I have no idea how often you should check it once you get it right, but I heard you should check it often. Making minor adjustments often sounds better than waiting until it's way out of whack before correcting it.

[billt]

I rarely if ever check my PH anymore. I run my chlorine on the high side only because I'm deaf in one ear, and can't afford an inner infection in my only good one. There have been a LOT of improvements made in the way of pool care products over the last several years. This is one of the best. It all but guarantees your pool will never have an algae problem.

http://www.yardandpool.com/poolrx-mineral-unit-7-5k-20k-gal?gclid=Cj0KCQjwuYTYBRDsARIsAJnrUXBBbotBQ-kUtq91X79rAa7AscY7MW2sfpkxZEE-0xXZhdsWimHWjiQaAtAtEALw_wcB

 

[MikeBjerum]

Our daughter and her hubby put an in ground pool in a few years ago, and the next year their neighbor put in an above ground.  They are constructed the same today:  A poured floor, stainless steel walls bolted together in sections, and a vinyl liner.  I understand that you can bring the shallow end up as far as you wish, so you could eliminate all steps if you wished to have a beach like slope.

I like the idea of walking through a small foot bath as you enter.  It reminds me of growing up.  The city pools and the school pools all had foot baths and showers you had to walk through as you entered the pool area from the dressing rooms.

Another important feature for cleanliness, heating, and maintaining chemical balance is a pool cover.  Don't scrimp here!  Get one that is heavy enough to last years and insulate, and get a motorized one.  You will never leave the cover off if all you need to do is push a button.

[Sponsor]

[Big Frank]

Now that Mike mentioned it, I remember we had to shower before getting in the public pool I went to. And we couldn't wear cutoffs. They wouldn't want string in the pool filters. It was at an elementary school that's closed now. One of the few good things about that pool was that it had a retractable roof. It seems like it was almost always open when I went there during summer break. Another good thing is that was barely over a mile away. An easy bike ride for school kids our age.

[billt]

If you take into account the amount of dirt and dust that blows into a swimming pool, what you track in with your feet amounts to basically nothing. Look at the amount of dust that settles on your car in just a couple of days after you wash it. Now multiply that times the surface area of your pool.

And as far as type of construction. My next door neighbor had his in ground pool put in a year after I did. He had a standard plaster pool installed, about the same size as mine. This past Winter he had to have it replastered. I don't know what it ended up costing him, but it took them well over a week, and it was a very messy, labor intensive job. Plaster pools are cheaper to install. But they don't last as long, and are expensive to redo.

I had a friend in Lake Havasu City back in the 90's, who bought a home with a plaster pool that needed to be redone. He bragged how he was able to negotiate an extra $5K off the price because of the poor condition of the pool. It ended up costing him $8K to get it back into swimming condition. Out here in ground pools in good shape will help sell your home. But they won't necessarily add any value to it. In bad condition they can be a detriment to the sale.     

[billt]

Another important thing to consider is filter type. You have basically 3 different types. D.E. / sand / and cartridge. I had my pool built with a D.E. filter. It will give you the clearest water. But it requires the most maintenance of the 3. I backwashed mine about every 4 to 6 weeks. I backwashed heavily, usually dropping the water level 4 to 6 inches each time.

This assures 2 things. It gets ALL of the old D.E. out of the filter, which is very important. If you don't it will continue to build up until the entire filter is packed solid. That will burn out your pump in almost no time. And by heavily backwashing, it helps replenish the pool water each time you do it. Then it has to be recharged with fresh D.E. which recoats the screens, and does the actual filtering. When they get old the screens can get perforated. Then you end up getting D.E. in your pool.

That's what happened to me after about 8 years. So when I replaced my filter I went with a cartridge filter. It requires no backwashing. And the least maintenance. I pull the filters and wash them 2 to 3 times a year. My water is still crystal clear.

The third option is a sand filter. They're big round things that look like those giant mines submarines run into. They have to be backwashed usually once a week. Considerably more than a D.E. filter. The sand itself is much more porous than D.E., which is about the consistency of flour. So they don't filter out very small particulate material like a D.E., or a cartridge filter will.

With a cartridge filter and no backwashing, your water will have to be replaced every 3 years or so. Because the dissolved solids will build up to where you start getting a calcium line on your tile. I had this happen this past Winter. So I pumped it out and refilled it. There are places that will charge you as much as $600.00 to bead blast the calcium to remove it.

It's a rip off because all you have to do is intentionally overfill your pool by a couple of inches when you refill it. Then lower the PH with extra Muriatic Acid, (mine took about a gallon extra), and it will all dissolve in just a couple of days. Even without the extra acid it will still all dissolve. It just takes longer.

[Rastus]

Thanks for all of the helpful information.  I wonder if it would make sense to two stage the filters...somewhat like I do for disposal wells.  A sand filter up front and then through a DE filter.  More money up front but the DE should hold up longer with less backwashing. 

So...in trying to get a handle on volume....4-6 inches is a volume relative to what your pool's surface area is.  Six inches is 1/2 a foot so if you have a pool that is say 25x40 feet or 1,000 sq feet then you have a volume of 500 cubic feet which is roughly 3,750 gallons. 

And yes absolutely acid will get rid of calcium.  Drop that pH a little and you'll scavenge calcium.  Acetic acid (vinegar) will do the same thing if you want to apply it directly on something scaled over...more expensive for the area cleaned but safe if you have some smaller areas you'd like to clean by hand.

[billt]

I'm not exactly sure how to accurately calculate volume. Many of the newer pools have odd shaped designs, not oval, square, or round, making it more difficult to calculate. Another thing is depth. The deeper the pool the longer it will take to warm up in hot weather. This is because less surface area is exposed to the warmer air. A general rule of thumb is your water temperature will usually run about 10 degrees colder than the average night time low. Forget gas pool heaters. They use a very LARGE amount of gas, and are ungodly expensive to run.

My pool is about the 25' X 40' feet you're talking about. The depth ranges from 3-1/2' to 6' at the deep end. It's right around 11,500 gallons according to my water bill after I filled it. This last time I had 2 hoses, plus the auto fill running wide open. It took about 10-1/2 hours to fill.