Inground Swimming Pool Question For The Experts?
What is the minimum and maximum amount of years that you should keep the same water in an inground swimming pool?
How many times do you have to clean a swimming pool a month?
Hardness is through the roof in our pool! Water needs to be changed as per the professionals. Any ideas on where the best place to go in Lemoore, Ca to get the best deal on a place to drain our pool?
What exact services do they provide and how much?
How would we get water back into our pool?
Water Truck Service or hose water..
What’s the better route to take?
Showcase:
I’ll answer in order.
1/ That depends quite a bit on your fill water chemistry and your pool chemistry. It can also depend on the type of filtration system you have.
Everything added to pool water that was a solid, stays in the pool. It doesn’t evaporate out. It only leaves if you physically remove it. If it’s dissolved in your pool water, the only way it’s going to leave is by removing the water containing it or chemically separating it out again. Removing it and the pool water really is the only cheap option. That means that if your fill water contains a lot of dissolved minerals and metals, that stays in. Same thing with pool chemicals you add. Only water evaporates out unless you’re using those solar fish and in that case, it’s water and alcohol. When the total dissolved solids count reaches around 1500 ppm for a normal, chlorine or bromine sanitized pool…time to dump a lot of water. If it’s a salt water system, then add your normal salinity to that total. Your filtration system comes into play here. If you own a sand filter, you’re dumping a large volume on a weekly basis in a backwash. If the fill water is city water for example, then it’s low TDS will help slow the TDS rise. Country fill water, on the other hand, will raise it quicker. If you have a DE or cartridge filter system, then you don’t have that large loss every week in a backwash. Just evaporation. What you fill with will determine how fast your TDS goes up. It will always rise since you will always be adding “something” to that pool. It’s just the rate of rise that differs. Another thing to consider here is if the pool ever gets winterized. Northern California can freeze. If you close the pool, you’re dropping water. Sometimes it’s enough each season to offset a TDS rise substantially and will lengthen the time between total dumps.
2/ At least 4 times. Once a week at least. More often if a lot of debris falls in. It depends on your backyard and your neighbours back yard.
3/ Nope, I’m in Ontario Canada, but if it’s through the roof and this is a concrete or gunite pool, you betcha it needs to get dumped. Your pool finish is at stake.
4/ Okies..first off, if this is a concrete or gunite shell, you can dump the pool if you know what you’re doing. If it’s a vinyl liner pool, you’re at your peril. Dumping a vinyl pool results in the liner shrinking. It may shrink to the point that refilling will result in a seam separation. Sounds like a rifle shot and is just as damaging. New liner time. Not many pros will completely dump a vinyl liner pool unless they tell you straight up that it’s at your peril. Most likely, in this case, they’ll push a new liner with minor bottom repairs. If the liner is over 10 years old and their price is reasonable, do it.
If your pool is concrete or gunite, read on
A drain and wash ( may as well do a wash while you’re at it) is pool size dependant. A 18 X 36 here, materials included, would run about 400 bucks. Not including fill. The service company will drain down your pool, inspect and possibly replace the hydrostatic valve, acid wash the pool and make any minor repairs that don’t take much time or material. Anything else they’ll charge for.
5/ That depends on what’s available in your area. Your local fire department may do it for either a municipal fee or donation from a hydrant. You may have a water truck deliver it ( around here it’s $140 for about 5,000 gallons) but ask about the companies source water. Some pump out of creeks, some out of quarries ( not bad usually but high in TA) and some from town wells. If you decide to fill by your own garden hose, do yourself a favour. Don’t let that hose end touch the side of the pool and don’t let that water stream from the hose go anywhere but right on top of the main drain or deepest part of your pool. The copper end of that hose will stain your pool. The mineral content of your fill water may stain your pool too. If you direct it onto the deepest part of your pool, it will, within minutes, just be hitting the water surface and not your pool. No stain. You just paid a whack of money to get your pool cleaned. Why stain the side of it yourself?
6/ That’s up to your wallet and what you consider good fill water. I had customers get us to fill from their ponds and people who insisted on city water trucks.