Pool Phun

[feng_shui_house]

I decided I'd try again to get the people who fixed the pool to give me some advice/assistance/education. I'm sure it'd be cheaper to get the chemicals from the local guys once I know what to get, but since I'd have to spend at least $30 in taxi fare, and then HOPE to find an English-speaker who knows about salt-system pools (I never even found out if the local folks handle the supplies for that)...

So we'll see. At first the guy was all 'OH you're THERE we have no one in the area, and we're way busy because summer and kids and'... I said ERm, I paid you guys over 20k to set up the pool and I kept asking for advice on how to care for it & got next to no info. I NEED you to help me.

SO, back & forth and the wind-up seems not bad. Roughly a 3-4 month supply (he's guessing based on the gallonage I told him) of acid, salt, calcium, bicarbonate of soda, the two test kits I need (I think the one I got from Home Depot is flipping useless) and stabilizer *including* delivery charge-- $213.77. He thinks they can deliver today and sometime in the next couple of days he *says* someone will call to make appt. to come out & explain things to me. (I don't bet on this happening, but if I have the supplies & a working test kit with proper instructions maybe I can figure it out on my own.

Ok, cool. Am going out to unlock shed & sweep it a bit. Then I'll start trying my Naart for the day.

Comments

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

These guys "sound" like "real winners" =P

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

And they are the best of the lot. Honestly, I spent weeks going through the phone book & internet checking out pool co. licenses, Better Business Bureau, their rating & complaint records with the local government and there were only 4 that were ok rated. Of them 2 refused to do any work in my area, and the only other 1 willing to work in Hellholeah came out late to do the estimate, left things off the list & came up with a higher price than these guys (before adding on the essential thing he'd omitted).

I don't know how anyone gets things done. I've had to oversee, push, prod, inspect, bitch, push, prod--- and that's with the GOOD companies.

*sympathies*

[themadblonde]

Bear calls it "holding the world's hand" & he gets desperately sick of it. All I know is that if I did my job like that, I wouldn't have one. *sigh*

[muscadinegirl.livejournal.com]

*crossing fingers for you*

You need to send Avon over there. He'd get some service out of them!

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

You know, there never were any language difficulties in B7! The only non-English spoken was a bit of French in the Big Wheel casino.

MMm... Avon in Hellholeah... boy, would that make a horrifying tale. :^)

[muscadinegirl.livejournal.com]

The carnage would be immense, and the same would happen here.

Hmm...need to send him to Congress..

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

Mr. Avon Goes to Washington. Rated R for extreme violence... :^)

[muscadinegirl.livejournal.com]

They wouldn't have to worry about Health Care; there'd be nobody left to receive it!

Thing is, he'd kill just one or two people and then the rest would kill each other. :)

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

Unless Avon hacked into the net and sent the birds flying! But no, I don't believe Avon ever went in for mass violence. He was always a one-on-one fighter.

LJ is dead slow for me. *ptui*

[muscadinegirl.livejournal.com]

You're right. He'd probably just embezzle all the slush fund money. :)

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

AH! All your pork barrel are belong to me!

[muscadinegirl.livejournal.com]

LOL!

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

And I thought it was quite simple to have a pool!*sighs* Well, I hope you will survive with your supplies untill someone competent appears. AND that you will not have spend horrendous sums of money on it!

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

*grin* Is anything simple at Ehouse? I keep thinking I make things more complicated than they need to be-- but then I look around and realize yes, it IS complicated.

Supposedly once you get the pool chemistry 'balanced' you should be able to get into a fairly simple routine of maintenance. I'm hoping!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Why are you going salt water? Is it easier to maintain? It's not as nice if you swallow it though. :-)

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

The salt system has one BIG advantage- I don't have to get jugs of liquid chlorine. That stuff is nasty to carry in a car (I'm sure taxi guy wouldn't want to do it), expensive to have delivered, takes up a lot of space (one gallon a day, plus extra once every 10 days in summer to shock it) and ruins whatever clothes you wear when you put it in the pool (and since my arms aren't very long and a gallon of chlorine is HEAVY, I can't hold it far enough away to prevent backsplash from getting on my legs, so I always had to put it in and come in and wash my legs before they started burning.

Chlorinated pool water doesn't taste too great, either-- the salt water system isn't as salty as ocean water so a mouthful tastes more like a gargle than anything else. It's actually much easier on your skin and eyes than chlorine- I don't get out wrinkly or with my eyes burning.

Once I get it balanced I shouldn't have to be adding stuff to it every day, as you do with chlorine. Test it every day, yes, but you should do that with chlorine pool

But the main reason would be that I'd have to pay someone to deliver it at least twice a month.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It sounds so much better! I wonder why people don't do it here. At least, I don't know anyone with a salt pool.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

If I'd already had a working chlorine system, I wouldn't have changed over. It's expensive & you have to learn a whole different way of doing things. But since I had basically a hole in the ground...