Pool Guy Emptied My Pool - should I let him go ? - how much this will cost me ?

[ozyjon]

Wait till it rains

[yoshiwara]

A 8x24x2 (2m avg depth) pool has 384,000 liters. If its an overflow pool, add 5% for the surge tank. A good guess is 400,000 liters, or 400 m3. Tap water in Thailand is about 17 baht per m3, so filling by hose would be about 7,000 baht. Extremely slow. On the other hand, ordering trucks (small size) in Pattaya is 200 baht per 2,000 liters or .10 baht per liter. This translates to 100 baht per m3, a huge difference. Baht 40,000 to fill this pool using water trucks in Pattaya. BKK is even more expensive. Then, you will need salt of course, alkaline, and cyuranic acid (which stabilizes the chlorine being produced by the chlorinator). Your first reaction might be <deleted>?? Fire him. Then again, its not easy to find capable and diligent pool people in Thailand anymore (actually never was). Motorcycle taxis easily get 500-600 per day doing mostly what they do anyhow (scream around on motorbikes) and asking a Thai to clean a pool 3x per week with chemicals knowledge mastery is like asking the U.S. to hold off on war for a couple of years. You might try asking him to pay it off slowly; if he's a good guy, he'll agree to it.

very good simple mathematics for me mate - I have updated news he has offered to pay for the salt and other ingredients to help fix this

estimated on your info the water will come to around the same price as the salt and other goodies - so he is evidently willing to meet me halfway

Case closed.

[Colabamumbai]

Let him go, but first see if you can get any money, let his family know, let his other employers know, after all losing face may be worth something to him but doubtful.

[GeorgeO]

So, back to constructive comments, 2,000,000 litres of water = 2,000 units of water. Using a figure of 30 Baht per unit, that gives us a water cost of 60,000 Baht.

I'll steal a line from the boiler boys, "Are you liquid for 60,000 Baht?" You can ask your pool man?

Where in Thailand do you pay 30 baht per unit for water. My average monthly bill for water usage is about 150 baht, and I water my garden front and back every other day!

[Briggsy]

So, back to constructive comments, 2,000,000 litres of water = 2,000 units of water. Using a figure of 30 Baht per unit, that gives us a water cost of 60,000 Baht.

I'll steal a line from the boiler boys, "Are you liquid for 60,000 Baht?" You can ask your pool man?

Where in Thailand do you pay 30 baht per unit for water. My average monthly bill for water usage is about 150 baht, and I water my garden front and back every other day!

If an extra amount is tacked on by the village, street or condominium for the piping from the main road, you may well find 30B/unit is not out of the ordinary.

Also, you are quoting your total monthly bill whilst I used a figure per unit so they are meaningless to compare. Perhaps you could state the price per unit that you pay so a comparison can be made.

[SantiSuk]

I recently dosed an 88cu.m. pool with salt to kick start the process of using the chlorinator that had been built in. I followed my Astral Pool instructions to the letter, the key aspects of which were:

"a 50,000 litre pool requires 200kg of salt to initially set-up the pool to 4,000ppm".

"salt level should be maintained around 4,000 ppm and should never be allowed to fall below 3,000ppm".

"the low level salt warning light on the chlorinator comes on if the salt level drops (too low). If this happens wait 24 hours and if it is still on add another 50kg.

Armed with some newly acquired salt level sticks (I was slightly aggrieved to see that they would expire within 4 months of purchase date - that's the problem with buying stuff on the internet) and plenty of bags of TRS, some of which was 2 years old and had weathered a bit in the bag I set off down the presumably simple road of an initial dosing.

I put 350kg of salt in and switched on the pump for 12 hours and selected recirculate on the multiport. After 12 hours I switched on the chlorinator and ran on normal pool operation for another 12 hours. I tested the water for salt - still only 2,000ppm and the low salt light was contstantly on. The next day I ran the pump for about two lots of 8 hours - salt level still only 2,000 ppm and light still on - ok add 75kg more salt. Same result after 24 more hours - low salt light and only 2,000 ppm. To cut a long story short, over 4 days I dosed the pool by about 50% more than recommended (partly thinking that maybe the old salt might have lost some of its salinity) and still I could not get the ppm up to even 3,000 ppm. The salt light encouragingly went off all one day but came back on again.

I then went for a swim and realised it was like swimming in the Dead Sea. Family and village kids joined me and all said "chem!!" I concluded that notwithstanding all tester evidence to the contrary my pool was overdosed. I was off to the UK for 2 weeks at this point so I decided to take a punt and run with what I had got, partly because I obtained an encouraging read of 1.0 for the total abd free chlorine levels so my 2 year old new but unused chlorinator was at least working effectively so presumably there must be enough salt in there.

