Responsible pool/hot tub ownership: How to?

April 4, 2018 6:44 AM

Approximately 35 years after asking my father for an in-ground pool (and 34 years after he stopped laughing...) I now find myself about to move into a house with an in-ground pool... and a hot tub! But uh... now what?

We're super excited about swimming and hot-tubbing our way through summer, but neither I nor any of the people I live with have ever owned a pool or a hot tub. The previous owners have told us that it costs about $250 for their pool service to "open" the pool for the season and the same to "close" it for winter. They used the hot tub year round so there seems to be no opening/closing required for that. But I know there are maintenance things that need to happen with pools and hot tubs. I just don't know what all of them are, or how hard or expensive or time consuming they are to accomplish.

What we do know: The pool is in Massachusetts and has a liner that was re-done about 5 years ago. It is a chlorine pool that is propane-heated, and the heater was replaced about 2 years ago. The pool has a cover and while we don't know the kind/brand, the owner described it as "the kind you could stand an elephant on without making a dent."

There's an automatic vacuum and one you can drive yourself. All other mechanical things related to the pool have been professionally maintained and are in excellent condition. The same can be said for the hot tub. The owners are leaving all pool-related equipment behind for us when we take ownership.

Money was no object for the previous owners, but we'll be trying to keep our costs under control. My understanding is that you can either have a pool service handle your pool maintenance - the regular chlorinating and vacuuming and testing and whatnot - or you can do it on your own. Our preference would be to have the service do the opening/closing at the beginning and end of the season, and of course handle any mechanical issues that may arise - but if the professional weekly service costs are high, we'd like to do what we can on our own (assuming it's not a full-time job).

So, any info you have on maintaining a pool in Massachusetts would be welcome! Specifically we are looking for what testing we have to do, what chemicals we should use and how much testing kits/chemicals cost, what daily/weekly maintenance is required and how much time and money that would take. Also welcome are any cost-saving tips, and anything you know about maintaining a pool and/or hot tub that this n00b hasn't thought to ask!

posted by invincible summer to Home & Garden (13 answers total)

We live in Massachusetts and used to have a pool, so hopefully I can give you some useful advice.

#1. You do __NOT__ need to have a pool service open and close the pool. Well, maybe the first year so you can learn what to do. But there is nothing that they will do that you can't learn how to do.

#2. You definitely don't need a pool service to handle the daily maintenance. There's typically nothing that can go wrong on a day to day basis-- honestly, I feel like weeks would go by before I would worry about checking pH, chlorine level, etc. If things started to look cloudy or otherwise "strange", we would take a water sample to a pool supply store (we used Budget Pools) and have them analyze it and buy what they told us to do.

If we were really worried about cost, I bet it would have been cheaper to just buy chemicals online.

#3. Get an "automatic chlorinator" that you hook up inline to the pump. You put chlorine tablets in it and you can adjust the flow and you'll find the right level of chlorine pretty quickly.

I would say that, as a whole, we probably spent... $800 in chemicals per year, including all of the chemicals needed to open, run, and close the pool from May to September. [including DE, pH, algecide, etc] On top of that, we would buy chlorine tabs from Costco, not sure how much that was.

Sorry for the rambling nature... hope you can get something good out of this. Enjoy the pool-- we miss ours!
posted by gregvr at 7:19 AM on April 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

Don't forget to make sure the pool is (or remains) secure; drowning is the second-most-common cause of death for young children.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 7:21 AM on April 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

We have a somewhat similar setup for the pool - chlorine, in-ground, in the Northeast, propane heated. Our pool service offers a few different packages: the first year we went with the "every week package" while we got used to it, but for the second year we scaled back to every other week. On the off weeks we have to put in a few pool chemicals and clean out the filters (super easy, dump the baskets and put in some chlorine disks) and we have to skim the pool for leaves. The every two week package is where we want to be as far as the cost/labor tradeoff, you could potentially even go less frequently.

