It is that time of year to open and start enjoying our pool. This is an exciting time a year as we are only able to use our pool for about three months a year.
Maintaining a pool is a huge pain in the ass and a never-ending amount of work
Actually, no it isn't. If you use the pool store method of maintaining your pool, it is not only a huge amount of work it is extremely expensive. That is not the only way to manage a pool, and in fact, it isn't the best.
I have a very large 42'x23' pool and the number of chemicals to open our pool exceeds $600 if we were to follow the path laid out by our local pool store. Local pool stores are around to make money first, and help you with your pool 10th or 11th.
This is my pool sometime during last year's pool season, and where I spend a lot of my time in the summer. I am constantly told how amazed people are with how clean my pool is. I spend very little time working on my pool and most of the time is spent enjoying it. In fact, most pool owners are told to shock their pool every two weeks, I never need to do this!
What's your secret?
When I bought my house about two years ago, I was determined to learn how to properly care for a pool. In the past, I had a small 22' round above ground pool and it was difficult and time-consuming to maintain. I eventually took it down when the liner ripped and it started to buckle and my only option was to replace the entire pool or get rid of it.
I started to do some research and was directed to a site called Troublefree Pool. I was extremely skeptical about the process but spent a lot of time researching their suggestions and found many small pool companies who use their techniques with amazing reviews.
So it was decided, I would follow their guidelines and take charge of my pool. The first and most important step of their process was to acquire a professional pool testing kit. Pool test strips are useless and very inaccurate. You need a real test kit with chemicals and the experience to use it.
Taylor Deluxe DPD Test Kit - K-2005
The gold standard test kit is the Taylor DPD test kit. This has chemicals to test all the important levels you need to maintain a healthy and clear pool.
- Chlorine
- Free Chlorine
- Bromine
- Alkalinity
- Calcium Hardness
- PH
- Cyanuric Acid
For most people, this kit will last the entire summer, but there is a larger version that has larger bottles. I use the test kit offered by Troublefree Pools as you get more reagents and a better price.
TF-100 Test Kit
It uses the same reagents as the Taylor kit (in fact some of them are directly from Taylor).
I am not going to go through the process I use to maintain my pool in this post, as I highly suggest going through their Pool School and learning the process yourself.
There are a few key tenants behind the Troublefree Pool method of pool maintenance, the first and most important is to have a good quality test kit, the second is knowing how to use it. While most pool stores have their own test kits you can bring water to have checked for free, the accuracy of their tests is inconsistent and highly dependent on your local store. Regardless, it is important you learn to read and understand a professional test kit without depending on a third party pool store.
Understanding the chemicals used in pool care and how to properly use a test kit isn't very difficult and is the first step to maintaining a healthy pool. I suggest you start here with ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry.
Once you understand what the chemicals do, how they interact with each other, and how to test for them, you need to stock up on chemicals. The number one change with the Troublefree Pool method is dumping the chlorine pucks and using liquid chlorine. The problem with chlorine pucks is they use stabilization, stabilization is used to prevent the sun from burning out the chlorine but doesn't burn off daily like chlorine daily. So every time you add stabilization (Cyanuric Acid) to your pool, you are increasing the total amount of Cyanuric Acid in your pool. The more Cyanuric Acid in your pool, the more chlorine you need to maintain it. By using "pucks" you are driving your CYA (Cyanuric Acid) higher and higher throughout the season and decreasing the efficiency of the chlorine pucks.
By using liquid chlorine, you are only adding chlorine (and some salt) to your pool. This is an important technique in maintaining a troublefree pool, using a specific chemical for a specific job and minimizing the impact of other chemicals in your pool. While it is unavoidable to completely eliminate affecting other levels you can minimize it dramatically.
The Troublefree Pool method can be summarized in a few steps
- Stop depending on a pool store and their advice
- Understand pool chemistry
- Acquire a proper professional test kit
- Learn how to properly test your pool
- Use the correct products that have minimum collateral damage to your pool chemistry
- Test daily, at minimum chlorine and free chlorine, some tests can be done weekly or even monthly.
My daily routine
On a daily basis, I grab a sample of water and quickly test the chlorine to see where I am at. I have a target of 6 ppm, and will add liquid chlorine (usually 11% shock or if in a jam typical household 6% bleach). For my size pool and daily sun levels, I typically need to add 1/2 - 3/4 of a gallon daily. This is the most expensive/time-consuming part of the process. It takes me about 5 minutes a day.
