Pools are a great investment both for your property and your family’s happiness. Not only does it significantly increase the value of your house during evaluation, but it also gives you a space to make memories.
A pool is a great place to spend time with friends and family. The days spent by it are always cherished and you can relive this year after year. It is also a great place to hold social functions too. It is a multipurpose amenity that brings a lot of value to your house and your life in general.
Maintaining a pool can be a daunting task for new owners. Here are a few tips so that your pool is in great shape throughout the year.
Pool Maintenance Tips
Regular Scrubbing And Skimming
Removing the leaves and other debris that might have entered your pool should be a daily task. This way, you can remove all these foreign particles from the pool before they mess up the pool’s chemistry.
A robot vacuum cleaner can also do this task for you, but it is an expensive investment. Scrubbing the pool helps you eliminate the buildup of both organic and inorganic materials on the pool walls and floor. This way, your pool remains healthier for a longer period of time.
Filter Maintenance
Your pool’s filtration system is more or less like the kidney of your pool. It takes in all the water and separates the things that do not belong in the pool. Whether it be leaves, dirt, twigs, flowers, or some small toys too, a filtration system can get rid of these things easily.
Regularly checking the filtration system can not only help you prevent damage to the system but also maintain the pool. Regularly check for excessive debris and any damage to the filters. If it is torn or broken, get it repaired immediately.
Monitoring Chemical Levels
Pools are inherently fragile when it comes to their equilibrium. It can be disturbed by a variety of factors, like steady rainfalls and hot days.
You basically need to check for free chlorine, cyanuric acid, and the acidity/alkalinity of the pool. Calcium hardness should also be measured frequently so that the water is not too hard to use.
You can get test kits that will tell you whether your pool’s levels are okay or not. Administer these tests weekly or every fortnight or so for best results.
Chemical Alternatives
You will use a lot of chemicals to maintain your pool’s ecosystem. But sometimes, the pH level of your pool will go wary, and you will have to reduce its acidity. Many stores do sell solutions to bring the acidity down, but surprisingly sodium bicarbonate does the trick too.
Sodium bicarbonate is nothing but baking soda. You can buy it in bulk from a grocery store and have all the sodium bicarbonate that you need for the season.
Shocking A Pool
If your pool gets cloudy, it might have more organic matter than one would expect. Shocking the pool is referred to as a practice where you add a large amount of chlorine that leads to a chlorine spike in the pool.
This gets rid of all the organic matter that might have been building up in the pool. You should shock your pool after a party or after a lot of people have used it. It will get rid of the bacteria and algae that might have been growing in the pool.
You should shock your pool twice or thrice during the whole season. Shocking too often can damage the side and floor of the pool and should be done sparingly.
Water Levels Are Crucial
The top layer of your pool water can evaporate instantaneously, and this can be due to the heat or, the wind. When the water level drops, it can also lead to changes in the concentration of water in the pool. This, in turn, affects the chemical levels and disturbs the pool’s equilibrium.
Keep fluctuation to a minimum and try to keep the water levels stable. Keep an eye out for any fluctuations, and add water as soon as you see the levels going down.
Tennis Balls
After heavy usage, your pool can have a lot of oil and other substances enter it, especially in the summer when people use sunscreen and other oils to avoid sunburns. A tennis ball is more than capable of absorbing all these oils and giving you the pool that you need.
They will absorb all the oils and are a cheap and effective way to clean your pool. A few balls will do the trick if your pool is big, but in smaller pools, a single ball should suffice.
Wash The Area Around The Pool
A lot of dirt gets into the pool because the surrounding area is not kept clean. You can avoid this by washing the pool area. You can remove a lot of dirt and debris that might end up in your pool. A clean deck area will reduce the work you need to put into cleaning your pool significantly.
Be Winter-Ready
Your pool will only be operational 5-6 months a year, and for the colder season, you must take steps to make your pool ready. Leave some water in the pool and cover it for the coming months. Keep checking it from time to time and add chemicals as and when required.
Get all the water out of the plumbing lines, and make sure you lubricate the metal joints with silicon-based metal lube. This prevents the metal parts from getting brittle over the winters.
Your pool owning experience does not need to be stressful. Careful intervention from time to time can make your pool last at least a decade or so. Skim and scrub it regularly and try to watch out for any chemical imbalance.
For more information, feel free to contact us. We will be more than happy to give you solutions to your problems!
