I would suggest to be sure and test your FC at night (after sun off pool) and the next morning (before sun on pool), it should be the same result. If it's less, you will need to complete a SLAM Process, to stay ahead of any sly algae outbreaks!
Overwhelmed - Chemicals and Levels for 8500 Gallon Above Ground Pool
- Thread starter Gopherboy6956
- Start date
Hey Guys - few more question - I've got my levels to optimal now -
FC - 4
CC - 0
pH - 7.6
TA - 60
CH - 125
CYA - 40
I've also picked up liquid pool chlorine from walmart now. Do I just monitor FC and add x amount of liquid chlorine as needed? I assume it's a bit of a constant "bring it up, it falls down, add more" type of a deal? How often to most people have to add it?
Also - while the pool levels look good, and the water seems nice to be in - it's getting a LITTLE cloudy. Not bad at all, but not as clear as it's been in the past. I vac'd and have skimmed, and have run the pump for 6-8 hours a day lately (5 is the min for my 8500 gallons) Any idea what to do next? Should I get some flocculent? I should mention it's been extremely windy here lately. 30mph SE wind for almost 3 days now.
Hard to tell from a picture I know, but this is what it looks like.
Thanks!
FC - 4
CC - 0
pH - 7.6
TA - 60
CH - 125
CYA - 40
I've also picked up liquid pool chlorine from walmart now. Do I just monitor FC and add x amount of liquid chlorine as needed? I assume it's a bit of a constant "bring it up, it falls down, add more" type of a deal? How often to most people have to add it?
Also - while the pool levels look good, and the water seems nice to be in - it's getting a LITTLE cloudy. Not bad at all, but not as clear as it's been in the past. I vac'd and have skimmed, and have run the pump for 6-8 hours a day lately (5 is the min for my 8500 gallons) Any idea what to do next? Should I get some flocculent? I should mention it's been extremely windy here lately. 30mph SE wind for almost 3 days now.
Hard to tell from a picture I know, but this is what it looks like.
Thanks!
In Fargo, Menards carries the 12.5% splash liquid shock. I bought over 30 gallons of it recently for a baqua conversion. The last time I was there they were out, but if you are up for driving the extra miles across the river Moorhead's Menards still had plenty of stock.
So it's your fault they are out of stock lol.
I just picked up like 6 of these today at Walmart. Moorhead is so blah lol.
Also @brettch - how do you like your heater. Seeing you're also in ND Its nice to have someone else in the same climate. I see that unit runs just over $1k to buy, but what was the install cost? How much do you think it costs you per year to run? I know our natural gas here is soemthing like .82 /therm so pretty cheap. I just have a solar heater I built now, with a wood burning barrel heater I can break out as needed.
The heater is great - we usually start swimming in mid-may and shut down in mid-October. If we are going to use the pool in those time frames we have to leave it on and set reasonably high to keep the pool near swim temps, then turn it up. It won't work miracles, so if the water has dropped into the 50s or 60s it will take a it a few days to get to a swimmable temp though. In the cooler months we also don't typically get in unless the pool is like 90 degrees.
The heating bill hasn't terrible. Most months of using the heater the gas bill is barely noticeable. It would be $20 without any use and usually we don't hit $30. My bill for May was $31. We don't heat it every day though, so bills vary depending on the month and how many swim days we can fit in. Even in the cooler months if we run the heater quite a bit I don't think I've ever had a gas bill over $60 for the pool, and at those points I might even have the house furnace kicking in a bit as well.
The install depends how far you need to have the gas and electric lines run. Our electric didn't have to go to far, but the gas line had to go quite a ways. I also had gas run the opposite direction for garage heat at the same time. It's been a while, but that I think was a couple thousand. It was mostly based on the length they had to dig, so could vary a fair amount. The actual hookup of the heater is quite simple once they run the lines (inspection required). If you were to consider it, just call around to different electrician/plumbing for a quote. If you have a general idea how far they need to run they may be able to just tell you over the phone, others want to come see the area first. If at all possible, I would say to avoid Precision plumbing... used them for ours and while the job eventually got done and thigns work, it was not a fun time and they were deceitful on a few things.
The heating bill hasn't terrible. Most months of using the heater the gas bill is barely noticeable. It would be $20 without any use and usually we don't hit $30. My bill for May was $31. We don't heat it every day though, so bills vary depending on the month and how many swim days we can fit in. Even in the cooler months if we run the heater quite a bit I don't think I've ever had a gas bill over $60 for the pool, and at those points I might even have the house furnace kicking in a bit as well.
The install depends how far you need to have the gas and electric lines run. Our electric didn't have to go to far, but the gas line had to go quite a ways. I also had gas run the opposite direction for garage heat at the same time. It's been a while, but that I think was a couple thousand. It was mostly based on the length they had to dig, so could vary a fair amount. The actual hookup of the heater is quite simple once they run the lines (inspection required). If you were to consider it, just call around to different electrician/plumbing for a quote. If you have a general idea how far they need to run they may be able to just tell you over the phone, others want to come see the area first. If at all possible, I would say to avoid Precision plumbing... used them for ours and while the job eventually got done and thigns work, it was not a fun time and they were deceitful on a few things.
Darn i'd pay $100 a month if it meant being able to heat the pool as needed. The solar heater works well enough for 'free' heat. ($100 or so in materials) and I have a solar cover, so I've been able to get by, but the temp usually hangs in the mid 70s, the last few days it's been about 80.