Two things you might not expect: (1) get used to animals, both dead and alive. Our kids have gotten quite adept at removing dead mice, frogs, and the occasional baby snake from either the filter or the pool. Plastic kids lacrosse-type scoops do a pretty good job with the live frogs if you can't get them with the skimmer. (2) keep an eye on the water level. If it gets too low or too high your filters won't work, so be ready to top it off with a hose or drain some after a big rain. There's usually a dump drain on the pump somewhere, you just open it and it'll pump water out instead of recirculate.
posted by true at 7:23 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Apologies if this is ridiculously obvious (and also somewhat tangential to the actual question), but you should make yourself familiar with any applicable attractive nuisance laws in your area and have the appropriate homeowner's/renter's insurance.
posted by poffin boffin at 7:40 AM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

This is our first full season in Massachusetts with a heated pool and hot tub.
Last year we had the pool people close our pool. It seemed pretty important with the chance of freezing pipes, etc. I think we still aren't too clear on the whole process even though we have the air compressor.

I would suggest finding out who serviced the pool before. We went to the pool company that did ours and they knew how many gallons (which you need to know) and had all the records, etc. You can also bring them samples of your water (from both tub and pool) and they will let you know what needs to be added.

In our brief history with a pool I can say, don't let it go too long without checking levels, etc. It can get out of hand pretty fast and it's hard to get back to just right.

I'll be keeping an eye on this question since this will be the first full season of our similar pool.
posted by beccaj at 7:57 AM on April 4, 2018

re: chemicals, I'm a believer in keeping things simple. I've really liked everything I learned at Trouble Free Pool. I close and open the pool myself. I've been able to keep my pool in good shape with just chlorine (12% sodium hypochlorite solution, but I'll start each year out by just using the "pucks" with lots of added stabalizer), borax (ph+, and adds alkalinity), and algacide.

We also have a hot tub; I use a combination of 12% sodium hypochlorite, and the chrloine granuals with added stabalizer, and "ph-" (Sodium Bisulfate). It's commonly recommended to change out the water in your hot tub 2-4x yearly. If the pool is open when I change the hot tub water, I'll typically pull water from the pool rather than the tap. That's because 1) we have extremely hard tap water, and 2) 99% of our water needs for our pool come from the sky.

I have a 36'x18' rectangular pool, and go through maybe $100-$200 in chemicals a year (our pool supply place sells "cards" with 10 x 10liter fillups of sodium hypoclorite - one of those, and one jug of "pucks" gets me through a year).

We don't have a pool heater, we typically have a solar cover on at all times it's not being used. That significantly cuts down on water evaporation, and dead animals. We live in southern Ontario. Typically I open the pool in early May, and the pool gets up to swimmable temps in about 3 weeks once the solar blanket is regularly on (after the chlorine levels are gone down after shocking).

The one time I've needed to call a pool company was to find and fix a leak - as mentioned I rarely need to top up the pool, so when I suddenly found myself turning on the tap 2x in 3 days I new there was a problem.

Opening the pool each year is pretty minimal, maybe 2 hours. Until you find something that didn't survive the winter. Closing the pool takes me about 3 hours. The only thing you'll need to close the pool is either a source of compressed air, or a wet/dry shop vac. We don't have an automated pool vacuum, so I'll spend about an hour/week vacuuming and brushing/checking chemicals.
posted by nobeagle at 8:08 AM on April 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

To help prevent the dead frog problem, you can buy little critter rescue floats to put in your pool (they basically serve as a ramp up out of the pool for anything that happens to wander in). The folks I know who have them in their pools tend not to find dead things in them too often.
posted by snaw at 8:09 AM on April 4, 2018 [9 favorites]

re: dead things, I'll note that through laziness and or waiting from a chrloine shock, I'll have probably 14-28 days of the swimming season without the solar cover on. In 5 years of this I've saved one rat as it was about to drown, and pulled out 1 dead rat and 2 dead squirrels. We have racoons, bunnies and lots of squirrels (sigh, and apparently rats). So it's not super common.

