The pool guy was there, inside the pool spraying muriatic acid. It smelled just like when we had to go into the CS gas chamber during our Army days. The guy didn't even have a face mask or ventilator equipment or anything. He said you get used to the smell after a while. I suspect your lungs and taste buds get destroyed is more like it.
The yellow-ish stuff you see dripping down the pool's walls is the muriatic acid. The guy told us that the acid basically strips away one layer of the cement/pebble finish. Some stains are still a little bit evident, even though they've been acid washed. Our choice is to live with it, or get the pool re-finished.
As you can see from the pictures, the pool is about 6-7 feet deep at its deepest point. It has steps to walk into the shallow end, and also has bench seating in the deep end. The hot tub/spa area has bench seating as well. It's going to be great when it's finally ours!!!!! The pool guy told us that when he drained it, he drained it using a huge pump. He found about 10-12 inches of algae on the bottom (gross!!!) and two turtles. I'm wondering how the turtles got into the screened in enclosure...... makes me wonder what else can get into the screened enclosure..... yuck!
Getting the pool refinished may have to wait till next year... it's about $7000, and we can live with the sand colored pebble finish till then. Who knows, we may grow to like it better. I always pictured a blue pool, but maybe this is what we'll get. Regardless, the bank has paid to have the pool drained and cleaned, and repaired the pool pump for us. We are not about to look a gift horse in the mouth!
In other news, the water is running, which is a very big deal. Now that we have running water, we can actually have the home inspection. It's now scheduled for this Friday, August 6th. I have high hopes that things will turn out great. The house needs work, we know that, but we are pretty sure the work is largely cosmetic in nature. If all goes well, we should be closing on August 27th. Keep your fingers crossed!