When I got back two weeks later the low salt light was still off, chorine levels had risen to 1.5 (so I have turned down the production level) and the pool still tastes too salty.

I concluded that my salt test sticks are useless and I have indeed overdosed the pool. I also concluded that maybe salt needs to dissolve longer than 24 hours for the pool to accurately read its salinity.

Just one experience in case it touches any points of relevance for you when dosing.

PS - I gave wrong advice about the amount of salt you would need in an earlier posting - I thought I recalled the number of bags I used but now I have returned form a long wekeend away to re-read my dosing instructions and record I have realised that I remembered wrong. You need a lot more than 30 x 25kg bags if your pool is indeed 400 cu.m = 400,000 litres.

Edited September 15, 2013 by SantiSuk

[jbrain]

I recently dosed an 88cu.m. pool with salt to kick start the process of using the chlorinator that had been built in. I followed my Astral Pool instructions to the letter, the key aspects of which were:

"a 50,000 litre pool requires 200kg of salt to initially set-up the pool to 4,000ppm".

"salt level should be maintained around 4,000 ppm and should never be allowed to fall below 3,000ppm".

"the low level salt warning light on the chlorinator comes on if the salt level drops (too low). If this happens wait 24 hours and if it is still on add another 50kg.

Armed with some newly acquired salt level sticks (I was slightly aggrieved to see that they would expire within 4 months of purchase date - that's the problem with buying stuff on the internet) and plenty of bags of TRS, some of which was 2 years old and had weathered a bit in the bag I set off down the presumably simple road of an initial dosing.

I put 350kg of salt in and switched on the pump for 12 hours and selected recirculate on the multiport. After 12 hours I switched on the chlorinator and ran on normal pool operation for another 12 hours. I tested the water for salt - still only 2,000ppm and the low salt light was contstantly on. The next day I ran the pump for about two lots of 8 hours - salt level still only 2,000 ppm and light still on - ok add 75kg more salt. Same result after 24 more hours - low salt light and only 2,000 ppm. To cut a long story short, over 4 days I dosed the pool by about 50% more than recommended (partly thinking that maybe the old salt might have lost some of its salinity) and still I could not get the ppm up to even 3,000 ppm. The salt light encouragingly went off all one day but came back on again.

I then went for a swim and realised it was like swimming in the Dead Sea. Family and village kids joined me and all said "chem!!" I concluded that notwithstanding all tester evidence to the contrary my pool was overdosed. I was off to the UK for 2 weeks at this point so I decided to take a punt and run with what I had got, partly because I obtained an encouraging read of 1.0 for the total abd free chlorine levels so my 2 year old new but unused chlorinator was at least working effectively so presumably there must be enough salt in there.

When I got back two weeks later the low salt light was still off, chorine levels had risen to 1.5 (so I have turned down the production level) and the pool still tastes too salty.

I concluded that my salt test sticks are useless and I have indeed overdosed the pool. I also concluded that maybe salt needs to dissolve longer than 24 hours for the pool to accurately read its salinity.

Just one experience in case it touches any points of relevance for you when dosing.

PS - I gave wrong advice about the amount of salt you would need in an earlier posting - I thought I recalled the number of bags I used but now I have returned form a long wekeend away to re-read my dosing instructions and record I have realised that I remembered wrong. You need a lot more than 30 x 25kg bags if your pool is indeed 400 cu.m = 400,000 litres.

I recall from your posting history that you have pool problems for ages already. Can't stabilize you PH or alkalinity levels,so have to add massive amounts od HCL and soda ash on a monthly base, having algae every few months and so much more.

Now you claim that both the test strips and the chlorinator indicated, which is something entirely impossible, that your salt level was at 2000 ppm while outgoing from your information it must have bean at least 7000 ppm.

It is clear that your chlorinator salt sensor was faulty, but that has no impact on the chlorine generation, so you still have enough chlorine.

FYI, a salt water pool is best run at 3 ppm chlorine level and is upstarted with liquid or powder chlorine.

In my humble opinion, I think you should consult a pool professional for a change and have all your problems disappear finally.

Edited September 15, 2013 by jbrain

[SantiSuk]

I recently dosed an 88cu.m. pool with salt to kick start the process of using the chlorinator that had been built in. I followed my Astral Pool instructions to the letter, the key aspects of which were:

"a 50,000 litre pool requires 200kg of salt to initially set-up the pool to 4,000ppm".

"salt level should be maintained around 4,000 ppm and should never be allowed to fall below 3,000ppm".

"the low level salt warning light on the chlorinator comes on if the salt level drops (too low). If this happens wait 24 hours and if it is still on add another 50kg.

