Clean swimming pools allow you to spend more time swimming and making memories with family and friends, but maintaining its beauty requires regular upkeep.
To maintain optimal water chemistry levels for cleaning and sanitizing chemicals to work effectively, it is crucial that your water chemistry be regularly assessed and balanced by testing and balancing its pH, total alkalinity, calcium hardness levels. Doing this ensures they function as they were intended.
1. Keep Your Water Levels High
An inviting pool provides the ideal setting for barbecues, swimming lessons and creating lasting memories with family and friends. However, in order to make any backyard party truly successful you need sparkling pool water; and to achieve this you must keep up with routine maintenance and cleaning services.
One essential step is regularly checking the water levels. If they drop too low, this could indicate a leak which can ruin your summer getaway, cost more in repairs, and even compromise your health.
To check your water level, simply stand near your pool and eyeball the height. For additional accuracy, use either a multiport valve/drainage port/submersible pump. Don’t forget to also regularly test and add chemicals as necessary to maintain balanced PH levels for best results!
2. Check Your Pump
Your pool is being heavily utilized all summer long by family and friends; therefore, its pump should always function optimally to move any debris to the skimmer for safe removal from your pool.
Make sure that the pressure gauge on your filter is recording water flow at an acceptable level; low pressure could put undue strain on the filter and shorten its lifespan.
If your pump loses prime and then recovers, this indicates a leak or blockage on the suction side. To remedy this problem, unclog your line, inspect lid o-rings for damage, and secure lid back securely before reinstalling lid.
Water that circulates properly will have balanced chemicals that help fight algae. If you find algae on your swimmers, toys, or in the skimmer, circulation could be an issue.
3. Clean the Filter
Filtration systems are an integral component of keeping your pool sparklingly clean and beautiful, from microbes such as pollen to visible leaves and hair ties. Filtration systems must remain clear to remain efficient. But over time they may become blocked with debris trapped on or within them which reduces efficiency; to avoid this happening regularly backwashing or cleaning (within recommended water usage guidelines) of both sand filters and cartridge filters will help.
Professional-grade telescopic poles make this task simpler, while brushing the interior surface of your pool occasionally will loosen dirt and algae accumulations. Hurley recommends shocking the pool periodically with high concentration sanitizer to eliminate any remaining contaminants and keep water properly balanced to prevent eye and skin irritation, equipment damage or equipment malfunctions.
4. Clean the Pool Surface
The pool is the epicenter of summer fun, yet can also become the source of much dirt and filth. Both mother nature and swimmers may deposit leaves, insects, sunscreen products and sebum into its waters – creating an unpleasant swimming experience and leaving behind residue behind on its surfaces.
At least once every week, skim and brush the surface of your pool with special care taken to reach into corners and steps. Use a brush suitable for either unpainted concrete, fiberglass, or vinyl pool walls when doing this task.
If your pool seems to be losing more water than usual, use this simple test to see whether the cause lies with evaporation or leaks. For more information, contact one of the pool professionals in-store!
5. Turn Your Pump On
Establishing a swimming pool requires regular cleaning, testing and monitoring of water chemistry as well as basic maintenance tasks to avoid issues and keep your pool sparkling and inviting all summer long. Staying on top of these tasks will help to avoid potential problems with the system as well as ensure its continued enjoyment!
Maintaining constant water circulation also aids in keeping your pool clean, helping prevent the formation of bacteria and algae blooms that could make the pool appear contaminated or murky.
Skimming should be done regularly to maintain crystal-clear water, with an empty skimmer basket. Brushing regularly using an effective and high quality brush is another great way to keep a pool looking its best. Finally, adding an oxidizer such as BioGuard Lite once every week to remove swimmer wastes and organic contaminants from the water is ideal – swimmers can return just an hour post application!
