Swimming pools

[Ethereal_Dragon]

So, I have had my house for a year so far, and aside from the mortgage being far more than I want it to be, pretty much all is well...... expect for the pool.... lol..

I've got a 15' or so pool in the back yard.... maybe even 10' across, and 4' deep. I figure about 5000 gallons (didn't do math, that number just sorta poped into my head... guess I will have to measure it)... Anywho... Water was CRYSTAL CLEAR when I bought the house, and it was a nice pool. I have no clue how to care for a pool, so that was my girlfriends job (the Ex now, but not cause of the pool, lol). Well, care of the pool slipped, and it was nasty when I covered it up for the winter.... I tossed in a spare sump pump, and duct taped a pool hose to it, and flipped the switch. I left probably about a foot of water in the pool. With all of the rain & snow melt since october when it was covered, the water was back up to about 3 feet or more, and REALLY nasty looking.

To put it this way.... when I tossed the sump on the pool cover to get the 5" or water off the top (green with algae & mosquito larvae in it YUCK) I thought that was the worst of it.... Well, no... After I uncovered it, it looked & smelled like someone did a #2 in it, and didn't flush.... left festering since October.... Oye.... I sumped out about a foot or so before work, about 2 feet of water left. Anyone have any poolboy knowledge, or a good resource for cleaning a pool? (I CAN go to the pool store, but the problem is I have no days off till 05/29/08, so I would rather go the read about it online and DIY...

Thanks

[superdave1984]

Dude.....call a pro for the first cleaning. You're gonna need lots of chemicals.

[Sylus]

yes, look up a pool cleaner and call him/her. If it's a her make sure you throw on some Berry White and give her a nice tip

Anyways don't try to clean it yourself, just hire someone to clean it then ask them what you need to do yourself to keep it that way.

[Ethereal_Dragon]

Lol.... that's what I was afraid of.... I guess I will have to shop around for estimates.... but I doubt the wallet will like that much....

[lancec2c30]

hiring someone to clean your pool is lame. When it gets that bad you gotta start from scratch usually. Is there lots of big chunks in the pool? If not you may get away with using the vaccum on the bottom then filtering and backwashing. Do you have a vacuum? What kinda filtration system do you use? Go to wal mart or k mart and buy a couple packs of "shock treatment". This will clear up the haze and let you see what nasty's are lieing on the bottom.

After you shock it, your next step will be the vacuuming. You hook it up to the pump, clear the air out of it, then turn the pump on and suck all the smaller solids off the bottom. You backwash the pump system to discharge it all. Typically you monitor when to backwash the pump by what PSI the filter is running at. YOu will prolly have to research your pump system to get an idea of how all this works. After getting this done you should be in good shape.

[FireFox]

Yep, calling someone to clean it is just silly....dump some shock in...get the pump running...vacuum and skim it....get some of those chlorine tablet thingies and put 'em in....pool should be nice and blue again in a couple of days.

[Sylus]

Originally Posted by FireFox

Yep, calling someone to clean it is just silly....dump some shock in...get the pump running...vacuum and skim it....get some of those chlorine tablet thingies and put 'em in....pool should be nice and blue again in a couple of days.

Shouldn't the water be clear?

[aspire.comptech]

As stated before, shock it to **** with those tablets and buttloads of chlorine.

[Ethereal_Dragon]

You guys are saying to start the pump up, and just run that and vacuum.... the problem is that, IMO, (not sure... I am a pool N00b!!) it needs to be drained completly, and re-filled.... THEN run the filter.... This thing quite literally looks horrendus..... Use your toilet for a bout 3 days and don't flush.... probably about what this looks like.... brownish and murkey, many leaves, and also Trillions of Mosquito larvae.... well, maybe billions after emptying 1/3 of it this morning....

The other thing is that the filter inlet is about 6" from the top of the pool, so I would have to fill it all the up, and then hook up the filter.... I have some mods planned for the filter line... I want to add a cut off valve to the inlet & outlet, because I have had to remove the pump for maintenance, and it is a pain in the rear to take off the pump (or just cleaning out the pump's filter)... The inlet from the filter to the pump is about 2-3 feet long, and there is no valves or anything.... same with the end of the filter to the outlet... I will draw a quick paint diagram for reference....

[aspire.comptech]

The pool shock will make all debris/bugs/w.e. sink to the bottom.