If there is one thing I did not really plan to do when getting a free giveaway pool this spring was plan on spending many many, can’t stress how many to much, hours doing pool maintenance. It is time consuming and tedious, especially when you have a smaller paper filter pump to start with. Bought sand and some concrete blocks for the legs and thought I was set to go.
Setup
I spread out the sand to 18′ diameter so it was ready for my 16′ pool we had gotten for free. I had ordered a few yards and got around 5. So I thought it was great for a sand box for my boys and hauled it wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow 50 ft to a sandbox area. We cleaned up the pool and stretched it out on the sand only to find that we were misinformed of the size of the pool as it hung over the edge of my sand circle. Turns out it was an 18′ pool so I then had to wheelbarrow many loads of sand back to the pool area and make my circle a little larger. Loved the extra workout. Put the pool back on and set it up. Patched a little hole that the previous owner had told me was there from a rock and started filling it with a hose.
Rust
I called a friend who works for a well drilling company to see if he could bring water. First water battle was the rust that was in the water from the well he got the water out of. The water went in and it was very brown. My little paper filter was not working at all to get the rust out. So I looked online and found some great videos on homemade pool filters. I created a bucket filled with pillow stuffing and attached my pump and filter on to that and let it run for about 3 days. It worked amazingly well. Pool was crystal clear but a cold 68 degrees.
Patching A Hole
Kids started swimming in it and the second day had friends over. They somehow kicked the patch I put on the pool so I then had to come up with a new plan for a patch. We looked online and found an underwater patch for a vinyl pool as my pool was filled with water. If I could have drained my pool into a holding tank and patched it it probably would have worked better but since that wasn’t an option I had to find something that worked under water. No, flex seal tape will not work underwater on a vinyl pool. Got tricked by the infomercial I found online. The patch I found worked, I just had to figure out how to stay underwater long enough to get it set and have it hold. I put the patch on the inside and flex seal tape on the outside and we were in business.
Learn How The Timer System Works
We had left to go on vacation and I didn’t figure out how my timer on my pool filter worked properly so when we got back, we came home to a green pool. But with the green water, the sun was able to heat it up a lot faster. Small victories. My little filter again was not going to do the trick so I went to the bucket method and that was seemingly working but not fast enough. Lower the alkalinity, down goes the PH, now the chlorine is to low, up the chlorine, kill the algae some more with algacide, now lower the PH again and the alkalinty, and the cycle continues. Trying everything to get it back to clear water. Nothing was seeming to work very well and the pool was turning more green so online I went and found a good sand filter that can turn over the water a lot quicker for sale. Heard they work great. A while back, I even gave one away for free to a family friend. This was back when I thought there was no way I was ever going to own a pool. Lucky me. Once I had that I hooked it up and started filtering. It has been running almost constantly for a few days, backflushing and rinsing every 8 hours or so, and the pool is finally starting to clear up again. Looking forward to the chlorine, alkalinity, PH battles again of keeping it crystal clear. Maybe will not have to run my filter constantly. Also a new hole appeared on the bottom of the pool that I had to patch. Fun in the sun… Love my free pool.
This all being said, my kids swim every day and love having it so it is all worth it in the end. Till next time… Enjoy Summer. Maybe will get this pool stuff figured out so it won’t be so bad the rest of this summer and next year.
My bucket system at work…
