Whoa! Didja get the numbers off that truck?!?

April 22, 2002 - 6:32 p.m.

Chemistry

I know I know it's Brass Monkey weather here now. But last week was balmy and eighties and the cover on my pool was acting like a slutty teen porno movie.

"Take me off! Take me off!"

It was speaking in a sultry tone as pool covers are known to do. I justified this action as prudent because you never know when the pool is gonna bloom and go green under that cover without your knowledge. Plus it has the appeal of a serious wound and you've been given strict doctors orders to keep it covered and you've been so good, but you just wanna take the bandage off and see how it's doing.

I had that cover off inside of ten minutes.

The water's fine. A bit cloudy but not a speck of algae. I rule.

I cleaned off the cover, dried it and put it away. End of story, right?

Part of the Pool Start Up Ceremony is the Pickling of The Filter. Where I live the water's as hard as nails. Hayward suggests you treat the filter to an acid bath to clean the mineral deposits off the filter tubes once a year. Last year's pickling was a bit extreme because the mixture I cooked up was four times as strong as it should have been. The filter was fine, but part of my basement floor was left etched to a clean new concrete look! Which isn't all bad...

I did it right this year. Adding muriatic acid to water definitely has that "Mad Scientist" feel to it because the vapors collect over the water in a haze as the sulphuric acid devours all the minerals in its path. It kinda takes your breath away too.

Okay, filter's all clean. We should wait to put it all together until May, right?

Next day I was out there with the hose, re-filling the pool (I poured off about a foot last fall... one foot equals about 2000 gallons) I re-assembled the filter too.

Remember when I said the water's hard as nails around here? I never dealt with the alkalinity. That makes the pH hard to adjust.

Have I bored you yet? Here's the fun part. To reduce the alkalinity, you add muriatic acid to the water! Woo hoo, more Mad Scientist stuff! I dumped a gallon of acid into the water, and a day later it reduced the alkalinity to 180 ppm. Dump another gallon in!

Less is more. I softened that water almost too much. But it recovered to about 100 ppm, which is perfect. The pH is off the scale in the acidic direction but lots of soda ash will fix that.

Because the air temp is about 48 degrees, I'm in no real hurry to balance the water. No one will be using it any time soon.

Coming soon: Dog $hit.

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