Pool Service Recommendations (Austin, Bee Cave, Cool: landscaping, buy, construction)

[Eastcoasting]

It will soon be that time of year again and my frugality is at loggerheads with my lazosity, I handled the maintenance last year but I would rather kick back a bit more this year.

Does anyone have a pool service that they would care to recommend and if it's not asking too much a dollar amount would be welcome, I'd be having the pool Co. use their own chemicals (unless there is a compelling reason not to).

I'm out Bee Cave way if that matters.

Thanks

[iamwayne]

Leslie's Pool Supply at Oak Hill 6330 U.S. 290
Ask for Jerry. I believe and he can help you out.

Warehouse Pool on 5400 Brodie Ln might be able to help you too.

Depends on how far you want to drive...

[Eastcoasting]

Originally Posted by iamwayne

Leslie's Pool Supply at Oak Hill 6330 U.S. 290
Ask for Jerry. I believe and he can help you out.

Warehouse Pool on 5400 Brodie Ln might be able to help you too.

Depends on how far you want to drive...

Thanks for the names.

To be honest I don't want to drive at all I want a company to come out clean the pool and balance the chems.

Just hoping for a ballpark dollar amount and some recs for reliable companys.

[Austin97]

read troublefreepool.com

I have a 15 gallon brewers tank with a stenner pump which pumps bleach into the pool. I fill the tank once every 3 weeks in the summer and once every 6 weeks in the winter.

I add half a gallon of acid once a week

I test chemicals about once a month (although in the beginning I tested multiple times/day for a few weeks until I felt like I knew what I was doing).

Chemical balance takes about 5 minutes a week (add acid and measure pH and FC) and about 10 minutes to fill the tank with bleach every 3 weeks.

We dont have a lot of trees around the pool so the polaris plus emptying skimmers once a month is sufficient.

Pool stores are extremely bad with measuring your pool chemistry. They also recommend that you buy all sorts of chemicals to fix problems that they cause with their bad measurements. My daughters science experiment was to go to pool stores with samples with known amounts of chemicals including two identical samples and all the samples had a huge variance in test results, including the identical samples.

You only need bleach and muriatic acid on a regular basis and cyanuric acid once every few years.
--------

The problem with pool companies is that they will use pucks because they can only come out once a week. Pucks add 2 parts of cyanuric acid for 3 ppm of chlorine. During the summer you will burn about 3ppm of chlorine per day. Once your cyanuric acid gets above 60-70 you need more and more chlorine to have the same effect (it protects chlorine from the sun but makes the chlorine less effective. 40-50ppm CYA is good for austin). Adding 2ppm/day of CYA means that within 2-3 months you will need to drain 50% of your pool.

If ever had agae problems, needed phUp, algaecide, floc, shock, drained your pool etc. Then you were being sold chemicals that you didnt need by the pool store.

ill add that pucks are great in places that get a lot of rain so the cyanuric acid gets diluted, or in areas where you winterize your pool by draining a significant amount. In texas pucks are very bad.

[centralaustinite]

I assume these guys will go out to Bee Caves. They seem to care for every single pool in NW Austin!

Hines Pool & Spa | Pool service - Pool cleaning, repair & remodeling

[iamwayne]

I mean go to those stores in person and ask them for referrals. Since some work for certain pool service companies they can't really advertise they do pool service in their spare time or something, forgot... ;P

[Eastcoasting]

Originally Posted by Austin97

read troublefreepool.com

I have a 15 gallon brewers tank with a stenner pump which pumps bleach into the pool. I fill the tank once every 3 weeks in the summer and once every 6 weeks in the winter.

I add half a gallon of acid once a week

I test chemicals about once a month (although in the beginning I tested multiple times/day for a few weeks until I felt like I knew what I was doing).

Chemical balance takes about 5 minutes a week (add acid and measure pH and FC) and about 10 minutes to fill the tank with bleach every 3 weeks.

We dont have a lot of trees around the pool so the polaris plus emptying skimmers once a month is sufficient.

Pool stores are extremely bad with measuring your pool chemistry. They also recommend that you buy all sorts of chemicals to fix problems that they cause with their bad measurements. My daughters science experiment was to go to pool stores with samples with known amounts of chemicals including two identical samples and all the samples had a huge variance in test results, including the identical samples.

You only need bleach and muriatic acid on a regular basis and cyanuric acid once every few years.
--------

The problem with pool companies is that they will use pucks because they can only come out once a week. Pucks add 2 parts of cyanuric acid for 3 ppm of chlorine. During the summer you will burn about 3ppm of chlorine per day. Once your cyanuric acid gets above 60-70 you need more and more chlorine to have the same effect (it protects chlorine from the sun but makes the chlorine less effective. 40-50ppm CYA is good for austin). Adding 2ppm/day of CYA means that within 2-3 months you will need to drain 50% of your pool.

If ever had agae problems, needed phUp, algaecide, floc, shock, drained your pool etc. Then you were being sold chemicals that you didnt need by the pool store.

ill add that pucks are great in places that get a lot of rain so the cyanuric acid gets diluted, or in areas where you winterize your pool by draining a significant amount. In texas pucks are very bad.

Thanks for the feedback I'll definitely have a good look at this if I decide to go it alone again this summer.

[Eastcoasting]

Originally Posted by iamwayne

I mean go to those stores in person and ask them for referrals. Since some work for certain pool service companies they can't really advertise they do pool service in their spare time or something, forgot... ;P

Ahhh, i thought I was missing something. Thanks!

[Eastcoasting]

Originally Posted by centralaustinite

I assume these guys will go out to Bee Caves. They seem to care for every single pool in NW Austin!

Hines Pool & Spa | Pool service - Pool cleaning, repair & remodeling

Cool, thanks.

[WDS12]

We use Designer Pools & Outdoor Living (they do everything from full services, to custom pool design and construction, landscaping, etc. You can find them at Designer Pools & Outdoor Living of Austin, Texas | Home (plus, they are great people with integrity!). Hope this helps!