Every single pool guy I have ever hired, has been a MASSIVE fucking disappointment.

I hired this guy, and I have not been able to swim in my pool since I hired him beginning of August.  It has turned green TWICE. One time he treated the green water by putting some treatment in it that turns it cloudy as fuck.

This guy can't seem to keep my pool right. He says that my pool needs to be drained because my CYA levels are too high... but it is too damn hot right now to drain it. He says that it just needs a lot of shock... and he can maintain it until temperatures go down and it is safe to drain.

I figured it might be worth it to hire someone, since shock can get expensive... and I figure it might just be worth it to have someone else deal with it.

I remembered being promised when I hired him, that all I have to worry about is swimming in it.

Problem is, he hasn't been able to keep my pool from turning green. EVERY WEEKEND, since the beginning of August (when I hired him)... my pool has had some sort of problem. Either it was green, or it was extremely cloudy since last time he visited. I'm getting *EXTREMELY* pissed off about this.

Anyone know of a pool guy that is actually worth a shit!?

Area?

Peoria, AZ.

Close to Peoria ave and 75th ave

this is why I maintain my own pools...  usually you hire a new guy and he the owner personally comes out for the first month or so and everything is just great.    then his employees start showing up, usually a meth'd out looking guy that has never owned a pool and maybe never a bathtub.  I wouldn't let the guy on property for free but yet I am paying him for the privilege of being there.

I fucking regret paying this asshole ahead of time.

If I demanded service first... I would have refused payment. No fucking way im going to pay someone money to keep a pool GREEN.

Sid you use a card? How long ago did you pay?

Just like most things, the correct answer is, yourself.

If you're so upset with him not taking care of your pool, tell him to kick rocks and handle it yourself. I've now been taking care of our pool for about 4 years, and it's the effing bane of my existence! I hate pools so much now. Everything breaks at the most inopportune time, it's expensive and it takes constant vigilance. My pool has been green for the last few weeks at least, cause our cover fell apart, and so everytime it gets windy, it's blows dirt and leaves in, which then leads to algae. I start to clear it up and wind kicks up and starts the process over and it's a huge pain in the ass.

The thing is, this dude is just doing it for a paycheck, he doesn't care about you or your pool. None of them will, so as cliche as it sounds, if you want something done right....

Firstly, clean out your filter baskets and back-flush your pool. Basic maintenance.

Next, take a water sample to your local pool store and follow their advice. If something in the water is too high of a concentration and cannot be chemically neutralized, you can "bleed & feed" its level down by back-flushing the filter with as big a volume as you can every day over the course of a week or so (refilling with fresh water of course).

Once the chemicals are in the right ballpark, hit the pool with an evening overkill dose of chlorine shock and algaecide (copper algaecide works best) while running the pump. Brush the sides of the pool first to release the algae.

After the algae is all dead, the pool will be colorless but likely still cloudy. Add a clarifier per manufacturers' instructions (don't over dose it) and run the pump to remove the particles.

It will take you a week or so to do this, but you should end up with a nice clear pool.

Fire the pool company.

How do you "Back flush" the filter?

I have a cartridge filter.

How are you getting algae after every storm, and a green pool? I’ve had a slight green tint only once in 15 months, otherwise mine is always crystal clear. When a storm hits, I turn the pump on that night and brush the pool the next morning while running the pump for another hour. I’m no pro, but I feel like I have a nice pool. Also, we don’t ever cover it, because my wife likes the way it lights up at night.

We clean the pool on Fridays while the kids are in school, checking the chemicals and brushing the sides. Maybe 2x a week we brush the Baja step and skim the top with the net. Besides that, I clean the filters every 3 months when it’s not monsoon season, but every 4-5 weeks during monsoon season. If we’re going to be out of town for an extended timeframe, we pay someone to maintain it until we return.

How long has it been since you drained your pool and refilled with fresh water? How’s your filters?

Pic for attention:

Also, my neighbor uses Pineapple Pools for service (they built both of our pools), and his pool looks great too. Maybe give them a call.

2 reasons why my pool is green.

1. The only luck I have is bad.

2. My backyard is the gateway to hell and destroys anything and everything nice we try to do to it!

While the above is kinda kidding, in reality it is the truth. We plant a garden, bugs come devour everything like a biblical locust plague. We have an orange tree and compost bins for the destroyed garden, it brings in roof rats. We try to have a nice pool, it makes me want to nuke it from orbit cause EVERYTHING breaks and is stupid.

