Well, here I go. The owner of AAM Company asked me to come up with a few good articles about pools. My name is Max and I have been working in the pool industry for about 12 years now. I have installed thousands of liners and hundreds of both in-ground vinyl pools and above ground pools. I am the lead service tech over at AAM and oversee the installation crews to make sure that the job is done right… the first time.
My first article, using vinyl safe chlorine, is probably going to be the most important article in the whole blog. Year after year, I see liners that are totally destroyed from using the wrong chemicals – mainly the chlorine!!! Vinyl liners for in-ground pools should last you anywhere between 8 to 10 years. Above ground liners should last you around 5 to 7 years. Liners that have been subjected to the wrong type of chlorine, usually need to be replaced about 1 to 3 years. The signs of extreme chemical abuse are faded colors and the vinyl is very brittle.
Usually, when people buy a new vinyl liner pool, the salesman doesn’t tell them about the different chemicals that are out there. We make it a point at AAM to make sure the customer knows which chemicals are vinyl safe. Every liner or pool installation I did, I wrote on the service ticket in huge, underlined letters USE DI-CHLOR CHLORINE AND DO NOT USE CAL-HYPO.
(Sodium dichloro-s -triazinetrione) or Di-chlor for short, is the chlorine you MUST USE for all vinyl pools! Di-Chlor is fast dissolving – It will not sit on the vinyl and eat away at it.
(Calcium Hypochlorite) or Cal-Hypo for short, is the chlorine use must STAY AWAY FROM. This is classified as an “extreme oxidizer” and bleaches very well, hence the fading vinyl. Cal-Hypo is not fast dissolving and will sit and eat away at your liner. Cal-Hypo is ok for gunite pools because it can sit on the plaster coating. Now, if you are using Cal-Hypo, don’t freak out. Just make sure the next time you add chlorine to your pool, you use DI-CHLOR.
Also, do not throw chlorine tabs directly into the pool. They will sit there and cause what we call “chemical burn.”
Here is what chemical burn looks like.
Hope this article has helped. Remember VINYL = DI-CHLOR CHLORINE.
