Your Swimming Pool Maintenance Routine

• What is Your Swimming Pool Maintenance Routine?
• Testing Your Pool Water - An Important Part of Pool Maintenance
• Sanitizing - The Cornerstone Of Good Pool Maintenance
• Shocking Your Swimming Pool
• Removing Debris from Your Swimming Pool
• Cleaning Your Pool Filter as Part of Your Maintenance Routine
• Something to Think About When Adding Water!

What is Your Swimming Pool Maintenance Routine?

Your swimming pool maintenance routine consists of all the processes you must perform on a regular basis during the swimming pool season to keep you pool water clean and your pool water chemistry at optimal levels. While the steps involved in opening or closing your swimming pool may include more specific processes performed once a year, some of those same processes, and a few new ones, need to be performed at regular intervals throughout the year to ensure your pool water remains clean and balanced. Other processes will also need to be performed on a regular basis to make sure all pool equipment remains functioning properly. So what steps make up a good pool maintenance routine? And how often should each part of the routine be repeated throughout the course of a season? What follows are some basic guidelines that should help you understand the necessary parts of swimming pool maintenance. It is our hope that understanding what needs to be done and when it needs to be done will help you avoid overspending or wasting time in caring for your swimming pool.

Testing Your Pool Water - An Important Part of Pool Maintenance

Testing your pool water regularly is the only way to know exactly what your pool needs at any given time. Testing between 1-2 times a week is usually sufficient. If you have all the basic chemical levels set in their optimal ranges when you opened your swimming pool, and there are no drastic outside influences that will affect those levels, you will find yourself testing for two basic levels:

• pH
• chlorine

pH - What It Means To Your Pool

The optimal range for pH in pool water is from 7.2 - 7.6 . (Note: For more information on the effects of high or low pH in your pool see the article: Understanding Swimming Pool Water Chemistry ). pH can fluctuate over the course of the season due to rainfall and/or the addition of water to your swimming pool. Whatever the cause of fluctuation in pH level the important thing will be to correct the pH by adding pH increaser if the pH is below 7.2 and pH decreaser if the level of pH rises above 7.6 .

Chlorine - Keeping Appropriate Levels Throughout The Season

Chlorine is by far the most commonly used sanitizer in swimming pools today. Chlorine sanitizes pool water by oxidizing organic matter in pool water. As chlorine the oxidizes organic matter it gets used up leaving less and less "free chlorine" in the pool for sanitizing purposes. Additional chlorine must be continuously added to maintain a sufficient level to continue sanitizing. You will determine if enough chlorine is in the pool through testing. The ideal range for free chlorine in the swimming pool is between 1.5 and 3 ppm (parts per million). Being at the low range (1.5 ppm) is sufficient at lower temperatures but as the temperature climes you will want to be closer to the upper end of this range (3 ppm). The process by which you add chlorine to your swimming pool is called sanitizing and will be discussed in greater detail in the next section.

Sanitizing - The Cornerstone of Good Pool Maintenance

Chlorine is by no means the only method available for sanitizing the swimming pool ( Note: For more information on alternative sanitizers see the article: Alternative Sanitizers - Alternative Methods to Sanitize Your Swimming Pool ). But due to the fact that chlorine is the most widely used method it is the one we will be primarily discussing here. Chlorine comes in a few basic forms:

• liquid chlorine - Chlorine in liquid form can be added directly to the pool water. Recommended dosage rate of liquid chlorine/pool water are ( 1 gallon / 15,000 gallons ) - for a maintenance dosage. The recommended dosage rate to shock your pool with liquid chlorine will be discussed in the next section
• granular chlorine - granular chlorine comes in two forms: dichlor and cal hypo . Dichlor is a finer grain that dissolves quickly and can be broadcast across the pool surface since it will dissolve before reaching the pool floor. Cal hypo, although fast dissolving, is a larger grain and must first be dissolved in a bucket before being added to the pool water to avoid damaging the liner of your swimming pool.
• chlorine tablets - Chlorine tablets can be either slow dissolving or fast dissolving. Slow dissolve tablets are known as trichlor, come in both 1" and 3" sizes, and are made for use with a chlorinator of some sort. Fast dissolve tablets come only in 1" and are made to dissolve rapidly after coming in contact with the pool water. WARNING: FAST DISSOLVE TABLETS SHOULD NEVER BE USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH A CHLORINATOR. The rapid release of chlorine gas in such a concentrated amount will cause the chlorinator to explode!