Our pool is above ground, it's a really nice, metal 9-10,000 gallon above ground pool, not the 200 dollar intex things, but it's always a pain to keep clean. The NEXT day after the first windy day this year, it was green. It takes literally nothing to make it green. We had this problem last year and chemicalled the shit out of it and got it clear, problem with that? Destroyed the cover and vinyl liner, so we had to buy a new liner and redo that. Normal routine is to run the pump EVERY DAY, not all day, but still daily. 3 chlorine tabs on Sunday, 1 lb of shock on Wednesday with a cap of pool perfect every week. Than backwash every couple of weeks to once a month.

Right now I'm back washing daily, running the pump as much as possible, without going into peak hours. Trying to stay on top of the chemicals without going overboard or we'll have to buy another 200 dollar liner. Brushing everyday and even multiple times a day. I had some older copper algae control that I used the last of and keep trying to make it over to leslies to get more, but haven't been able to yet. I'm sure I'll get it clear, it's just being a bitch and every storm undoes all my work plus adds more organic matter to the pool and makes it harder to clear. It's also somewhat covered by a tree, so the leaves fall in and they seem to supercharge the algae growth.

Your pool is super nice looking! I would post a pic of mine, but it would need a NSFW warning and make you throw up in your mouth a little, so I won't!

Apparently my account is too new to post a long response, so I broke into 2.

Head over to TFP, the arfcom of pools.  https://www.troublefreepool.com/forum.php

Read before posting https://www.troublefreepool.com/content/115-read-before-you-post

Basics https://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/147169-TFPC-for-Beginners

With algae, you may need to SLAM https://www.troublefreepool.com/content/125-slam-shock-level-and-maintain-shockingl

No suggestion for a pool guy, but he did say high CYA... That’s essentially sunblock for chlorine, so it doesn’t burn off as quickly but it has the inverse effect of making the same amount chlorine less effective.

To prevent algae, you need to keep your chlorine and ph levels within a set range.  With high CYA that level is likely so high you can’t reasonably add enough chlorine daily to be effective. A weekly shock won’t help either. You need to drain and fill with fresh water to get your pool to a target CYA then maintain your levels every day until you can reduce that to 1 or 2x per week.

See troublefreepool.com as suggested and check your own chemistry. During summer months, I use about 1 gal of household bleach a day and 3 cups of muratic acid per week and my pool has never algae bloomed.

I messaged the guy. He said he'd stop by today. Asked me if I cleaned the filter like he told me....

I don't feel I need to clean the filter, seeing as I already did it a MONTH ago. He insist that the storms probably clogged my filter again, and that is why he's having trouble with keeping my pool looking good.

FFS, you only have to clean the filter AT MOST 4 times a year, and many people do it just twice a year.

NO FUCKING WAY my pool filter has gotten *THAT* dirty in less than a month.

I CANT drain it now, unless I want to fuck up my plaster.

according to this you dont have to drain it completely, partial drain will help, or half drain. clicky here

Is it possible to drain at the same time you fill?

Is it possible to adjust the flow of the pump to about the same as the hose?

I like to take care of my own pool.

Algae grows because you lack enough chlorine to keep it at bay. In the summer chlorine burns off faster than in the winter. When the CYA get too high it masks the real level of chlorine in the water. Last year we did a drain, chlorine wash and refill.

I have a 25,000 gallon diving pool that during the summer I put 4 to 5 3" tabs in a floating dispenser every week. I also add one package of shock per week. All this year I have added Perfect Weekly as prescribed and my pool has been pretty much hassle free.
Oh, and I run the pump 6 hours. The vacuum is a Hayward Phoenix.

Perfect Weekly

I am not an expert, only play one on the internet.

I also only play an expert on the internet, my pool guy comes once a week shocks, brushes and skims and says see ya next week. Dumps liquid chlorine on the algae line if it comes back and the pool is pefectly fine, but he's also been taking care of it for 8 years. That being said, I dont see why not, you could use a sump pump and drop it on the bottom, run it to your pipes in the front to go to the city waste (black cleanouts) and just run your hose slightly. That way your sucking old water from the bottom and new water comes in from the top. Again, not the best way to do it, but if you can get a quarter of the water out, its gotta help.

