Pool Maintenance Guide

The Basic Components of a Swimming Pool

Like most major home improvements, you can get as fancy as you like with your swimming pool. You can add advanced heating and lighting, install high-tech pool covers, and even enjoy music while you swim with underwater pool speakers. But whether you have a basic backyard pool or a massive inground oasis shaped like Elvis, every pool has four components that need regular care to keep the good times rollin’.

These include:

• The pool’s water
• The pool’s interior wall or liner
• The pool’s filter system
• The pool’s system of skimmers and returns

The Three C’s of Proper Pool Maintenance

The foundation of effective pool care is built on three simple but important concepts: circulation, cleaning, and chemistry.

1. Good Water Circulation

Even if you never set foot in a Scout meeting as a kid, you probably know that stagnant, still water is (to borrow a term from our own childhoods) goody to the max. In your pool, as in the great outdoors, moving water is cleaner, clearer, and safer. Proper pool circulation is key to healthy and safe swimming. A pool with good circulation rarely has issues like cloudy water or pool algae infestation. Keep your pump and filter system running daily to maximize circulation.

How long should you run your pool pump? Ideally, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But since that’s not feasible for everyone’s budget or equipment, we recommend running your filter at least 10 to 12 hours a day. That’ll turn the water over a few times and help keep your pool safe and clean.

The other key component to good pool circulation is frequently backwashing your filter. Forget notions of “floaties” in your drink. In this case, backwashing refers to reversing the flow of water through your filter and shunting the dirty water and built-up contaminants to the waste port, carrying them out of your pool. If you’re not sure how to clean a pool filter, it’s imperative to learn and make it part of your regular pool care routine.

Tip: If your pool has a sand filter, add a cup of D.E. powder to boost its filtering power. Cloudy water will clear more quickly as the D.E. aids your sand filter in straining fine particles.

2. A Pool Cleaning Schedule

If it has proper circulation, you’ve already made cleaning your pool much easier. But you’ll still need to apply some good old-fashioned elbow grease. The basic tools you’ll need are:

• Net skimmer
• Pool brush
• Pool vacuum

Both Mother Nature and the folks using your pool bring all sorts of wild and wacky things into your pool, from leaves, mould, and the odd duck or frog to residues from shampoos, perfumes, and hair products. Add in the risks of bacterial contamination, and cleaning your pool becomes an essential part of safe swimming.

Skim, brush, and vacuum your pool weekly, at a minimum. This will keep debris out of your water, and your walls sparkling clean. Baking soda paste works particularly well as a basic scouring cleaner that won’t damage delicate tile or a vinyl liner when you brush.

An automatic pool cleaner can significantly cut your pool cleaning time. It won’t eliminate the need for regular skimming and brushing, but it’ll make both tasks easier, freeing you up to spend time enjoying your pool instead of cleaning it.

You can also make your cleaning life easier with a few unorthodox additions to your pool. Toss a few tennis balls into your skimmer basket, or even right into the pool, and they’ll absorb surface oils left behind by suntan lotion, cosmetics, etc. You can also wrap your skimmer baskets with pantyhose to create an extra-fine filter that’ll catch more contaminants than a skimmer alone.

Simply replace both the tennis balls and the pantyhose when they start to show signs of wear.

3. Balancing Your Water Chemistry

Step away from the Bunsen burner. Pool chemistry might sound intimidating and complicated, but you don’t have to worry. While it is an essential part of effective pool maintenance and water care, basic pool chemistry is surprisingly straightforward.

The most important tool in your bag of water care tricks is your water testing kit. You wouldn’t season your stew without tasting it. So, before you reach for the chemicals, do some pool water testing. Understanding what’s in your water, and what isn’t, is the first step to balancing it.

The three most important parts of pool water chemistry are:

• pH levels: The measure of how acidic or basic your pool water is. Low pH levels are acidic, while high levels are basic. The ideal range for your pool is 7.4 to 7.6.
• Alkalinity: Works as a pH buffer and helps avoid huge spikes in basicity or acidity. The ideal range is 100 to 150 parts per million (ppm). And you can use baking soda to increase your pool’s alkalinity level.
• Sanitizer levels: The amount of chlorine, bromine, etc. in your pool water. Proper levels vary depending on which type of sanitizer you choose.

Once you know your pH, alkalinity, and sanitizer levels, you can start to add chemicals to tweak your water balance. Take your time, follow all the directions, and be sure you know what each chemical does and how it’ll affect the water, and the folks who swim in it before you add it.

Make sure when you get it checked that you correct any issues before you go. You want to make sure that your pH and alkalinity are properly balanced, and your sanitizers levels are correct:

• pH:4 to 7.6
• Alkalinity: 100 parts per million (ppm) to 150 ppm, with 125 ppm being ideal
• Calcium Hardness: 175 ppm to 225 ppm, or 200 ppm to 275 ppm for concrete and plaster pools
• For Chlorine Pools: 1 ppm to 3 ppm
• For Bromine Pools: 3 ppm to 5 ppm
• For Biguanide Pools: 30 ppm to 50 ppm
• For Saltwater Pools:5 ppm of chlorine
• For Mineral System Pools:5 ppm of chlorine
• Also, make sure your pool is clean and crystal clear before you leave.