Amazon order for 10ft x 30" AG intex pool, filling with well water

[volcano]

Feeling a bit silly asking about a 10 ft simple intex pool here, but hoping to get started properly and avoid draining/refilling because of mistakes. I've spent much of today reading through these fora and I have a habit of overwhelming myself with details and never making progress on a project, so I'm trying to keep this project as simple as possible so we can spend more time playing and less time fretting. I've bolded the items about which I have specific questions.

1. We're in a rural area and relying on Amazon for supplies. I'd appreciate some verification that this is a complete list of everything we need:

a. The pool itself, obviously.
b. Also a 1000 gph pump (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005QIYL7E), because everyone says the standard Intex pump (that ships with the pool) sucks.
c. And spare cartridges for the pump.​

d. Pool skimmer-on-a-stick for removing debris (Amazon.com : Aquatix Pro Pool Skimmer Economy Grade with Strong Pole Outdoor)​

e. Good old fashion sodium hypochlorite; unscented liquid bleach. Baking soda to increase pH, when needed. Muriatic acid (HCl) to decrease pH, when needed (suggestions for what to buy)?​

f. Basic Taylor K-1000 Basic Residential Pool & Spa Test Kit. Seems that this is sufficient for a small, basic, seasonal pool? See the warning above about my ability to get myself bogged down in details... But what's the purpose of the bromine test here? Seems like our main concerns (again, small seasonal pool!) will be FC and pH. But I saw this specific test kit recommended in another thread re: small, 10ft pools.
g. What's the best option for CYA for a ~1400 gallon pool? I don't have a great understanding of how much of this we'll need. Powder seems more economical, especially for a very small pool. Suggestions for what to purchase?
h. Would we benefit from a floating Cl dispenser, like this? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0721NDNC3


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2. The pool will be filled with well water, BUT all of our well water goes through an 800 Hague Iron Filter that removes iron and sulfur (then it goes through a UV filter, but that's pretty irrelevant here). So metals shouldn't be an issue. The pool is only ~1400 gallons but we don't want to stress our well, so we'll probably fill it over a few days (also, the iron filter needs to regenerate after 1000 gallons). I'd rather overshoot than undershoot on the chlorine, so I'm assuming we'll add Cl right away even if we only partially fill on Day One?

3. Guidance for these small seasonal pools seems to vary from add 1/2 cup (4 oz) of liquid bleach each day to add 12 oz of liquid bleach each day. Rather than make a wild guess like this, I'm assuming we'll target a specific chlorine concentration using the test kit, correct? Likewise with pH.

4. Our yard is wildly, comically hilly. We have one area that looks reasonably flat over an area large enough to accommodate a 10ft pool. We'll level it as best we can without making this an untenable project (it's almost July already!). The location is at the bottom of a slope, close to the back of the house, so we'll have easy access to water and AC. Partially shaded. But a catastrophically-leaking pool could mean flooded basement because of proximity to our house. Suggestions for a good (yet affordable) ground cloth or tarp to reinforce the bottom of the pool?

Thanks so much! This forum is an amazing resource.

 

[volcano]

Oh, additional question: what about a cover? Our well water is a balmy 55˚F and that's a lot of thermal inertia. Looks like this is what we need: Amazon.com : Intex Solar Cover for 10ft Diameter Easy Set and Frame Pools : Garden Outdoor

 

[ashtonfitzgerald]

Hi Volcano,

Hopefully I can provide some advice as a fellow "small pool keeper". I have an Intex 12'x30" round~1700 gallons.

I love that small water volume means small chemical additions. Unfortunately that also means swimmers have a greater impact on the stability of your chemistry--notably the FC.

Good call on upping the pump capacity to 1000gph. This was the best thing I did as well. Full pool turnover in less than 2hours, plus I can run a small vacuum to grab debris from the bottom and I even plumbed in a diy solar panel (we need some help up here in the True North). You will want to keep a couple of extra cartridges for your filter on hand. They clog up fast in my experience. You can replace with a clean one then clean the original at your leaisure. I also ended up wrapping my filter cartridges with a poly-felt which actually caught a lot of debris, didn't impede filter flow anymore than the usual filter and was far easier to clean than spraying out the pleats on the cartridges. I still had to clean out the pleats but they weren't completely gunked up.

Muriatic acid (HCl) to decrease pH, when needed (suggestions for what to buy)?​

Muriatic acid found in the paint dep't should suffice. I bought a one quart bottle two years ago and still have plenty left as our PH is fairly stable.

But what's the purpose of the bromine test here?​

Bromine is a different pool chemistry system. Since you're using chlorine, you can ignore that test option. Yes, FC and PH are the primary concern. For me I test FC daily or more with heavy use. PH weekly. CYA I test monthly.

What's the best option for CYA for a ~1400 gallon pool?

Just the standard powder/granules is fine. My 1700gallon pool uses 8oz for a fresh fill starting from 0.

Suggestions for what to purchase?
h. Would we benefit from a floating Cl dispenser, like this? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0721NDNC3
[/INDENT]

I use a floating puck dispenser only when we're out of town on vacation. Pucks add CYA as well as chlorine which can add up very fast and doesn't disappear quickly. The good news is even if you over do it with CYA it is a small water volume to contend with which can easily be changed out.

