If you have bad soil and are looking for results in the short term then I'd wait on the coffee grounds until you've increased the level of organic matter in your soil. If I may jump in on this tread? This is the part that I don't understand in relation to lawns. My soil is heavy clay. I can and have easily amended my garden beds 'cause I can till amendments into the soil. But with a lawn, I just don't get it. Some sections of my lawn are so clay that grass just can't grow. (think pudding when wet) Seeds do spout and reach about one or two inches. Then the grass invertibly dies off. I've even physically turned over a particulary bad section twice...no help, grass died. If one does not the the money or the muscle to till admendments into a 5000 sq ft area, how does one incorporate material into the soil? (I got so discouraged this summer with trying to get grass that I turned over 200 more sq ft into garden/flower beds) Yes, I mulch mow high. Smile. I have plenty of fall leaves (and can easily get bags more) which I usually use for the garden area. Would mulching these atop the soil help amend the yard? Large amounts of coffee grounds are not an option. Compost on the yard is not an option. (C tea, lol , tried three times and kept ending up with a stinking mess which I was afraid to use. I just spread cracked corn which made the birds and squirrels very happy. It seems to me, that if you don't have the initial investment for organics, the program is hard to get started. What am I overlooking?

I realize that this is an old thread, but I wanted to put a warning out there about this 'Awesome' cleaning product available at the dollar stores, which is actually LA's Totally Awesome. It contains 2-butoxy ethanol which is highly toxic. Please see the link provided to read about the dangers. This product, IMO, should not be used at all. If you do use it, extreme caution should be used. Please don't use it with your bare hands and avoid breathing it in. This product is NOT the same as the Awesome product by R>F> Thompson Company which is an environmentally friendly product and non-toxic, using only citrus based ingredients. Blessings to all Laurie Here is a link that might be useful: dangers of 2-butoxy ethanol

Most of the problems you hear about (burning eyes, dry skin, etc.) are not because of it being a chlorine pool. These are conditions caused by imbalanced pool chemicals. A well balanced chlorine pool doesn't cause these issues. I think SWGs are great and would have one myself if not for our stone work. In our area of TX some of the PBs no longer install SWG systems with stone because of warranty problems they've had. Apparently the stone in our region is more susceptible to damage from salt. Our son also has eczema. He swims a lot and we haven't noticed it being a problem, but this will be the first summer with our own pool and he will probably be swimming even more frequently. If it becomes an issue we are going to add salt to the pool and see if it helps. You can add salt to a chlorinated pool and get the same "soft feel" effect. But supposedly you can get that same effect with much less salt than is required to run an SWG.

Its not an issue to use chlorine with a SWCG.... But-- you have to ask yourself why? Six (6) hours is plenty enough time for your SWCG to maintain the right chlorine level for your pool. You have some other kind of problem. Not enough Salt? Setting on the SWCG too low? No CYA? Too much CYA? Are you using a cover on your pool? Buy a test kit and salt test strips, what is the full readings on your pool including salt? What is your SWCG set to on the panel? Your pool is awfully warm which makes me suspect you have a cover on...if so, this can create a wonderful environment for algae. In our last pool with a SWCG, Chlorine levels of 5-6PPM, CYA at 40-50, Phosphate at