How many times have your plans been messed up by a dirty pool? You probably have called your friends, gotten your goggles and swimwear ready, all ready for a fun, nice pool party only for you to get to the pool and realize the water is smelly. Disappointing, right? Yeah, but you know pools don’t maintain themselves. As a matter of fact, the fact that the water is mostly stationed in a confined space makes it prone to all kinds of germs and contaminants if proper cleaning is not done frequently and properly.
Pools are pretty much like cars, it needs maintenance to be at its best for you all the time. This is why it is important to know and understand the steps for your pool cleaning so that you won’t have to go through disappointments when you need your pool. It’s pretty much easy when you know how your pool works and how to take care of it; you will know exactly how to plan for it and how to fix any problem that may arise. Pool maintenance begins with knowing your pool. Every pool has got 4 components or parts that need regular and proper care to keep the pool healthy:
- The water
- The interior wall or liner
- The pool’s skimmer’s system and returns; and
- The pool’s filter system
All four parts of your pool need to be maintained periodically to keep your pool sparkling and clean for swimming.
Keep your eyes on the PH level of the pool water
The water in your pool needs proper cleaning and balancing with the right chemicals to protect it from pollutants and contaminants. If your water is not taken care of periodically, it will eventually cost you a lot more to do hardware repairs that will arise from corrosion or buildup of minerals on the pool liners. So the key instruction here is to keep your water balanced, clear and clean with the right chemicals. Chlorine mixed with Cyanuric acid is perfect for this purpose. There are also other chemicals you can buy and just pour into your pool water periodically to ensure it keeps sparkling.
This should be a weekly routine. With the help of water testing kits, and there are many of them available online that you can buy, you will be able to check the total alkalinity, PH level, chlorine level, calcium hardness level of your pool water and be able to keep them at the acceptable levels at all time. Although you can also choose to carry out the water test before using the pool, we feel it is not necessary. Another way to ensure your water is always clean is to add algaecide. Algaecide or algicide as it is otherwise known as is a biocide that is used in killing and preventing the growth of algae on the pool water. When you read more and do your research about algaecide, you’ll find that there are actually many algaecides available in the market, and the key to choosing which one is the best is to know how each work and their benefits in killing off algae from your pool water. A little research on the Internet will show you which of the many available algaecides you should consider buying for your pool.
The Walls or Liner
The interior wall or liner of your pool is in constant contact with the water and just like you know, everything goes into the pool. If the surfaces are not in good condition, algae, mold, and debris will begin to gather, making the pool a terrible sight. So you need to keep the walls or liner clean all the time. Basically, if the water is clean all the time, you will have a healthy pool wall.
The Skimmers and Returns
Beyond the water and the walls of your pool, the skimmers and returns are a system connected to the pool that helps to keep the pool water clean. You can say they are like the veins and arteries of the pool. The skimmers pull water into the filter for cleaning, while the returns help to push the cleaned water back into the pool. Dirty skimmers and returns will get you a dirty pool, as such, you have to keep them constantly clean so that they can work efficiently.
The Filter System
The Pool filter system is pretty much like the liver of your pool, it’s what keeps the water circulating, giving it the effect that it is moving water. The filter system is also responsible for clearing dirt, contaminants, and all visible debris from the water. Now, this part of your pool works very hard to keep your pool clean and will often get blocked by the debris it’s trying to clean. A cleaning cartridge filter can help you get the dirt out of your filters. Also, filters need to be cleaned with chemicals to regularly remove oils, scale, and embedded debris. Now that you know how your pool works and the parts that make it work efficiently, let’s take a look at these easy steps for pool cleaning.
1. Keep the water circulating
A pool that is constantly circulating water will hardly have issues like cloudy water or infestation from algae. If your pump and filter system is working fine every day, you will not have problems with circulation. Your pump and filter should be working 24 hours a day for 7 days a week. One day off and the problem sets in. However, because that may be a lot of energy you are burning, it is recommended to keep the filter up for at least 10 to 12 hours per day.
2. Clean the Pool
As long as your pump and filter are working fine, you do less work cleaning the pool. There are plenty of chemicals you have available for this purpose. Get them and add them periodically to keep the pool clean, clear and sparkling. Also, skim, brush and vacuum the pool at least once a week to keep debris out. You will be tempted to go cheap, but cheap products will end up burning you and you will get to spend more ultimately fixing the problems caused by cheap products. Find a good retailer that sells good products and make sure you avoid the cheap ones like a plague.
Cleaning the pool is not actually hard as it sounds as long as you do the tips mentioned above. Monitor the water’s PH level, keep your pool water moving, and ensure the pump and filter are working fine, then cleaning the pool will eventually be as easy as pie.