Bees man - so many bees (and wasps and spiders). :/ We haven't yet setup an alternate (shallow) water source for bees - supposedly that helps a bit.
posted by nobeagle at 8:22 AM on April 4, 2018

Response by poster: Not to threadsit, just clarifying - we don't have any kids ourselves, and the pool is enclosed by a high lockable fence - which is itself inside a large yard with a high lockable fence. We intend to keep the yard fence locked at all times, and the pool/hot tub fence locked any time it is not in use.

The yard fence is high and solid, so the pool can't be seen from the outside unless you sneak up to peer through the gate. But we will definitely check out the nuisance laws just to be super safe.
posted by invincible summer at 9:07 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

We are year-round hot tub users in NW Ontario, and maintenance is pretty straightforward. I'm assuming since they used it year-round that it is a standalone, 220V electric heat unit.

1) Set a schedule to check chemicals! Twice a week is sufficient. These test strips are the bomb - super easy to use. We use bromine instead of chlorine – generally, bromine is considered better for spas, chlorine for pools.

2) We keep the temp at 98F when not in use, and max it out at 104F to use it. Usually takes about 25 minutes to heat up (eight-person tub).

3) keep snow and ice clear off the lid as much as possible, and don't open it when either is still on it (you can damage the cover). DO NOT USE A SHOVEL TO CLEAR IT. a broom is ideal. Hot tub insulate covers are fragile beasts.

4) Consider getting a hot tub cover cover (tarp). Your insulated cover will wear down quickly otherwise. We didn't get one with the last cover we bought, and I regret it. A bit of a pain, but can save you a replacement of the insulated cover every couple of years.

5) Enjoy it – and make sure you use it! We love our hot tub, and given that we don't have a lot of other luxuries that we spend money on, we consider this money well worth it. But....it's expensive to run it year-round. My hydro bills are significantly higher as a result.

6) If you do decide to winterize it, make sure you have it closed by a pool company, at least the first time. We bought ours used, and the previous owner winterized it themselves the last year. When we installed it, we discovered a drain pipe had frozen and burst underneath, resulting in a $1000 repair bill.
posted by liquado at 10:56 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

The first year we were in this situation, we had a local pool company open and close our pool for us. My husband shadowed them for both, and did a bit of reading. We managed the daily/weekly maintenance that first year, and year 2 we opened/closed ourselves. If you are at ALL interested in DIY, it's not a bad gig - my husband treats the whole affair like we have a giant chemistry set in the backyard. We order chemicals online, in bulk - much cheaper than one-off trips to the pool store. I'd say we spend 5-15 minutes a week on testing the water and treating if needed. We have one of those inline chlorinator things (a frog? a backpack? whatever it's called - it sits inline with the pump and when the chlorine tabs are all dissolved, you top it up).

I will say - when we have had occasion to take pool water in to be tested, we have gotten WILDLY different suggestions from two local companies regarding the treatment required for the exact same sample. That made us side-eye their overall recommendations a bit.
posted by ersatzkat at 12:05 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

You can and should buy test strips, which are plenty accurate enough to keep domestic pool chemistry in adequate shape. These come in a little plastic bottle with a label that has a colour key on it; you dip a strip in your pool, wait 15 seconds, then match each of the four little pads on the test strip against the colours on the label.

The strips I use test for pH (acidity), free chlorine, total alkalinity (buffering) and chlorine stabilizer. Test every day at first, in order to get an idea of how fast things change in your pool; then back off to whatever seems sensible to avoid wasting strips. Always test before adding chemicals to the water.

Don't believe anything the test strip tells you about stabilizer levels unless it's also telling you that the pH is in the optimum range; outside that pH range, stabilizer tests are wildly inaccurate.

