chap said:

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When we bought our current house that has a pool I kept the pool guy the previous owners used. He charged $150/month for everything. I told myself I'd keep him 6 months then take over myself. 60 months later and I still haven't fired him. He did increase to $170/month about 2 years ago. But I never do a thing to the pool. Ever.

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Corps_Ag12 said:

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You can do it yourself easily, most people just don't want to put in the effort. Keep your skimmers clean, empty the Polaris basket, brush the pool occasionally.

Get a Taylor K-2006 kit off of Amazon and download the orenda app. Go to their YouTube channel and watch the video of how to use the app.

Test your water weekly or twice weekly if possible and save $$$$ over a mediocre pool guy who is just dumping in acid and adding tabs.


Keep your CYA around 50 with tabs, shock with cal hypo (granular) or sodium hypo (liquid) weekly, and add acid as prescribed in the Orenda app. Add sodium bicarb to raise alkalinity as needed and calcium to raise hardness as needed. I prefer a total of 400 between alkalinity and hardness.

The Taylor kit can test everything you need besides TDS and phosphates. Leslie's can do this for you but I wouldn't follow their advice on chemical additions (Orenda does this for you when you balance to LSI) and I typically check their numbers on alk, ph, & CH.

I build pools and teach homeowners how not to waste money on ****ty pool guys

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Quad Dog said:

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I do mine myself like others on this thread with no problems. The big trick is to stay on top of it. Spend a few minutes on the pool everyday and you won't have to spend a ton of time and money.

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RoyVal said:

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I switched over to saltwater years ago....and it was a game changer for me. I throw in my robot vacuum once a week, maybe throw a bag of shock in there every couple of weeks or more it we get a lot of rain and probably add acid and salt to my pool 2-3 times a year max. easy and very low maintenance.

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texsn95 said:

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RoyVal said:

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I switched over to saltwater years ago....and it was a game changer for me. I throw in my robot vacuum once a week, maybe throw a bag of shock in there every couple of weeks or more it we get a lot of rain and probably add acid and salt to my pool 2-3 times a year max. easy and very low maintenance.

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Same, 3 years ago, will never go back to pucks and fighting the ever-increasing CYA levels.

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Ag13 said:

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Quad Dog said:

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I do mine myself like others on this thread with no problems. The big trick is to stay on top of it. Spend a few minutes on the pool everyday and you won't have to spend a ton of time and money.

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Just curious for you (and others that DIY) - what's your approach when something goes wrong with the equipment? I like the idea that someone else is constantly looking at it all, at least in theory. But not sure it's worth it for how much I'm paying

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The System said:

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texsn95 said:

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RoyVal said:

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I switched over to sal****er years ago....and it was a game changer for me. I throw in my robot vacuum once a week, maybe throw a bag of shock in there every couple of weeks or more it we get a lot of rain and probably add acid and salt to my pool 2-3 times a year max. easy and very low maintenance.

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Same, 3 years ago, will never go back to pucks and fighting the ever-increasing CYA levels.

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I'm not saying the CYA thing is a myth, but it's a problem that is way overhyped. I've had CYA levels over 100 and had zero issues balancing the water. I've been running tabs for almost 10 years and CYA has never been a big problem.

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