Shocking Your Swimming Pool

It is recommended that you replenish the amount of free chlorine in your swimming pool by shocking your swimming pool about once a week. Shocking your swimming pool can be achieved with any form of chlorine in the correct dosage. Slow dissolving tablets, while excellent for the slow release of chlorine into your pool water, fail to provide the amount of concentrated chlorine needed to effectively shock your swimming pool. Non-chlorine shock can also be used to perform this task. The advantage of non-chlorine based shock (known as potassium monopersulphate) is that you can return to swimming approximately 15 minutes after treatment. All methods involving chlorine based shock should allow sufficient time for chlorine levels to return to normal before swimming is resumed. This can be accomplished by shocking the pool in the evening and allowing the pool pump and filter to run overnight. In this case chlorine levels should be returned to normal by the next morning. Some common dosage recommendations for shocking your swimming pool using different methods are as follows:

• liquid chlorine - 1 gallon liquid chlorine / 10,000 gallons pool water
• granular chlorine (dichlor) - 1 lb / 12,000 gallons pool water
• granular chlorine (cal hypo) - 1 lb / 10,000 gallons pool water
• non-chlorine shock - 1 lb / 10,000 gallons pool water ( once every 10 days )

Removing Debris from Your Swimming Pool

Over the course of the season you will find it necessary to remove dirt and debris from the bottom of the swimming pool. This action serves a dual purpose. While it is true it makes your pool look cleaner, most people do not realize that removal of this organic material will also make the chlorine you add to your swimming pool last longer because it won't need to work to oxidize these relatively "large" objects. With that said there are a few ways to remove the debris from the pool. One is by vacuuming the pool. Those of us that have performed this task know it can be a tedious one. With that said some who have wished to automate the process have found that automatic pool cleaners are perfect for the job. However you choose to remove the debris from your swimming pool don't neglect to perform this important step.

Cleaning Your Pool Filter as Part of Your Maintenance Routine

Just as the human heart performs a vital function to keep the rest of the body alive, so to the pool pump and filter work to keep your swimming pool water clean and clear. And just as neglect can cause the human heart to become clogged, neglect of the pool pump and filter can have disastrous effects on the swimming pool. For that reason it is important to continually check the pressure reading on your filter. Once this pressure reading reaches a specified level, commonly 5-10lbs above the starting pressure (see your product manual), it is time to clean out the filter. This can be accomplished in a cartridge filter by removing the filter and cleaning the cartridge. Sand and Diatomaceous Earth type filters need to be backwashed to relieve the pressure. Regular filter maintenance will prevent your filter from clogging and failing to filter and circulate your pool water appropriately. (Note: For more information on pool filters see the article: Swimming Pool Filters 101 - What You Need To Know About Pool Filters).

Something to Think About When Adding Water!

Due to evaporation you will find it necessary to add water to your swimming pool to during the season to keep your pool water level up. When adding water you should continue to add water until the pool water level reaches half way up the face of the skimmer face. Water level should never be allowed to drop below the skimmer face. Adding such a large quantity of water to the pool can mean large fluctuations in pH, chlorine level, and total alkalinity. Because these fluctuations can take place it is always a good idea to test your pool water for these properties and add chemicals accordingly any time you add new water to your swimming pool. Especially in the case where the water you are adding is coming from a well is it necessary to test for the presence of minerals. In these cases it is a good idea to utilize a sequestering agent to be on the safe side and remove any mineral deposits from your pool water before they can cause problems. The Slime Bag is another new product that works well to remove unwanted particles from the water you are adding to your swimming pool.

Well there you have it. We hope you've enjoyed this general guide to maintaining your swimming pool over the course of the season. We hope you've found this article informative and pass it along to anybody you think may find it helpful.

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