Sanitize or Allergene cycle for sheets and towels. Hot/boiling water works; I'll only consider washers with an onboard heater. Double and triple rinse; I won't buy a washer without multiple rinse options. Get a washer with super high spin speeds to extract as much soapy water as possible with each rinse. The drive toward energy savings, specifically less water and cold temps, has resulted in filthy laundry with detergent residue. If the detergent were really being rinsed out with just the standard cold wash, one rinse cycles, why would so many people need "Free and Clear" detergents? I actually read advice online that said when your towels start to smell bad, you know it's time to replace them. Huh? Send them through the sanitize cycle with a commercial laundry detergent instead. If washers have gotten so energy efficient that we're throwing out perfectly good towels, you have to wonder just how much eco-savings we've achieved.

Scott, with all due respect to your intent to keep things simple, I have to take exception with some of the absolutes you have stated. We have many plaster (limestone/calcium carbonate) pools that have lasted in excess of 20 years and started installing Diamond Brite when it first came out in 1992 without any failures I know of to date. At that time it was about 3% quartz, 3% ceramic coated silica and the rest was limestone. The main difference was it came in premixed bags which kept the plaster crew from weakening the cement/aggregate ratio. When exposed aggregate finishes(pebbletech)became available in our area (1999), we tried it on a pool and it has also held up fine with exception to some pebbles coming up. When our plasterer became the authorized Pebbletech installer 4 years ago we started offering it as a finish and have been satisfied. Keep in mind that it, like plaster or quartz are all bonded together with portland cement which is primarily made with finely ground, dehydrated calcium carbonate or limestone. Travertine is very pourous limestone which allows it to absorb a higher % of water and air making it susceptable to expansion of drying salt crystals and freeze damage. That feature also allows it to be the coolest surface availble and very similar to kool-deck which is limestone or the same material used when plastering a pool with a richer cement/aggregate ratio and an application process that promotes porosity. All limestone is not the same density and travertine could mean minimal channelling or it could be extremely pourous. Limestone can also be as dense as 8000 psi. The denser limestone is the prefered choice for what is commonly referred to as marble. Although I haven't seen many tops of salt shakers rust because they are probably made of very noble metals, I have seen many cars, boat trailers and their wiring, boats and fishing reels rust beyond repair if the salt is not rinsed off immediately with fresh water. Boats have sacrificial anodes which minimize corrosion when they are immersed in an electrolyte (salty or polluted water)but have no impact on the post corrosion after the boat is removed from the water. In our area it takes 7+ years for a pool with a strong southern exposure to build up enough CYA before it needs to be drained from using trichlor as the primary sanitizer. Some pools never reach that level. We get about 4 feet of annual rainfall per year which might dilute them more than average and we often supplement the spas with ozonators. In summary there are lots of applications that work for different conditions and applying the same set of rules to all conditions isn't always the best method.

Docpops, we put our pool in primarily for our kids also. It has been really nice seeing them use it so much over the last year. There are a few different in-floor cleaning system makers, namely Paramount (various systems) and Polaris (Caretaker). After quite a bit of research, I liked Paramounts systems and approach better. Their web site is paramountpoolproducts.com. They have a lot of different systems and I tried to understand the pro and cons of each. Ultimately, I decided that there really is not much of a difference, they are more for marketing. I believe that Paramount only allows a few builders in each area to install each system. To allow more builders to put in their products, they have different lines. In our case, we went with the PCC2000. A friend of mine as the PV3 system and he loves it also. I would suggest going to their web site and watching some of their demo's of how the system works. Like I said before, all demo's make it seem like the system works great but you never know how it works in the real world. We've got a lot of trees around our pool and it does a remarkable job. I'm still actually surprised it works as well as it does. We also added their leaf catcher system. Basically, all debris in the pool either ends up in a skimmer basket or going down the main drain and in to the leaf catcher. Its really nice this time of year, when the water is cold and I can empty out the leaves from the pool deck. The nice part is that with the kids swimming, there is no polaris in the pool that either needs to be moved or just left in to swim around.

I can assure you that bleach is AWESOME. I use 10%, it costs me more but is well worth it. During the summer if the weather is really hot I'll use 20% so I don't go through as much. I have a very large pool and everybody always comments on how clear the water is, most especially at night when the pool lamps are on. When you have a large body of water (50000 gallons plus) micro filtration and a very soluble sanitizer is a must. I use 3 60sq/ft DE filters with filtered bleach and have no problems. Household bleach is good but isn't as well filtered. Gorilla, I'll attempt to answer your questions. quote" #1. Is it better to add a little bleach every few days or so such that the chlorine ppm level is fairly stable (i.e. try to keep the level at or near 5 ppm)? "quote Add a little daily to maintain your desired level. You'll get a feel of how much you need as you work your pool chemistry over a month or two. quote" #2. Or is it safe to add a full bottle of bleach that will raise the level to 8 ppm, and then add another bottle once the level comes back down to 5 ppm? "quote You can do this but it isn't my favorite way to deal with a pool during swim season. BUT, and this is a big but; I do this all winter long when the pool isn't being swam in. I back my hours down to 12 hours twice daily in the week. I saves me the electricity of running what is essentially 3 pools of average homeowners because of the multiple equipment sets. I'm curious what do you attempt to keep your stabilizer level at? I strive for 50 (+- 10). It seems to help hold my chlorine level on the very very hot sunny Texas summer days, and does really well the balance of the year. I also strive to keep my alkalinity as close to 100 (+-20) and my ph as near to 7.5 (+-.2) as possible. See ya, Kelly