Cost of pool chemicals

For anything to do with the garden and pool
COYS
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Post by COYS »

Old Bill wrote: PS Maybe the fact that we change the water every year is pushing up the cost of anti-calcaire. What do you think?
We empty our pool annually before November & refill in April/May & don't recall having had call for such quantities of additives even with weeks of temps in the 40's & supply water calcium on the high range. Teapot knows your region - I don't but that must be a fair old chemical soup or a big pool you are swimming in.

Is the filtration system ok? We had an issue a couple years back with sudden clouding & increased chemical demand. After much chin scratching & wasted chemicals it turned out to be a string of hairbands caught in a non-return valve. It took a while to find but once rectified the pool balance returned to 'normal' pretty quickly.
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teapot
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Post by teapot »

There is an inherent risk with emptying and not refilling until spring.
The weight of water (1 tonne/m3) is compressing the soil, once removed and especially over winter the ground can expand and crack a pool very easily. One my way has a vertical crack 600mm long. It apparently was ok for the first 15-16 years though.
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COYS
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Post by COYS »

Agreed teapot, & I've often thought about it. But local knowledge & habit is to drain down rather than leave the water in. With pool care being very much a summer only trade here & I fear it would be prohibitively expensive & no doubt difficult to reliably source through winter, especially in absence for long periods.
On the upside we aren't generally prone to frosts/freezing or persistent heavy rainfall & we have decent land drainage built in so I've tended to fret more over contraction of the ground after cooling or a rogue root from the garden! We're 10 years in with this pool now & so far, so good. But I suppose really it boils down as always to risk versus running costs. So even though we visit ouselves over the closed season (which is getting longer each year) we couldn't justify or absorb year round operation nor stomach stagnant water & mozzies :(
Were I to live there as planned one far off day, I would certainly leave it operational for longer. A Christmas Day swim would be good I guess, but I'd still drain it for a couple/few months for descaling/cleaning & 'cos it would be way too chilly for me & my Speedo's!
Apologies for thread creep.
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Old Bill
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Post by Old Bill »

teapot wrote:
Old Bill wrote:

It takes time and money to get water into a balanced condition for a pool, so changing it and starting again each season is not really needed. Well water changes, you may have good water one season and poor the next.
Are you/were you getting a hard white calcaire build up?
Is your pool vinyl lined, GRP or tile/plaster finished?
What type of filtration do you have?

I would be interested to see the water test results from your pool and from the well water you are using, testing the source water is really important but over looked by most pool operatives.
We empty the pool, clean it and refill it in the spring. You're right in saying that the well water changes from year to year. Our pool man told us this spring that the water quality had changed and that the new water had more calcaire in it than previously, so we aren't surprised that we used more than twice as much anti-calcaire this year as in 2016.

To answer your questions:

Yes we were getting a hard white calcaire build up. The sand in the filter was completely clogged up when we first bought the house and it required a lot of hydrochloric acid to loosen it.

The pool is tile/plaster finished.

As regards the filter, we have replaced the sand with small glass particles, which are supposed to be less vulnerable to being clogged up by calcaire.

Like Wendy, we have an infinity pool. I don't know what difference that makes to chemical usage.

We're in England at present but will be going back to France in the next few weeks and will talk to the pool man again then.
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teapot
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Post by teapot »

COYS wrote:Agreed teapot, & I've often thought about it. But local knowledge & habit is to drain down rather than leave the water in.
Apologies for thread creep.
If it works for you, personally I go for the dark winter cover, leaving the water slightly lowered (for French winters) My water is also very hard and very high in alkalinity so if I had to start over with fresh it would take a couple of weeks and more cost than I use in a whole season to get the water into a balanced condition.
Yes I hope Wendy doesn't feel forgotten by us boys talking about our toys.
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teapot
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Post by teapot »

Old Bill wrote:
To answer your questions:

Yes we were getting a hard white calcaire build up. The sand in the filter was completely clogged up when we first bought the house and it required a lot of hydrochloric acid to loosen it.

The pool is tile/plaster finished.

As regards the filter, we have replaced the sand with small glass particles, which are supposed to be less vulnerable to being clogged up by calcaire.

