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Great pool maintenance keeps your pool clean, fresh and shiny. But maintaining your pool could be a tough task especially for those who don’t have any experience. Actually, we all make a few mistakes when it comes to pool maintenance, what’s important is learning how to correct and avoid these mistakes. In this guide, we’ll be talking about 9 common pool mistakes that people may be making and how to avoid them.
9 Common Pool Maintenance Mistakes To Avoid
1.Shocking your pool directly
Pool shock is concentrated chlorine that can bleach anything that enters your pool. Instead, pre-dissolve shock by adding it to a bucket of warm water and mixing slowly, while wearing protective gear. The shock will disperse more evenly throughout your pool, and help protect your liner.
2.Not brushing your pool
Have you brushed the pool recently? The longer you go without doing it, the more buildup and contaminants latch on the walls of your pool. And the more contaminants in your water, the dirtier it gets, and the more chemicals you need to keep it clean. So your pool needs a good brush to stay clean. Brush those hard to reach places, behind the ladder, or steps, along the water line, and the cracks and crevices. Do this once a week to keep algae, and other debris at bay.
3.Letting the water level get too low
Air will be drawn into the system if the water level gets below the skimmer. This can cause lack of filtration and put too much stress on the pump motor. So keep the water level between 1/3 to 1/2 up from the bottom of the skimmer.
4.Ignoring pH and alkalinity levels
Low pH and alkalinity can damage your pool equipment, because your water is acidic. Test your water regularly, and adjust your levels with pH increaser, alkalinity increaser, and other essential chemicals until everything's in balance.
5.Back washing your pool filter too often
Back washing cleans inside your filter, but overdoing it is a common mistake. That not only waste water but it does nothing to help with the filtration. A good rule is to backwash when the pressure gets 8 to 10 pounds.
6.Adding Chemicals During Hot Weather
Adding chemicals such as chlorine during a hot day will make it less effective. This is because chlorine forms hypochlorite ions which when exposed to ultraviolet light from the sun, convert to gas and released to the atmosphere. Also, during a hot day, the temperature of your pool rises hence you’ll need twice as much chlorine to treat your pool.
Add chemicals to your pool at night or during the evening. Doing this when temperatures are cool helps the chlorine work more effectively.
7.Not leveraging the calcium hardness in your pool water
Calcium hardness helps extend the life span of your liner, concrete or fiberglass pool. Add calcium hardness increaser when you open your pool, and keep it at the recommended level of 200 to 250 parts per million. Test your water for calcium throughout the season, since evaporation and splash out can cause the level to drop.
8.Neglecting Your Pool’s Water Level
Even if you're doing your best to maintain your pool, you may not notice the water level dropping over time. If you overfill a pool, backwash will push dirt and debris back into the pool while drenching your deck with water. On the other hand, if you don’t fill your pool to the appropriate level, your pool’s pump might start filtering air instead of water and damage your pump.
9.Not test your pool water weekly.
Have you tested your water? Weekly water testing can tip you off to small issues. When you don’t test your water weekly, it gives your pH, Alkalinity, Calcium Hardness, and sanitizer levels more time to get farther out of balance. It also gives contaminants more time to enter your pool, and dirty it up. Before they blossom into disasters, test your pool water at least once a week, either with test strips, or a liquid test kit. And take a sample of your pool water to your local pool supply store, and get a detailed analysis at least once a month.
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