I am getting algae all the time this summer and I have kept the pool fully loaded with chlorine the whole time.  Cleaning out my DE and backwashing helps a little but only delays its return.  Last year my schedule allowed me to get the pool water tested once a week and I followed the pool shops instructions on what chemicals to add and I really didn't have any issues.

This summer I struggle to get samples over for testing and its just a crap fest all summer long.  I think with the intense sun and dust storms, owning a pool in Phoenix has to be one of the most challenging places to be a pool owner.

I didn't understand why my friends hated pools, but after this summer I know now why.  And yeah everything always goes to hell in the summer.  Nothing ever breaks in the winter.  Everything is made of chintzy plastic yet has to hold water at pressure.

I can't imagine an above ground pool in Phoenix.  Is the water temp 110 degrees?

I know nothing of pools, but have an inground that I have been lucky with, even with the yard backed up to a park and a vortex that blows every piece of trash, candy wrapper and circle-k cup into my pool. A good pool guy gave me a few hours of cliff notes lectures on pool ops. When I had reoccurring algae, he advised it can be addressed by scrubbing the walls more frequently...it turned out I was missing a patch (algea bloom?) on some stairs. But little things like chemicals in during the evening, stay away from the cheap walmart stuff, keep all baskets clean (pump, vacuum, skimmer) clean filters twice a year (I have 8 cartridge Hayward system) don't dose the skimmer with chemicals. I tried a guy for a year contract, but he seemed to do his own thing, coming mid day, included taking most of the month of August as his vacation time...but it was not showing up on scheduled days, finding walmart packing in the trash, and those cheap blue hockey puck tablets in my skimmer basket, so he was not invited back. Then I tried to find another, and most seem to want a year contract, when I just need them during the summer.

I use Leslies for the free water test, but don't go overboard with the chemicals and other additives...the best advice I got was drain and refill, as I hadn't drained that pool in almost five years. It greatly reduced the amount of chemicals I had to use to keep it clean.

This summer has been tough on pools. The dust storms are blowing in phosphate (fertilizer) off of the fields. This is the first time I've had algae in years.

This is typical...ran the pump a few extra hours, pool looking good, dogs decided to take a ten minute dip this afternoon while I was at work...now being told a dust storm many be coming in!

I work in Property Management in the Phoenix metro area and when we started one of the hardest things was trying to get good contractors.  I have a great pool guy - Ken from Respect Pools 602 686-5371  He lives in your area.

As an example of crappy pool service we have a property at the 101 and 51st Ave and the pool was a mess. The owners told us to use their pool company that came out every 2 weeks to do whatever they do.  The tenants of two years left a month ago right before a huge storm and I came over the day fter to get it ready for the next tenants and the pool was trashed - the pump was howling, hardly any water flowing, a half inch of dirt in the bottom and the pop-ups not working.  Now mind you the pool service is supposed to clean, treat and repair things that need fixed.  They couldn't get any one out for a week so I sent my guy, Ken out.  He takes the filter apart (it is a dual concentric cartridge type filter) and there is 4 inches of mud glued to the bottom of it! The filters are destroyed!  That pool service hadn't cleaned these filters for YEARS!!!  I let the old filters dry out and after they were dry the bigger filter weighed about 60 lbs because so much dirt was compacted into it.

Ken got that thing going and the next day I was there it was cleaner than I ever saw it and the motor didn't sound like a rocket engine anymore.  To boot he has better prices than other pool people I have used.

Creative Pools in Sierra Vista.  However he knows everyone in the state and I'll ask him who he recommends in Peoria.

Buy a second cartridge.  Swap and clean, repeat.

We have sand filters.  The pool has been perfect since we installed an automatic chorine and acid system.  These things are very hungry and use a lot of chemicals.  This is where pool guys cheap out.  There probably isn't enough chems in your pool.

A lot of things have been covered here.

You have to keep this in mind, look at how much chemicals cost to properly maintain your pool and ask yourself how almost pool guys do it for around $100 a month. Not happening.

My guy would add two or three chlorine tabs a week and brush it once a week. I gave him his walking papers and started learning from scratch. Man oh man do you need a lot of chlorine. Sun burns it off fast.

I really like a warm pool so i got a solar cover. It helped big time with maintains chlorine, keeping dirt out, and really helps with water evaporation. I’m talking our water bill went down 20 or 30 bucks a month for June, July, and August.

Sure, some days it hits 96, but that means I jump in at 11 at night and it’s still 92 and feels like the bath. Can stay in it all night.

They aren't like the ones in the porn movies