The Sun Oil issue

For anything to do with the garden and pool
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joddle
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The Sun Oil issue

Post by joddle »

As the summers have been getting warmer we have noticed more frequent issues with our pool when guests ignore the "please shower before bathing" signs and use the pool anyway. The result is always the same - green cloudy water and a nasty yellow ring on the tiles which our pool man is forever complaining about and now guests are complaining about the colour of the water after they have been there a week or so. The pool man does not like to over chemicalise the water but has to flock every time we get the sun oil in the water so it seems a vicious circle. Despite copious notes in our welcome pack and general instructions leaflet, and notices in the villa, some people seem not to think that for the most part it is their own actions causing the problem! - so how do we convince them otherwise?

We have considered either retaining part of the deposit when more than normal attention is required in the pool (we have to pay for any addition visits by the pool man) or having the pool man "close" the pool if the water gets too cloudy - but would rather they simply did not contaminate the water so much in the first place. How do others cope with this? - and if global warming is going to make summers even hotter I think the issue will get worse.
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SPJ
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Post by SPJ »

I'm not technical so maybe someone else will come along who knows the technical issues with pools, but I don't understand why sun oil is causing your pool water to go green? That sounds more to me like your pool man isn't putting in enough chemicals or he's not running the pool pump long enough to circulate the water.

We use floc "bars" in the skimmer and have small "daisies" that are supposed to take the oil out. Cleaning the tide mark is part of our service.

The reality is people won't shower before they swim - why should they if they are lying on a sunbed on the water they want to be protected? So maybe there's a way for you to get better service from your pool man? And if it means more visits surely that's a matter of increasing your price accordingly. I don't think "punishing" your guests by retaining their deposit or closing your pool is the way to go. Surely they are there to enjoy your facilities. Sorry if this sounds harsh.
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joddle
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Post by joddle »

The water certainty does go greenish when there is sun oil contamination - quite a change from the normal rich blue colour; but more obvious is that is becomes more cloudy too. Our circulation pump is set to come on for an hour in the mornings and again in the evenings which up until recently seems to have been quite enough - maybe we need to adjust that so I will speak with the pool guy about that. I notice he does put floc bars in the skimmer but know nothing re the daisies - I will have to look into those too.

After just a few days with one set of guests the tide mark was very pronounced and really off-putting and very yellow and the water very cloudy. It took over two days to get the water looking anything like good again.

I agree - and don't want to penalise the guests but then again I don't want more complaints so maybe we will have to get him to visit more than he does now - and of course we will have to pass that cost on to our guests in our pricing.
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SPJ
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Post by SPJ »

I'm astonished that you are running your pump for such a short period in hot weather. Is this the recommendation of your pool man? The advice from the pool expert in our local pool shop is to take the temperature of the pool and halve it and that should be the number of hours the pump should be running. This year the temperature in our pool reached 40. We didn't run the pump for 20 hours, but did run it for 12.
Just talked to OH and he says the daisies are very important.
Mind you, we're fortunate. we're on site and he cleans the pool every day.
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joddle
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Post by joddle »

That is very interesting re pump running - and something I must check with the pool man. Normally I am only there in the winter months so perhaps the two hours a day was only for that period but I will have to ask him how long the pump is running now when we have guests but he is a very experience person and has been doing the job for 15 years for us and well known in the area so I assume he knows what he is doing! Will also mention the daisies!
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SPJ
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Post by SPJ »

Just another thought about the daisies. They need to be changed as soon as they change colour - they go yellowish. And if your pool guy is only there once a week and the pool is being used a lot they probably should be changed every one to two days. Take the old one out of the skimmer, put a new one in. Can you trust your guests to do that?

