[Tbear]

Thanks for all the replies. I agree that the ladies at T&D colony are very nice and helpful as well as those at Southern Trace. Unfortunately their testing equipment is giving them the wrong information so their advice is inadvertently misguided. My comments are no way a reflection on the people, but they can be no better than the process they use to evaluate your water.

I thought about calling T&D service and ask them to ' fix ' my water but quite frankly I don't know who owns these stores and how they are interconnected with the service company under the T&D name. It just seemed easier and faster to fix it myself.

I do plan to buy a good Taylor kit when I return in September. In the meantime I am going to give Sparkling Waters a shot at caring for the pool over the summer. They take care of a neighbors pool and my neighbors is pleased with them so far.

[Bogie Shooter]

Originally Posted by Tbear

Thanks for all the replies. I agree that the ladies at T&D colony are very nice and helpful as well as those at Southern Trace. Unfortunately their testing equipment is giving them the wrong information so their advice is inadvertently misguided. My comments are no way a reflection on the people, but they can be no better than the process they use to evaluate your water.

I thought about calling T&D service and ask them to ' fix ' my water but quite frankly I don't know who owns these stores and how they are interconnected with the service company under the T&D name. It just seemed easier and faster to fix it myself.

I do plan to buy a good Taylor kit when I return in September. In the meantime I am going to give Sparkling Waters a shot at caring for the pool over the summer. They take care of a neighbors pool and my neighbors is pleased with them so far.

And what did the ladies say when you told them their equipment was faulty?

[Tbear]

In a calm and friendly voice I just told them that they really messed me up on my last visit. They really didn't know what to say but suggested that they manually check the stabilizer on this visit. The manual reading was 60 and their machine reading was 51 which wasn't too far apart.... By the way, 60 matched the reading I had just gotten from testing the same water at Pinch a Penny.

My point with all of this is that in my opinion Pinch a Penny that uses wet chemistry testing is more accurate and reliable than strip testing with machines that detect colors shades. As a result, I just don't have a lot of faith that the machines in either of T&D's stores are as accurate.

As I said in a previous post, pools are pretty forgiving and plus or minus 20% or so is probably close enough to keep water clear and safe. Unfortunately for me, the original stabilizer reading I was given was 40 vs 104 which resulted in me having to replace 2000 gallons of water. Lessons learned for me is to get a second opinion before adding stabilizer ( as well as salt ) since the only remedy is replacing water to bring the values down if they are inadvertently overdosed.