Like Wendy, we have an infinity pool. I don't know what difference that makes to chemical usage.
I can't comment on the sand prior to you owning the house because who knows who looked after it.

Are there any actual figures for the hardness of your water and how is the water tested? A full set of water parameters would give a better view to your pool and as I posted before actually testing the well water also.

On glass filtration media, I will make it known that I am very familiar with glass as I am also a supplier for Dryden Aqua and their AFM glass. If your glass media isn't AFM then it will actually perform worse than sand.

I can say there is absolutely no truth that glass filter media is less vulnerable to calcaire. and a lot of the other claims from glass media are also false.

What I can say is adding a shed load of anti calcaire makes the pool water worse for two reasons.
1. Anti calcaire is a phosphated compound, phosphates are a food source for algae, it's like caffine to them.
2. Phosphates in the presence of calcaire in chlorinated water form a new compound calcium phosphate which will coat surfaces with a much harder compound than the calcaire itself.

Blame the ignorance on the swimming pool industry who know how to tap into owners bank balances. Anti calcaire doesn't and anti algae doesn't either both bad for pool owners but good for swimming pool companies.

Infinity pools tend to cause aeration of the water which under the presence of moderate to high alkalinity causes pH to rise and then a seesaw of chemicals can happen leading to greater expense.

IFTS report on filter media Here
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Old Bill
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Post by Old Bill »

teapot wrote:
Old Bill wrote:
To answer your questions:

Yes we were getting a hard white calcaire build up. The sand in the filter was completely clogged up when we first bought the house and it required a lot of hydrochloric acid to loosen it.

The pool is tile/plaster finished.

As regards the filter, we have replaced the sand with small glass particles, which are supposed to be less vulnerable to being clogged up by calcaire.

Like Wendy, we have an infinity pool. I don't know what difference that makes to chemical usage.
I can't comment on the sand prior to you owning the house because who knows who looked after it.

Are there any actual figures for the hardness of your water and how is the water tested? A full set of water parameters would give a better view to your pool and as I posted before actually testing the well water also.

On glass filtration media, I will make it known that I am very familiar with glass as I am also a supplier for Dryden Aqua and their AFM glass. If your glass media isn't AFM then it will actually perform worse than sand.

I can say there is absolutely no truth that glass filter media is less vulnerable to calcaire. and a lot of the other claims from glass media are also false.

What I can say is adding a shed load of anti calcaire makes the pool water worse for two reasons.
1. Anti calcaire is a phosphated compound, phosphates are a food source for algae, it's like caffine to them.
2. Phosphates in the presence of calcaire in chlorinated water form a new compound calcium phosphate which will coat surfaces with a much harder compound than the calcaire itself.

Blame the ignorance on the swimming pool industry who know how to tap into owners bank balances. Anti calcaire doesn't and anti algae doesn't either both bad for pool owners but good for swimming pool companies.

Infinity pools tend to cause aeration of the water which under the presence of moderate to high alkalinity causes pH to rise and then a seesaw of chemicals can happen leading to greater expense.

IFTS report on filter media Here
Thank you for all this very useful information which is new to us and gives us food for thought.

Just one more question. If anti-calcaire makes the pool water worse, how should we deal with the calcaire problem?
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teapot
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Post by teapot »

Without being glib, call in a real pool engineer, one who actually understands pool water chemistry.
I make my living from pools so I hope you can understand that I can't just give out free information although it maybe in contravention of the forum rules to behave as I am, I do have to put food on my table and not others. (meant in a nice way, I have never ripped anyone off)
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Old Bill
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Post by Old Bill »

teapot wrote:Without being glib, call in a real pool engineer, one who actually understands pool water chemistry.
I make my living from pools so I hope you can understand that I can't just give out free information although it maybe in contravention of the forum rules to behave as I am, I do have to put food on my table and not others. (meant in a nice way, I have never ripped anyone off)
OK, I fully understand. Thank you for your help so far.
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teapot
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Post by teapot »

Thanks for your understanding, it wasn't meant to sound harsh, I can solve these pool problems and drastically lower your maintenance costs if required.
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teapot
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Post by teapot »

Well I must have scared Wendyj away, Not returned to the topic to let us know how she has got on or answered my PM? :o
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