Our neighbor has 4 oak trees that hang over our yard, and it's a big nightmare. We found a huge black mesh net at Leslie's Pool Supplies that we string up over our yard and it catches all leaves during the fall. It's a pain to put up but so worth it.

Other than that, have your pool chemistry tested for calcim. We always have more algea problems when the calcium levels are up, and they go up high for us. I don't know if this is related to the oak trees, however.

Aside from covering your pool, I think you'll have to live with the pollen. Theoretically, it should just be a seasonal thing.

Skimmer sox (aka "debris shields") help to catch a lot of that junk before it ever gets to your filter. Just remember to change them out often, at least 1x/day, if you're getting a lot of pollen and other debris falling into your pool.

Keep your chemicals balanced, especially free chlorine. Any organic debris in your pool is food for algae, so try to keep as much debris OUT of your pool as possible (as you're trying to do) and keep your free chlorine up.

Phosphates control is the best thing that you could do to keep your water free from Algea blooms with your trees. Use the Spring&Fall product for closing and startups. Your chlorine is simply fighting the oraganic material in your pool and cannot sanitize as it should. See link below

Here is a link that might be useful: Phosfree

Dad17 --- I know you posted this message a few months ago but I was hoping you could give me some insight ... we have 2 oak trees in our backyard and want to put a pool between them. How close is your pool to the trees? We have been advised to stay at least 10 feet away from the trees in order to not disrupt the root system of the trees. If you could do it all over would you remove the trees? We want a pool but we also want to keep the trees. Any insight you can provide would be so appreciated.

We have oak trees on our property and quite a few in the neighborhood. Even if we had all of ours removed, our pool would still catch lots of oak debris from all the neighbors' trees! Although they can be a nuisance at times, the trees also make it tolerable to be outside in the middle of the summer...I don't think we'd use our yard and/or pool as much as we do without the trees.

Aggietexan

thanks for the info ... I agree with you -- we live in Katy, Texas and the heat is awful. So, it would be great to build a pool and have the trees as well to provide some shade.

How close is your pool to your trees? Can you post a picture of your pool? I would love to see how it looks with the trees.

Thanks in advance
Valerie

Hi Valerie,
I haven't figured out how to post a picture, but here's a link to the pictures of our pool remodel. If you scroll through the pictures you will find a couple that show some trees, and many that show the shade on the pool.

We've had several trees removed or pruned since we bought this house, but we still have lots of shade. I would say the closest trees to the pool are about 12 feet from the edge.

Cindy

Here is a link that might be useful: Pool Renovation

Here's a P.S. to what I just posted: For the pictures that show the shade on the pool and the trees, start with #63.

Cindy

Cindy

Thank you so much... I looked at all the pictures. What a tranformation -- I love the finished look. You did great picking out the new tile. We want pebble tec too so it was neat to see the process in your pictures. The color of your water is so pretty --- did you ever consider pebble sheen?

What floor cleaner do you have? I imagine you need a really good one to suck up all the oak leaves.

Thanks again -- you have been such a great help.

Valerie

Thanks for the compliments! We're very happy with the way the pool looks now. We also had a lot of "hidden" things done during the renovation, like plumbing work, new skimmers, etc.

We LOVE the Pebble Tec! I was looking for a way to make the pool appear newer (it was built in 1970), but we didn't want to get into adding waterfalls, a spa, etc. Because the pool is 35+ years old and needed some repairs, we were afraid that adding things or changing the basic shape of the pool was going to put the project beyond our budget. Once I discovered Pebble Tec it was all over...there was no way my husband was going to convince me we should use white plaster!

We considered both Pebble Tec and Pebble Sheen, and both were the same price from our builder. We chose the Tec for a couple reasons. I like the look of the surface itself better with the Pebble Tec. The stones are very pretty, and from a few feet away you can still tell it's a pebble surface. The Sheen was more "blended" looking if that makes sense. I was hoping for a surface with enough variation that you wouldn't notice the little stains from the trees, and it worked! :)

I also like the feel of the pebbles when I'm in the pool. I don't think it's rough...it's bumpy. The only way I can think to describe it is it's like the surface of a football, but harder.

I'm very happy with the color of the water. Originally I wanted to go darker, but I heard the darker surfaces will make your water warmer, so I settled on the Tahoe Blue. Our water IS warmer than it would be right now if we had white plaster, so I'm glad we didn't go any darker.

For cleaning, we have a Hayward Phantom. It's the one that cleans the bottom for a few minutes, and then comes up and cleans the top for a few minutes. We like it because it has a big bag (think leaves) and does both the top and the bottom. It's a little tempramental but it works well for us because of the trees. We also have an old Polaris 280 that we kept when we bought the Phantom. It does an excellent job on the bottom if we use a fine mesh bag. Every so often if there seems to be a lot of dirt in the pool we put the Polaris in because it does a better job on dirt than the Phantom.

Hope this helps!

Cindy