I just drained mine after 5 days, there's nothing to it. We were not happy with the way the plaster job looked at the top because they did not leave an overhang for it to go up under. So, we are having stonework added around the top edge. The guys have to work from inside the pool, so I drained it overnight down to about 2 feet. It was a piece of cake!

I'll start refilling it after they are finished.

Cherie

why do you have to drain it at all? there is product, Calcium something?? at any rate pool warehouse or leslies would know but there is a product to raise the hardness level. You don't do it all at once though, we added 10lbs last weekend and will have it rechecked in the morning and add more at that time.

Tess tx: My water is too hard, it sounds like yours wasn't hard enough.

cdbinfl: I'm not worried about it being difficult, just costly. Now I need to buy all new salt and cya, not to mention the water. Since my dark gray plaster has so much calcium on it, I'm contemplating just having someone acid wash it while it's empty so it'll look dark gray again.

This 110 degree heat isn't making me jump up to go start draining it either. I need to figure out a good time to do it and I've narrowed it down to any weekday between 10pm and 8am. Needs to have balanced water by 10am. lol

Yea, Calcium Hardness & Hardness Plus. Not sure with your levels being what they are if that will help but I would check with a pro. We occasionally had to put that in our last pool.

On the same note, has anyone ever added a water softener to their home prior to putting in a pool due to hard water? We recently moved and have hard water. I'm not sure how this will affect the chemicals and all of our pool that we are putting in now but have been wondering if I should look into it. (Not sure how bad it is.)

Well, Hardness Plus will do me no good. If there were a Hardness Minus, that would be great.

skinny, don't know where you are, but our pool builder here in Vegas literally recommended we drain 1/2 way every year to get rid of the minerals in the water. We used to do it all every year till we waited 5 days one year to refill. ugh we ruined the finish. Oh well we got new pebble product on it last year. it was originally white plaster. It only costs us about $75 to refill, not including chemicals. The only chemicals we add are chlorine and acid. No cya as it is in the chlorine tablets and will buid up and never dissipate. I started using just bleach as I had enough cya, but got ugly white dry spots with the bleach. I am going with just chlorine tabs now, but less of them, we don't have a heavy swim load. Draining and refilling are not ah huge deal unless the cost is a lot, the chemicals to add are minimal at least. We are not in a high water table area so we don't worry about uplift, just watching it is a pain to drain and refill, not to mention a waste of water. HOpe this helps, Barb

We have some spigots with hard water and some with soft water. Our initial fill was done with hard water. We add soft water when the calcium gets above 400. Our water is tested weekly at the pool store, so we monitor all the levels carefully. RIght now our pool is filled daily from rain water.

I'm curious as to where all that calcium came from if your fill water is under 200.

Are you using a calcium based chlorine. CAL HYPO? That is a likely source and it will certainly build up on your plaster. Most "shocks" are calcium hypochlorite (check the active ingredient). Your probably better served with going to a di-chlor or tri-chlor chlorine if you already have hard source water. Do a 50% drain and refill and check it. You could do it again if needed. If it's way too hot, you need to get the thing refilled right away if you do a total drain. Make sure you don't have high water table issues if you do a total drain.

skiinny,
I would not trust the results you get from test strips. Take your water to at least a couple of pool stores to have the calcium tested or, better yet, get your own high quality test kit. The Taylor K-2006 or the Trouble Free Test Kit (based on the Taylor kit but a better value because you get more of the frequently used reagents) are excellent choices.

Unless you are using lots of cal-hypo as repair guy suggested or your water has been very aggressive because of very low pH and or very low alkalinity, there is no way your hardness has goine to 1000 ppm with 200 ppm fill water.

Here is a link that might be useful: TF Test Kits

We were told we couldn't do an acid wash until the temp was below 80. Being here in AZ that isn't an option until the fall, like Nov. Is that why you said that it needed to be done between 8pm and 10 am? Here it is still in the 100s at those times : (.