Ecosmart Pool REDEEMED!

I blogged a few months ago about my Ecosmart pool. I was super happy with it, but then someone asked me for an update, and I was really upset with the struggle I was having. I was really thinking there was something wrong with the product.

The short story is that was not the case! It took some digging for their wonderful support people to help me uncover the issue, but we are back on track and loving it!

Here is the fuller story.

This is our first pool. Neither of us have any pool experience so it's been a steep learning curve. Couple that with trying to learn a unique system so the advice at the pool store when we're picking up products is confusing, and, well, you can see it's hard on a newbie. At first, I was calling them up quite a bit. We had stopped using a pool service when we bought the house and it took me a few weeks at least to decide on the Ecosmart system. So by the time we got it, the pool was pretty green. After a few miraculous phone calls and trips to the pool supply store, it was back to stunning blue and ran smoothly the rest of the first year.

Over the winter, we got tired of paying for the pool pump so we stopped running it. We figured that the pool could recover from being a swamp.

Not really.

We tested and had a few phone sessions with their support and it appeared we were getting somewhere. We had a blue pool three times. Each time, it cost us at least $60 in products. And each time, it started going green again within a day. It never tested algae free and we never got the numbers right.

The last guy we spoke with said to start diluting the water because the copper levels were too high. Now, I don't know how you're supposed to drain a pool. Maybe you're supposed to go rent a pump from the pool supply store. I just went the cheapie route. For a few days, I continued to run the pump while refilling the pool and draining off the top few inches. I had to dig up the drain line and attach a hose to it so I could drain it to different places each time. After no progress, it occurred to me to turn off the pump, put the hose to the bottom, and let the water be stagnent, only draining off undiluted water from the top. This went on a few more days and when I thought I saw the color start to get lighter, I started up the pump again.

The next day, the water was clear! Still green, but clear!

The next day, aqua!

The third day, blue! Crystal clear beautiful blue!

And we added no chemicals. We have been sweeping it and scooping out debris. We feel like we are finally getting a handle on the pool monster.

Next year, I think we may do this by design. I'm going to ask them what they think. I'd rather spend a week draining off and replacing the green swamp than running the pump and testing all winter. Emptying the basket in the cold is particularly nasty. It's warm enough here that we don't close down the pool but cold enough that we have many nights below freezing.

Anyway, I'm thrilled with this system, again, and my husband is so happy with me.

I recently read this book that has helped me understand basic pool maintenance. According to that book, you need to shock your pool every 2 weeks and put chemicals in weekly. I could be wrong, but I think we won't have to do all that. We shall see!