Pool and Money Pits :)

Ever heard the saying, "a pool is like a large hole in your yard that you just throw money into?" Yeah, well, it is kind of accurate. When we bought the house, we were not privy to the issues we were going to have of the pool. The pool was not properly winterized so let's just say it was gross. The previous owners had slung a tarp on it; not an actual pool cover! On top of the tarp, was water a swamp and mosquitoes galore. Our first step was to drain the nasty water. We did this with a sump pump. However, the hose to the sump pump did not want to stay in the pool so we tried to secure it with a cinder block. My mother-in-law and I are in the kitchen trying to square away the shelf liner (see previous post on my hatred of shelf liner) when I notice that I can no longer see the sump pump hose. I run outside to see that it has fallen in the pool and for at least an hour, it has been doing nothing but circulating the already disgusting water in the pool swamp. 

Okay, so now we have all of the water out of the pool, except for the small amount suggested to leave in by other smarter pool owners than ourselves. Now, we have all this NASTY, NASTY, NASTY junk on the bottom of the pool. Junk including: algae, mud, rocks, and even a wrapper or two (what?!?). How in the world do we get the bottom of the pool clean? We are told to scrub and shock the heck out of it. Okay..... So my husband gets in it and begins to scrub away. Yes, that is right! My husband, the once germaphobe gets inside this nastiness (albeit with his socks on) and begins to scrub away and start sucking the nastiness out with a Shop-Vac. The story of my mother in law and I trying to assemble the Shop-Vac is for another day. So as my husband is sucking out the nastiness of this pool swamp, he begins to see these red bugs swimming in the pool. He asks me to Google it and my brother in law discovers that they are blood larva. Now while that sounds very ominous, they were not dangerous to humans. They are related to mosquitoes but they only eat algae. Thank goodness. However, as you can see from the picture above, it does not look like they were doing a very good job.

All right. We have all most of the stuff sucked out of the pool. Now, we have to fill it. Yes, folks, that is right. Even with it looking disgusting, we now have to fill the entire pool to see if the pump works. Now, this is a huge gamble because if the pump and filter do not work, we have to replace that ($$$$$) so we were taking a giant leap of faith to see if all the mechanics of the pool worked. So we fill the pool and this is what it looked like once filled:

It looks like I went to the Ohio River, scooped it up and dumped it into a pool in my backyard. Okay, so now it is filling up. We check the pump. Good news! The pump works. However, the filter part of the pump has a plastic lid that must stay on but guess what? It's broken! Okay, not a big deal, we will replace it. For a whopping $40! A PLASTIC LID!!!! Okay. We purchased it. We think we are in business. Now we notice that there is rust along the frame where the return box is. The return box is moving away from the frame which is causing the water to leak out of the pool. All right. Now we need to fix it. 

So my husband and his uncle devise a plan to fix the rusted area. They purchase a piece of sheet metal and cut out a new hole for the return box. They secure it and voila, it is fixed. Then they use sealant to secure the area and make sure no leaks occur. Now this has all been fixed. The frame and liner are secure. We start to get a closer look at the hoses and realize they need to be replaced because the elbows and other areas are leaking. We go to Lowes for the 189th time in two days and buy the pieces needed for the repair. All that is secure. Starting to see a pattern? Oh I forgot to mention that we had to drain half the pool (yes, after filling the whole flippin' thing up) in order to pull back the pool liner and fix the rusted area! Now, we refill the pool. We bought tons of shock. We begin to shock the pool while still sucking out the nastiness. All the time we are vacuuming out the pool, we have to have new water being put into the pool. $$$$$$$$$$$$!!!! 

Within 15 minutes of putting the shock into the pool and vacuuming it out, our green, swampy water begins to turn a cloudy blue. YAY! Progress! By day two or three, I am able to put my feet in! PROGRESS again!!

Within a week, all our hard work began to pay off. It took us a total of 3 weeks to get it up and working and crystal clear but it was well worth the wait. 

Needless to say, I have been in this pool almost every day. It was worth the trouble but I am still scared to see the water bill. I hope I'm not home that day ;)

Until next time.....stay classy :)