So metals shouldn't be an issue.​

Hopefully so. I haven't had to contend with metals in our fill water thankfully.

I'm assuming we'll add Cl right away even if we only partially fill on Day One?​

I would. Assume zero CYA and add enough CL to bring it to within target range 1-3ppm. Be sure to mix the CL well into the water. Note that the sun will eat your FC within a couple of hours until the stabilizer is dissolved.

3. Guidance for these small seasonal pools seems to vary from add 1/2 cup (4 oz) of liquid bleach each day to add 12 oz of liquid bleach each day. Rather than make a wild guess like this, I'm assuming we'll target a specific chlorine concentration using the test kit, correct? Likewise with pH.

I add 4-5oz of 11% CL everyday with no swimmers at all. Because of the small water volume, a high swimmer load can eat up FC very fast. Yesterday for example I ended up re-dosing three more times through the day.

Suggestions for a good (yet affordable) ground cloth or tarp to reinforce the bottom of the pool?


I ended laying down some pink insulation foam board from Home Depot. Taped the pieces together and it made a very nice smooth bottom that has some cushion to it. Personally I love this and will for sure do it again for our next (bigger) pool.

I agree this forum is awesome. Hopefully I've done some justice to the "pro's" teaching. Mods, please correct any mis-info I may have provided here.

Happy swimming!​

 

[volcano]

Hopefully I can provide some advice as a fellow "small pool keeper". I have an Intex 12'x30" round~1700 gallons.

Thanks, I really appreciate the response! The tracking number suggests our pool will be arriving sometime tomorrow, just as our current heat wave comes to an end

Good call on upping the pump capacity to 1000gph. This was the best thing I did as well. Full pool turnover in less than 2hours, plus I can run a small vacuum to grab debris from the bottom and I even plumbed in a diy solar panel (we need some help up here in the True North). You will want to keep a couple of extra cartridges for your filter on hand.

Can you tell me more about your solar set-up? I'm intrigued! We've got six filters on hand right now (they're currently on clearance at Big Lots!).

CYA I test monthly.

What CYA test do you use? I ordered the K-1003 test kit because the beefier kits seemed like overkill for a seasonal pool, but that obviously won't tell us CYA. I know we can number-crunch our initial CYA value but we'll inevitably end up using pucks for a few scheduled trips this summer (so I want to keep tabs on how our CYA changes after that).

I ended laying down some pink insulation foam board from Home Depot. Taped the pieces together and it made a very nice smooth bottom that has some cushion to it. Personally I love this and will for sure do it again for our next (bigger) pool.

I really wanted to do this but we don't have a convenient way to get those boards (nearest source is 10+ miles away and we don't have a suitable vehicle)-- for a bigger, longer-term project we'd find a way to make it work, but we're treating this summer a test run so we'll try it with two heavy-duty tarps and see how we fare

Happy swimming!

Thanks!

 

[ashtonfitzgerald]

The solar system is built on a 4x8 platform I cobbled together with lumber I salvaged from our recent fence removal & replacement. It's basically about 200' of 1/2" irrigation tubing I picked up from Home Depot laid on the platform in two coils (each 100'). Using the appropriate connectors I hooked the two coils up in parallel meaning the water fed from the pump (currently coming through a 5/8" garden hose) is split with a T into the two coils. The warm water returns to the pool though a second garden hose.

As a diverter I hooked up a 3/4" PVC "T" and ball valve onto the return jet in the pool. I can have the full pump pressure coming through the return with the ball valve open or close it 1/2-3/4 way to force water through the solar array. We get about 10 degree gains per day with it (the record is 12 degrees on a particularly hot day).

The key is to keep the heat in the pool at night with a cover. I picked up a solar cover online for $50 CAD that is now three seasons old and still has no flaking or wear to speak of. It's just the cheaper 8 mil thickness. Without a solar cover, you will lose all the temperature gains overnight, especially on a small pool.

For the first year I used the HTH brand kit available at WalMart for $25. It has enough reagent for two cya tests. It lacks the FAS-DPD chlorine test, but I was able to hobble through year one without problems. Recently I bought a larger bottle of Taylor reagent just for the cya test on amazon for a few dollars and shipped it to my in-laws in NY. It's atrocious trying to get Taylor products north of the border without selling your first-born...I keep records of how many pucks get added to the pool over vacations so I can anticipate required increases.

I would absolutely recommend putting the effort into levelling the yard area where the pool will go. I thought my yard was relatively flat and smooth. 1700 gallons of water sure showed off every bump, hollow and slope. The pool the first season was about 2" out of level (we had a deep end!). Not enough for problems but it drove me nuts. The worst was the lawn bumps that felt like boulders. The second season when I relocated the pool to it's current spot I was meticulous about digging out and smoothing the ground before adding the foam. It is actually incredibly comfortable and gives us a very smooth finish. When we upgrade to a bigger pool, I will for sure do the foam again.

-Ashton