Pool maintenance costs

granca

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Aug 20, 2007
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Anybody know what pool maintenance costs should be in terms of chemicals? What are the best regular chemicals to use? No problem at the moments with labour costs, rd$ 1500 every 15 days and he comes 2 or 3 times a week but I seem to spend an awful lot on chemicals. The pool is 9M by 4M and goes from 30cm to 2M, has a circulation pump that runs for 1 hour every morning and then late afternoon. The pool is kept filled with sufficient water so that the leaf trap functions.
 

AJL6767

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Apr 14, 2011
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I am in Santo Domingo. I run my pool pump for 5-6 hrs. daily. I use large chlorine tabs in my auto-chlorinator and the floater, and if there is heavy rain, i supplement with granular clhlorine. I use cyanuric acid ( dry ) as a stabilizer. it adds alot of life to the chlorine. I also use muriatic acid, and clarifier with algecide. Cannot give you cost of energy since my bill covers everything.
 

donP

Newbie
Dec 14, 2008
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Only Chlorine and Acid

Anybody know what pool maintenance costs should be in terms of chemicals? What are the best regular chemicals to use?

Our pool has approx. 115 cbm (about 30,000 gall.).
It is filtered by two pumps (1.5 and 3/4 HP) and two sand filters (250 litres each) for two hours per day, which keeps the pool water crystal clear.

Next week I need to buy chlorine again (50kg of TCCA 90%) lasts one year.
We use chlorine and '?cido muri?tico' according to test results and experience (water colour, amount of rain, etc.).

donP
 

granca

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Aug 20, 2007
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JDJONES. Pump 1 hour in the morning, 1 hour in the evening. Don't know my electric bill as it is all included in the house.
 

niceguy

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Aug 6, 2011
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Hi
i just a had a conversation with a man TODAY that told me what i needed for my pool (6m*4m+2metres deep).
This man looks after a number of pools.

chloro $750rd (10 pack - of chlorine tabs circular in shape, use 3 per week)= 1000rd for the month
acido- 1 gallon week= 300rd per week= 1200 a month
superblue (water polisher ??)1000rd lasts for 8 weeks= 500rd a mth
algeacide 300rd lasts 8 weeks= 150rd month
tester equipment 300rd a mth

total= $3200rd approx for chemicals= $84mth



labour
this man will attend my pool 3 times a week for 1 hour 150rd a vist * 12 times a month= 1800rd= $50 a month

total= $135 a moth approx
plus electricity for my pool about $80 a month


$220 a mth to run a pool......... again this was based on a conversation with a guy that does this for a living as opposed to a professional company
its a lot of dough... i thought chemicals were way cheaper around $30 a mth but i guess I was wrong
 

holland1974

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Aug 13, 2008
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If you keep your chlorine levels right you will hardly need any other chemicals, I have a 40 000 gallon and rarely spend more then 40 bucks a month and its always clear blue.
 

windeguy

Platinum
Jul 10, 2004
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Only Trichlor in my pool

I only use Trichlor in my 15,000 gallon pool. One cup a day of the granulated and one hockey puck sized tablet in the skimmers. Trichlor already has cyanuric acid in the formulation. On the north coast I have not found "normal" granulated chlorine for a couple of years. Just Trichlor and it works fine for me without anything else being used. You can see my pool at:

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DR1 Rentals: P-187 Best value apartments near Kite Beach Cabarete
 

Olly

Bronze
Mar 12, 2007
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Niceguy ,
Those numbers sound really really high for a 17,000 gal pool.
Windeguy sounds closer - I will try and work out ours as we use different stuff so watch for my next post.

OLLY
 

trangalanga

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Jun 10, 2011
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www.villa-elena-bavaro.com
I agree with many here in that only chlorine and some acid are really required to maintain the pool.

Judging from what you say about your pool, I'd start with the following:

-keep in the "leaf trap" (actually called skimmer) at all times the equivalent of 4 chlorine tablets. If you have more than one skimmer, put some tablets in each to make the total

-add to the water some 300 ml of muriatic acid once a week

-FILTER the water with the pump for at least five hours a day, unless you have a very big filter and powerful pump

Then test your pool twice a week and adjust the amounts of chlorine and acid according to the readings and to what you can see with the naked eye. You may also find that you have to run the pump for a longer time, or the other way around, maybe with a couple of hours a day it will suffice.

Be ambitious about the degree of clarity in the water and ph balance you want, and don't give up until your pool looks absolutely sparkling and transparent. It may take you some months, but once you get the hang of it it's not that difficult.

After a while you can start testing your pool only once a week. I don't reccommend that you do it less often than that during at least the first one or two years.

Finally, there will be times when the aformentioned care is not enough. Some circumstances like heavy rain, use by many people, leafs falling in the water, etc. will make your pool's water turn bad in just one or two days. In those cases you should apply a "chlorine shock", which can be done in a number of different ways. This is how I do it:

-take the same amount of chlorine tablets that your pool needs to have in the skimmers (in the example above, 4)

-grind or pulverise them (put them inside a plastic bag and bang on them with a hammer)

-put the pulverised chlorine in the skimmer/s, and run the pump in "RECIRCULATE" for a couple of hours

In a couple of days, as if magically, your water should look great again.


As for the cost of the chemical products, staying in the initial example, if you had to add two new chlorine tablets a day (it will probably be less) you would be using very roughly some 70 tablets a month including two chlorine shocks (unlikely) at around 35 dop/tablet (you may pay some more or some less), plus two gallons of acid at say 100 dop/gallon (not sure now) the TOTAL COST OF ALL THE CHEMICALS should not be much above 2,500 dop/month. During the first few months this amount coud be significantly higher as you have to experiment a lot.

In my opinion it is better to learn for yourself how the pool works, then you will have greater control over all the costs and procedures.

Feel free to ask for any assistance. I wish I'd had some, I had to learn this online and by trial and error. That's why I understand my methods might not be too orthodox. I am of course also open to any suggestions.
 
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windeguy

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Jul 10, 2004
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trangalanga, where I live in the Cabarete/Sosua area there is no need to grind up the Trichlor hockey puck sized tablets to do the shock treatment because the very same Trichlor is sold in granulated form in 55KG containers. It is by far the most economical method to buy Trichlor in the DR. As I mentioned before, they do not even sell "normal" granulated chlorine in the local pool centers any more. I get by well using one Trichlor tablet in each of two skimmers and adding about a cup of Trichlor every day to a 15,000 gallon pool. With heavy usage of the pool or temps hotter than normal, another cup might be necessary every other day.
 

AJL6767

New member
Apr 14, 2011
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Please note: check the contents carefully..you can get the tablets with up to 90% chlorine, but the granulars usually max out at 65%. Therefore you need more granular to do the same job. Also, Cyanuric acid ( stabilizer) keeps the chlorine effective for a longer time.
 

trangalanga

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Jun 10, 2011
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Thanks for the advice, windeguy. Where I live (as opposed to the apartments I own) someone else takes care of the pool, and he does indeed use granulated stuff. I asked him and he said it is way better. So I guess you are so right.

At the very beginning, when I started taking care of the pools, I used granulated, to no avail. Of course now I realize it was probably not the stuff's fault, but my own inexperience. As I said, I finally got the pool working with the tablets, so I have kept doing it like this out of lazyness, I guess.

I am soon going away for some weeks. When I come back I promise to try the granulated trichlor.

Thanks again!