The Pool Is Open!

 Yea, the pool is open ok, but it's to cold to get in it! Why open the pool so early? The reason behind that is because when we top off the pool in the spring we get the water from the creek. Being the creek was pretty clear and knowing it's suppose3 to rain, I figured we my as well open the pool and top it off while the water is pretty clear.

If we wait and it rains hard we would have to wait until the creek clears up again. We have topped off the pool before while the water wasn't so clear and by the time the pool is filled, it looks more like a mud hole rather then a swimming pool... or it was really cloudy, like a tan colored.

When the water is pretty dirty, it usually clears up within 24 hours of the pump running, though there is a good bit of silt on the bottom that you have to sweep up too. This year when we uncovered the pool, the water in the pool looked pretty clear. After adding the creek water it wasn't real clear, but still it was pretty close to clear.

There have been a year or two that when we uncovered the pool it looked more like a big septic tank rather then a pool! Those years was because of of leaves getting on the cover and because the cover was old it ripped and all the leaves (or most) went into the pool.

We just got this pool last year. Or old pool which we had for 23 years finally collapsed after we got flooded the other year, like 3 months after the flood.

Here are some pics of our new pool. This will be the second summer for this pool.

The new boards you see around the pool is because even though the pool is the same size as our old pool (27-foot), at the top of the pool the uprights angle outwards where the old pool the uprights went straight up. Because of that we had to take up some deck boards as well as cut off the joists so the pool would fit into the hole where the old pool sat. Of course we didn't know any of that until they started putting the pool in and found out it wasn't going to fit.

Chemicals, chemicals, chemicals..... I hear that a lot from pool owners or people who are thinking about buying a pool. As I have said, our old pool was 23 years old and it even had the original liner in it yet! Ok, I'll admit the design on the liner was gone pretty much and it was pretty much just a blue color, but what do you expect after 23 years?

So, what chemicals do I use? None! The only thing we use is chlorine and stabilizer at the start of the pool season. How does the water test not using chemicals? Well, the chlorine I always keep on the higher side, even more so if alga starts to form. As for hardness and PH? That can vary up or down, mostly down, but I don't worry about it and everything is fine. So the only thing we buy is chlorine, stabilizer and of course earth for the filter.