I'm hoping if I got a gas heater, it wouldn't be all that difficult to install - my gas service is actually only about 30 feet from where my pool and pump are. But, i'm not sure if they'd have to come off of the gas manifold inside the house (we have gas water heater, stove, fireplace, garage heater) which is unfortunately on the complete other side of the house. Electric I can do myself - In fact I just ran an outlet to the corner of the deck last weekend for the pump etc.
I might have to look into this. We have a few good plumbing clients at work, so I might be able to get a deal. I assume the Raypack is adaquately sized for your 10k gallons, would probably work fine for my 8500.
Thanks!
*also just noticed this forum has an auto profanity filter. I did not say "Darn" at the beginning of this post lol*
I'm hoping if I got a gas heater, it wouldn't be all that difficult to install - my gas service is actually only about 30 feet from where my pool and pump are. But, i'm not sure if they'd have to come off of the gas manifold inside the house (we have gas water heater, stove, fireplace, garage heater) which is unfortunately on the complete other side of the house. Electric I can do myself - In fact I just ran an outlet to the corner of the deck last weekend for the pump etc.
I might have to look into this. We have a few good plumbing clients at work, so I might be able to get a deal. I assume the Raypack is adaquately sized for your 10k gallons, would probably work fine for my 8500.
Thanks!
*also just noticed this forum has an auto profanity filter. I did not say "Darn" at the beginning of this post lol*
Most likely they would just put in a T on off your meter, leaving the line into the house and then burying a new line over to where you want to install the heater. That's what they did here and then from where the gas comes up near the heater there is a shut off valve (they forgot this initially on mine) and a union on the piping going to the heater (also forgot this initially for me) so that the line could be bled of air. The 156A is plenty for the 10K pool; however, I will say that if it ever goes out I'll buy bigger if available since it should be able to heat up faster when desired.
Do these gas pool heaters have pumps built in or do you use the pool filter pump for them?
They get plumbed into your existing setup. Your pump will push water through your filter, then your heater and then back into the pool. I have some pics of my setup in My plumbing post. I'm in the process of attempting to change my plumbing up to put a SWG in the mix after my heater. I'm also going to plumb in a bypass option so that if we aren't running the heater I can bypass it and just have the pump running water through the filter and SWG.
Edit: Basically you'd just need one extra hose/plumbing run. From your filter outlet you would move that to connect to the heater's inlet. Then connect from the heater outlet to your pool return. The Raypak has threading for either 1.5" or 2" threaded PVC - they recommend schedule 80 for at least the first few inches off the heater
Edit: Basically you'd just need one extra hose/plumbing run. From your filter outlet you would move that to connect to the heater's inlet. Then connect from the heater outlet to your pool return. The Raypak has threading for either 1.5" or 2" threaded PVC - they recommend schedule 80 for at least the first few inches off the heater
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Hmmmm. I assume you'd have to use CPVC it it's heated.
I don't LOVE the idea of using my filter pump for this, I actually had the hardest time finding a pump to use for my solar heater that WASN'T a submersable pump because I want to run the solar heater most all day but not the filter pump.
But I suppose it makes more sense for the gas heater. I wonder if the Intex plumbing will adapt to normal stuff -I've heard it can be difficult.
I don't LOVE the idea of using my filter pump for this, I actually had the hardest time finding a pump to use for my solar heater that WASN'T a submersable pump because I want to run the solar heater most all day but not the filter pump.
But I suppose it makes more sense for the gas heater. I wonder if the Intex plumbing will adapt to normal stuff -I've heard it can be difficult.
There's no reason you couldn't use a different pump if you really wanted, though I'd imagine the electric cost to run something else that will push enough flow won't be a lot different. I'm not sure why else it would be a concern. If you don't want to filter the entire time, I imagine your sand filter has a recirculate setting and you could bypass the filter at times you didn't want to be filtering. I've ran my pump for 4 years to filter/heat without any issues so far.
Good point. I definitely didn't want to run the filter/pump for the solar heater - the pump I got uses almost nothing for power and has a much lower gpm rate.
The downside with my filter/pump is it has a GFCI plug - if you take away power it automatically trips the switch, and you have to manually reset it, so you can't automate it or control it remotely. But maybe these gas heaters are hands on no matter what anyways.
Right now, I push a button on my phone to stop / start the solar heater - love it!
The downside with my filter/pump is it has a GFCI plug - if you take away power it automatically trips the switch, and you have to manually reset it, so you can't automate it or control it remotely. But maybe these gas heaters are hands on no matter what anyways.
Right now, I push a button on my phone to stop / start the solar heater - love it!
Doesn't seem right that turning off your pool pump trips the GFCI outlet. I can turn my pump on and off without tripping the GFCI.
The heater has a switch on it, but also a built in flow sensor so it won't heat if the pump shuts off. Either way it would be best to automate both if done, so there was no chance of the heater attempting to heat if the pump wasn't pumping
The heater has a switch on it, but also a built in flow sensor so it won't heat if the pump shuts off. Either way it would be best to automate both if done, so there was no chance of the heater attempting to heat if the pump wasn't pumping
No - it doesn't trip a seperate GFCI outlet - on the end of the pump's power cord, it has a built in GFI circuit. Whenever it loses power, it trips. Basically like this:
So - Just got my Raypack 156A today
I also ordered a new pool - still 18'x52", but a semi inground one vs the intex. Looking forward to plumbing it all this spring