You add dry acid (sodium sulphate) if the pH is too high; washing soda (sodium carbonate) if it's too low; unstabilized dry chlorine (calcium hypochlorite) if free chlorine is too low but stabilizer level is OK; baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) if pH is about right but total alkalinity is too low; stabilized dry chlorine (calcium hypochlorite+isocyanurate) if free chlorine and stabilizer are both too low.

There's a bunch of calculations you can do to work out how much of each of these powders to add, depending on where the water chemistry needs to be compared to where it is already and taking the volume of the pool into account. Don't bother doing those; they're altogether too fiddly. Just take a guess at how much you need and then test the chemistry again the next day to see how good your guess was. You'll soon work out what your own pool needs.

The only chemical that's unforgiving of accidental overdoses is the stabilizer, which doesn't ever break down; once it's in there, the only way to get rid of it is to dilute the pool with fresh water. You don't want a gross overload of stabilizer, because that will stabilize the chlorine so much that it's no longer available to disinfect anything any more. If the test kit says that pH and stabilizer levels are inside the optimum range, use only unstabilized dry chlorine for disinfection. If you never use anything but stabilized chlorine - perhaps on the basis that the tablets are easier to deal with than the bulk powders - you will eventually overdo it.

Stabilizer is actually optional; you can disinfect a pool perfectly well without it. But if you do use only unstabilized chlorine, you'll need to do more testing and you will certainly be adding more chlorine, because sunlight will break it down fairly quickly.

If the test kit says the water chemistry is OK but the water still looks a bit cloudy, throw in a bottle of flocculant; preferably one of the lanthanum-based ones that also binds phosphate in order to starve algae. This will also make your sand filter work a bit better.

Your automatic vacuum will most likely do a completely adequate job of sucking sunken crud off the bottom, provided you're fairly conscientious with the hand skimmer and regularly empty the fixed skimmer baskets.

Get familiar with the five-way valve on your filter. These will typically have four useful positions: normal operation, closed, backwash and rinse.

The filter will spend most of its time in normal mode, where water is drawn from the pool, pushed downward through the sand filter, and returned to the pool.

In closed mode, no water can pass through at all.

In backwash mode, water is drawn from the pool, pushed upward through the sand filter, and sent to drainage. This washes out the crud that's been accumulating on the top of the sand while the filter's been in normal mode.

In rinse mode, water is drawn from the pool, pushed downward through the sand just as in normal mode, but sent to drainage rather than returned to the pool. This is for use right after you've done a backwash. Backwashing never gets rid of everything that's built up inside the sand filter, and when the water flow reverts to going downward again, the sand re-settles and lets go of a bit more crud; doing a rinse after a backwash means that that crud doesn't end up back in the pool.

Backwash and rinse the filter only when its flow rate has become very slow and/or the pressure gauge attached to the filter says you should. Sand filters actually filter better when they're half full of crud.

There will be some kind of lock mechanism that you need to release before you can change the filter's operating mode. Don't try to change modes without unlocking first, and don't unlock when the pump is running; in fact, allow a good fifteen seconds for settling after turning the pump off. If you move the five-way around when the pump is running, you will get filter sand lodged in its works and its gaskets and it will never be the same again.

In winter, you'll want to put the five-way in closed mode, then drain the filter and the pump. There will be a separate drain valve or plug on the pump for this, and there will also be procedures involving compressed air to get water out of places where it could freeze and burst things. Get local advice on that.

That's pretty much it.
posted by flabdablet at 12:58 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

I read a mention of raccoons. Please know that raccoon poop in your pool can be dangerous. The CDC dedicates an entire page to how to properly clean your pool after raccoons use it as a latrine. Yes, this is a thing they do. I hate them.

Personally, I find it far easier to just hire a service to come and clean/chemical my pool. I have a gigantic pool by S. FL standards and I pay just $80/month for weekly service. To me, that is SO worth not spending time trying to figure out how I fucked up the chemicals this week and having to scoop dead things out of the skimmer basket.
posted by PorcineWithMe at 9:45 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]