We don't ask our guests to shower, but we do have this paragraph in our information pack:

Some gite owners ask guests who use sun tan lotions and creams to shower before swimming. We realise this is not practical and also means you do not have protection while in the water. So, if you use sun protection products when in our pool, we’d be grateful if you could use dry mist products and apply them at least half an hour before entering the pool. This practice is the best way of getting and keeping sun protection and also it does not wash off in the pool, which is unpleasant for users of the pool and permanently stains the liner. Thank you for your help in keeping our pool pristine.
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Mouse
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Post by Mouse »

Just to add to SPJs advice.....we have our pool pump running 6hrs a day in high season and ours is only a 10x5m pool.
So I think that may be your problem.

We have had cloudy water but only when the temps have been exceptional or we have had a lot of sun lotion due to a lot of people. Only 1 year have we had a yellow mark, which we scrubbed, and we cater mainly for families which usually coat their kids in lotion.

Sometimes we get an oily sheen on the surface and we remove this by putting in a tiny amount if fairy liquid...as recommended by our pool man.

On the occasions we have had cloudy water we leave the pump on all the time and it clears in 36hrs.

Joddle I think your pool mans advice might be the issue.

Mousie
x
p.s. our pool guy comes only once a week and is done in 10 mins.
SW31
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Post by SW31 »

We run our system, including the heat pump which cuts off at 28c, for 22 hours each day. We regularly change those daisies. When we think we’re going to have more people who are going to be heavy pool users we change from Bayrol 5 to Bayrol 7 which is good for dealing with suntan cream in the sand filters. We also add a little Bayrol shine stuff.
Ok, it’s heavy on branded products but our water is crystal clear all the time. We’ve learnt the hard way not to cut corners as it works out more expensive trying to undo the damage!
LotBoy47
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Post by LotBoy47 »

OP: What is the capacity of your pool and what flow rate does your pump have?

Temp / 2 = pump run time is a good rule of thumb. Run it 24/7 if you have oily swimmer in it all day and Backwash the filter as required.

Daisies or ScumBugs are highly recommended. Bin when discoloured.

So is putting a 250g 5 function tablet in each skimmer basket and adding new ones when the previous on is worn down to the size of a Ritz cracker.

Shock your pool weekly overnight with the pool valve in the Recirculate position as you want the chlorine in the water, not the filter. Shocking during the day or when the pH is too high is just wasting money.
Dusty
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Post by Dusty »

I am with the others, running your pool for just 2 hours a day is insufficient, we have been running our pool for over 6 years and have never had a problem. When we took it over we were given this table to equate water temp to pump time.

Water Temp °C Hours
0 -12 --------------- 2
13 - 16 ------------ 4
17 - 22 ----------- 8
22 - 25------------ 10
26 - 30----------- 15 - 20
30+ ------------- 20 - 23

And we backwash every week.
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joddle
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Post by joddle »

Seems I have much to learn - thanks to all who have made suggestions. In fact the issue I had last week was not due to sun oil but the very heavy rain which diluted the water so much the chlorine levels went way down. As it was raining so hard the pool was not checked for several days so the problem went un-noticed.

I have now checked with my poolman and he does in fact have the pump running way much more than two hours in the hotter weather - its only 2 hours when no one is using the pool in the winter just to keep it clear - and thats the time I am normally there!
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SPJ
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Post by SPJ »

Very heavy rain!!! Oooh I envy you. We haven't had rain for weeks. Looks more like Greece than SW France at the moment.
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joddle
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Post by joddle »

SPJ wrote:Very heavy rain!!! Oooh I envy you. We haven't had rain for weeks. Looks more like Greece than SW France at the moment.
If you had seen the news here you would not!!! Massive floods, whole towns destroyed people homeless and thousands of cars wrecked! Google Alicante floods and see!
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SPJ
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Post by SPJ »

Oh, so sorry, I was being flippant - most inappropriate. I tend not to watch the news these days - sick and tired of Brexit / Trump / Brazil / etc /etc when there are so many other important things to be dealing with - like weather/climate change! Sorry you've been through it.
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joddle
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Post by joddle »

Dont worry - no offence taken - its just that although here the recent storms have been major news much like Brexit is in the UK, from looking at UK TV it seems the rest of the world is almost unaware of the actual scale of the issue here. Just shows how the media only feeds us the news they want us to hear!!
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