Armed with some newly acquired salt level sticks (I was slightly aggrieved to see that they would expire within 4 months of purchase date - that's the problem with buying stuff on the internet) and plenty of bags of TRS, some of which was 2 years old and had weathered a bit in the bag I set off down the presumably simple road of an initial dosing.

I put 350kg of salt in and switched on the pump for 12 hours and selected recirculate on the multiport. After 12 hours I switched on the chlorinator and ran on normal pool operation for another 12 hours. I tested the water for salt - still only 2,000ppm and the low salt light was contstantly on. The next day I ran the pump for about two lots of 8 hours - salt level still only 2,000 ppm and light still on - ok add 75kg more salt. Same result after 24 more hours - low salt light and only 2,000 ppm. To cut a long story short, over 4 days I dosed the pool by about 50% more than recommended (partly thinking that maybe the old salt might have lost some of its salinity) and still I could not get the ppm up to even 3,000 ppm. The salt light encouragingly went off all one day but came back on again.

I then went for a swim and realised it was like swimming in the Dead Sea. Family and village kids joined me and all said "chem!!" I concluded that notwithstanding all tester evidence to the contrary my pool was overdosed. I was off to the UK for 2 weeks at this point so I decided to take a punt and run with what I had got, partly because I obtained an encouraging read of 1.0 for the total abd free chlorine levels so my 2 year old new but unused chlorinator was at least working effectively so presumably there must be enough salt in there.

When I got back two weeks later the low salt light was still off, chorine levels had risen to 1.5 (so I have turned down the production level) and the pool still tastes too salty.

I concluded that my salt test sticks are useless and I have indeed overdosed the pool. I also concluded that maybe salt needs to dissolve longer than 24 hours for the pool to accurately read its salinity.

Just one experience in case it touches any points of relevance for you when dosing.

PS - I gave wrong advice about the amount of salt you would need in an earlier posting - I thought I recalled the number of bags I used but now I have returned form a long wekeend away to re-read my dosing instructions and record I have realised that I remembered wrong. You need a lot more than 30 x 25kg bags if your pool is indeed 400 cu.m = 400,000 litres.

I recall from your posting history that you have pool problems for ages already. Can't stabilize you PH or alkalinity levels,so have to add massive amounts od HCL and soda ash on a monthly base, having algae every few months and so much more.

Now you claim that both the test strips and the chlorinator indicated, which is something entirely impossible, that your salt level was at 2000 ppm while outgoing from your information it must have bean at least 7000 ppm.

It is clear that your chlorinator salt sensor was faulty, but that has no impact on the chlorine generation, so you still have enough chlorine.

FYI, a salt water pool is best run at 3 ppm chlorine level and is upstarted with liquid or powder chlorine.

In my humble opinion, I think you should consult a pool professional for a change and have all your problems disappear finally.

That's fair comment so far as algae is concerned JPB, though it has been limited to a slight greening of the side tiles if they are left unswept and BIL under-chlorinates while I am away. I see much worse issues with algae reported on this thread. I do tend to twitter away a bit on the swimming pool thread so I can understand that you might think I am beset with a problem pool.

I don't add massive amounts of HCL or soda ash (a couple of litres of HCL every couple of weeks - pH does not fluctuate - just drifts down gradually). Never any soda ash. I do have to add a lot of sodium bicarbonate - averages 1.5kg a week - to keep my TA in range. A tendency to lose TA quite rapidly is the only curious aspect to my pool as far as I can see.

Still, I'll take your critique on board. It's difficult using pool professionals when you are 550k from Bangkok, so I try to make do and mend in the traditional Isaan way. There's a good chance everything will settle down with my new salt chlorination modus operandi. If not - the professionals it is

[jbrain]

I recently dosed an 88cu.m. pool with salt to kick start the process of using the chlorinator that had been built in. I followed my Astral Pool instructions to the letter, the key aspects of which were:

"a 50,000 litre pool requires 200kg of salt to initially set-up the pool to 4,000ppm".

"salt level should be maintained around 4,000 ppm and should never be allowed to fall below 3,000ppm".

"the low level salt warning light on the chlorinator comes on if the salt level drops (too low). If this happens wait 24 hours and if it is still on add another 50kg.

Armed with some newly acquired salt level sticks (I was slightly aggrieved to see that they would expire within 4 months of purchase date - that's the problem with buying stuff on the internet) and plenty of bags of TRS, some of which was 2 years old and had weathered a bit in the bag I set off down the presumably simple road of an initial dosing.

I put 350kg of salt in and switched on the pump for 12 hours and selected recirculate on the multiport. After 12 hours I switched on the chlorinator and ran on normal pool operation for another 12 hours. I tested the water for salt - still only 2,000ppm and the low salt light was contstantly on. The next day I ran the pump for about two lots of 8 hours - salt level still only 2,000 ppm and light still on - ok add 75kg more salt. Same result after 24 more hours - low salt light and only 2,000 ppm. To cut a long story short, over 4 days I dosed the pool by about 50% more than recommended (partly thinking that maybe the old salt might have lost some of its salinity) and still I could not get the ppm up to even 3,000 ppm. The salt light encouragingly went off all one day but came back on again.

