Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought the K-2006 kit 2 years ago after being recommended it from users on a pool forum. Over 3 years ago, I bought a house with an inground 30,000gal pool and was clueless about pools, as I'd never owned one before. The previous home owners had hired a pool company to take care of the pool so when I called them to ask about them continuing to service it, the monthly amount was way higher than I'd expected ($300 per month) I decided that I'd try it myself. The previous owners had the pool crystal clear for us when we took ownership but after a few days it started getting cloudy. I took a sample of the water to the local pool supply store and $320 dollars later I walked out with a bunch of crap that I had no idea was for. The instructions were wrote down for me but it involved a lot of different chemicals "to get my numbers in check". I don't remember the specifics but I was told to add these chemicals in a certain order, shock, then backwash, rinse, scrub then vacuum, then add this other chemical, let it sit for 3 hours then backwash etc etc The water was actually worse than when I started it....Once complete, the pool store told me to get another sample of the water and bring it back to them. On the second trip, I walked out with 3 more types of chemicals that was nearly $100 and I followed the instructions the pool place wrote down for me to do but the water only got worse. At this point I was getting pretty annoyed and did what I would have normally done with anything else I didn't understand. I took to the web and found a pool forum and from there I was introduced to something called the BBB method which uses bleach, borax, and baking soda. Each one of those has a specific purpose on balancing your water that I won't go into here. I took pictures of all the chemicals Id bought in the last 2 weeks and what the pool company told me my numbers were and learned that half the junk they sold me was nothing more than crap that in most cases would only make your pool worse. They first had me buy my own testing kit (Taylor K-2006) and once I got it in to run a few specific test and post the numbers. A few days later I reported back with the numbers that I got by testing the water myself and the forums members told me exactly what to add to get my pool on the right track.. I believe i had to add a little baking soda, and then a few bottle of bleach and keep my free chlorine 2.0-4.0 ppm at all times. Within a week the pool became CRYSTAL clear and to keep it maintained I found myself adding 1 gallon of 6% bleach every 2-3 days and was able to find bleach onside for $1.50-$2.50 so I was looking at $3-$6 dollars a week basically. I started testing 2-3 times a week but once I started understanding what the pool wanted, I tested weekly. I used the "BBB" method for the rest of the year and the following year after that and the water stayed clear 24/7 and now I'm about to begin getting it ready again this year. Id recommend doing some reading on understanding the BBB method more in depth but I can even explain how great it's been and how much money it's saved. I think most pool places are shady and try to suck all the money they can out of pool owners, especially new ones because 99% of that extra crap they try to sell you is just that....crap. Just remember this, a clean healthy pool doesn't make a pool company money.