Thx for this. Will look into it.
The Swim University guy talks about inexpensive alternatives too. Seeing as it was my first summer I kind of went the "easy" way out and just did chlorine pucks. I spent about $60 in chlorine. Bucket from CDN tire was $44 and change. I used one bucket and maybe a third of the second? Went through a fair bit of PH plus when it would rain.
For shock I mainly did liquid chlorine. 2L when it was time. Beginning of the season it was pea soupish so I hit it hard with 6L and some algaeside.
I am trying to remember what it was but there is a chemical I bought that I used once and after that my PH stayed so much better balanced.
May... Pool opened. New pool heater. And... Oh boy,,,
Wowsa! I had to replace this thing right away. No way to monitor pressure or pump performance with this puppy...
A couple of days later. Got the PH balanced and chlorine. That was really it. Get enough chlorine in there to kill the existing algae and keep ahead of it.
After that I had a cloudy water problem which was really just the old dead algae. I ended up discovering skimmer socks. Changed them out daily and handwashed the used ones until they finally bit the dust. When I would take out a used sock it looked like snot on it. All the dead algae would stick to the sock. Saved me having to backwash the sand filter so much.
After this the pool got dialed in and everything got easier. This was my first year with a pool so I had no experience, first hand knowledge etc. I promised my wife when we got this place that I had the pool and that I would look after the maintenance. I was happy to take this one and I loved to vacuum the pool before work so that when she got home it was waiting for her.
I got better at manual vacuuming but using the Zodiac suction side cleaner I bought early in the season helped as well. It did a great job scrubbing the walls as well as vacuuming up debris. I would use the Zodiac about twice a month. Otherwise I manually vacuumed every couple of days.
Lots of planting and work but worth it in the end. The Softub is the extension of this and also being able to add a winter activity to what could be a tough Covid winter ahead...
I am going to work on the lawn next year and bring it up to another level. I also want to relevel and fix all the stones around the pool. Recitfying the concrete will be an expense sometime down the road.
Edit: I was probably about $150 into chemicals this past summer. However, we had nothing except some old left over PH minus. A lot of the stuff I have is stuff you may use once in the beginning of the season or from time to time. It was mainly keeping a puck in the skimmer and adding PH Plus from time to time until I got the one chemical that I added and then the PH stayed a lot more stable. I should go out to the shed to remind myself which one it is.
Liquid chlorine was cheap but perhaps I could save some money there. The main thing for me at the time was just turning pea soup into a swimable pool and then keeping it there. As the season went on I figured out how many hours I could shut the pump off to save some hydro and not lose the pool chemistry. The next month my wife was a lot happier. So, with that knowledge and experience behind me I can go the next level and see if I can get the pool chemistry budget lower.