I then went for a swim and realised it was like swimming in the Dead Sea. Family and village kids joined me and all said "chem!!" I concluded that notwithstanding all tester evidence to the contrary my pool was overdosed. I was off to the UK for 2 weeks at this point so I decided to take a punt and run with what I had got, partly because I obtained an encouraging read of 1.0 for the total abd free chlorine levels so my 2 year old new but unused chlorinator was at least working effectively so presumably there must be enough salt in there.

When I got back two weeks later the low salt light was still off, chorine levels had risen to 1.5 (so I have turned down the production level) and the pool still tastes too salty.

I concluded that my salt test sticks are useless and I have indeed overdosed the pool. I also concluded that maybe salt needs to dissolve longer than 24 hours for the pool to accurately read its salinity.

Just one experience in case it touches any points of relevance for you when dosing.

PS - I gave wrong advice about the amount of salt you would need in an earlier posting - I thought I recalled the number of bags I used but now I have returned form a long wekeend away to re-read my dosing instructions and record I have realised that I remembered wrong. You need a lot more than 30 x 25kg bags if your pool is indeed 400 cu.m = 400,000 litres.

I recall from your posting history that you have pool problems for ages already. Can't stabilize you PH or alkalinity levels,so have to add massive amounts od HCL and soda ash on a monthly base, having algae every few months and so much more.

Now you claim that both the test strips and the chlorinator indicated, which is something entirely impossible, that your salt level was at 2000 ppm while outgoing from your information it must have bean at least 7000 ppm.

It is clear that your chlorinator salt sensor was faulty, but that has no impact on the chlorine generation, so you still have enough chlorine.

FYI, a salt water pool is best run at 3 ppm chlorine level and is upstarted with liquid or powder chlorine.

In my humble opinion, I think you should consult a pool professional for a change and have all your problems disappear finally.

That's fair comment so far as algae is concerned JPB, though it has been limited to a slight greening of the side tiles if they are left unswept and BIL under-chlorinates while I am away. I see much worse issues with algae reported on this thread. I do tend to twitter away a bit on the swimming pool thread so I can understand that you might think I am beset with a problem pool.

I don't add massive amounts of HCL or soda ash (a couple of litres of HCL every couple of weeks - pH does not fluctuate - just drifts down gradually). Never any soda ash. I do have to add a lot of sodium bicarbonate - averages 1.5kg a week - to keep my TA in range. A tendency to lose TA quite rapidly is the only curious aspect to my pool as far as I can see.

Still, I'll take your critique on board. It's difficult using pool professionals when you are 550k from Bangkok, so I try to make do and mend in the traditional Isaan way. There's a good chance everything will settle down with my new salt chlorination modus operandi. If not - the professionals it is

To be honest, you should not have a slight algae on your tiles, a pool if correctly balanced should have no algae.

Have you ever considered adding Copper sulfate ? I know it's dangerous stuff if overdosed, but a 1 ppm level is safe and allowed in public swimming pools. At that level it's effective in preventing new algae, not to get rid of them.

If your PH drifts down, then why you add HCL as that will lower it even more ?

Soda ash and sodium bicarbonate are basically the same thing where the first one doesn't have the "bi" added and is stronger than the latter.e.g it will raise the PH and alkalinity more for the same weight added.

Also as you're adding Chlorine, your PH should be rising since chlorine has a PH of 11.7 , however when you're adding Thrichlorine it will lower the PH as it has Cyanuric acid (stabilizer )included. Keep in mind that Cyanuric acid doesn't evaporate or deteriorate so you build up the PPM to a dangerous level.

Have you checked CYA level ever ?

HCL and Alkalinity are also related, when you add HCL you also lower your Alkalinity. An ideal Alkalinity level keeps your PH level stable.

If you want good test strips, order the aquachek 7 in 1 teststrips from Ebay. They are very accurate and measure everything you need to know, but not salt or copper.

I have ordered them previously from that guy and the always have expiry date of almost 2 years.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Aquachek-Pool-Spa-Test-Strips-7-in-1-Fast-Free-Shipping-/321201384039?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ac9182a67

http://www.ebay.com/itm/FREE-3-4-DAY-SHIPPING-Aquachek-PRO-Pool-Spa-Test-Strips-5-in-1-100-Count-/321203459609?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ac937d619

I don't know where you are exactly located, but I thought there was a foreign run pool shop in Khon Kaen.

Edited September 17, 2013 by jbrain