So I finally decided to delve into the whole pool maintenance thing. The former owners were kind enough to leave me a broken pool vacuum, a broken pool vacuum stick, a broken vacuum hose, and a pump with an automatic timer. After some online searching, I decided to invest in all of these things plus some crazy bags of stuff called "pool shock" and a deluxe testing kit.
I figured testing the water was a good place to start. Step one: put some pool water in the testing thing. Add 5 drops of this and 5 drops of that, match water color to the indicator thingy to know how much chlorine I have in the pool. The answer: Zero. No chlorine. None. Not a drop. Not a part per million.
Step 2, check the ph of the pool. Add more pool water to the tester. A few more drops of something else. Match the color. Too much ph. I am over-ph'd. Ph to the max.
All of the things I have to add to fix these problems of course rely on knowing how many gallons of water the pool has. After some measuring and some online easy converters, I found total volume, did some more math, found some chemicals, and now the pool is stewing outside.
The moral of this story is: having a pool is a pain. I might have to do some soul searching and could decide that while a pool sucks, a huge fish pond might be easier.
Vacuuming the pool, however, is fascinating, like peeling dried glue off your hands or getting a Zen rock garden. I could vacuum a pool all day. And skimming...don't even get me started on the joys of skimming.
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