About once a week I will test the pH balance of my pool and add muriatic acid or soda ash depending if it is high or low. I usually only have to adjust every 3-4 weeks, depending on how many large parties I have.
About once a month I will check my Cyanuric Acid levels, this doesn't typically require a lot of adjustment, once I get it right at the beginning of the season, it is typically good to go most of the season.
I test calcium hardness when I open the pool since I have a liner pool, this isn't a very critical measurement, but I will test it once a month when I do the CYA test.
Total Alkalinity I like to test every 2-4 weeks, this goes hand and hand with pH and isn't something I have to chase if I have it done properly when I open the pool. I found I have the best results maintaining pH when I keep the alkalinity on the lower side of the scale.
That's pretty much it, every time I go in the pool for the first time for the day I do a quick skim for any leaves or bugs and dump the skimmer. My pool cleaner (see below) handles most of the daily cleaning. Every so often I will get a frog or small animal in the pool but this typically only happens a couple times a year.
Pool Cleaners
Another thing I use that isn't related to the TroubleFree Pool method of pool care is a cleaning robot. This has dramatically increased my quality of life and has saved endless hours of work.
I use a Maytronics Dolphin M400 Professional Pool cleaner. It ran me about $1,200 on sale (normally $1,400) and I throw it in the pool after we go in for the night. It spends about 3 hours cleaning once a day by going over the pool floor and scrubbing the walls. I empty the cartridges about once a week during the normal parts of the season and a little more often when opening or closing.
It is a life saver and allows me to spend more time enjoying my pool rather than working on it. If you want to see it in action, it is really fun to watch.
Maintaining a clean and healthy pool doesn't have to be hard, and it doesn't need to be frustrating.
Why you should vote me as witness
Witness & Administrator of four full nodes
My recent popular posts
STEEM, STEEM Power, Vests, and Steem Dollars. wtf is this shit?
The truth and lies about 25% curation, why what you know is FAKE NEWS
WTF is a hardware wallet, and why should you have one?
GINABOT - The Secret to your Sanity on Steemit
How to calculate post rewards
Use SSH all the time? Time for a big boy SSH Client
How to change your recovery account
How curation rewards work and how to be a kick ass curator
Markdown 101 - How to make kick ass posts on Steemit
Work ON your business, not in your business! - How to succeed as a small business
You are not entitled to an audience, you need to earn it!
How to properly setup SSH Key Authentication - If you are logging into your server with root, you are doing it wrong!
Building a Portable Game Console
Pools can certainly be a lot of work. Yesterday I had a bunch of needles in my 3 way Jandy Valve.
And then I had more in my pump basket. A couple of years ago I retiled and did an epoxy process on my pool. Oddly enough I almost never test my pool anymore. I got used to knowing what it needs and being able to just wing it with the chemicals and it looks good.
Update: I also do all my own pool repairs. It cost so much to have other people work on the pool.
I fix the pipes and retiled and recoated the pool.
Just saw your updates, damn that's impressive.
I want to gut all the equipment and move it to the pool shed rather than by the side of the house with our central air. It's an eye sore and wasn't done well. I also want to add a stenner pump to automate the liquid chlorine
My equipment is in a bad spot as well. I'm not sure if it was because they couldn't place it further back because the pressure would be greater getting to the spa or what. The pump basically runs both the spa and the pool and I'm able to switch it to either one by rotating two jandy valves. My equipment is from 1990 but I keep bandaid fixing it all the time and it keeps going.
I can mostly manage on a daily basis without testing as well. I will test chlorine every few days to correct any estimation errors but I rarely measure how much I pour in and just go by gut feeling.
On a larger pool, there is a lot of wiggle room.
It looks like you have a lot of trees around so I'm sure when there are storms that makes it a lot tougher. Here in Arizona we don't have rain coming down right now so it is a lot easier to control. My biggest problem recently was a lot of pollen coming off a tree in the neighbors yard which threw some stuff off.
Once monsoons hits I have to be on it a little better because the rain will throw the chemicals off.
Trees can be a pain, mostly at the end of the season.
Interesting, when I was messing with a pool l learned about all that and it is a lot like maintaining a fish tank except with the opposite goal of keeping the water inhospitable to life. Have you looked into saltwater chlorination pool systems?
I have, and originally I was going to go that route but when we bought the house it needed a new pool liner and the company that did it (and was going to do our saltwater upgrade) pissed me off big time and I canceled the saltwater part of it.
I am happy with how things are now and not sure I'd consider saltwater. A big part of my decision was the fact the salt cell doesn't last but a few years and is expensive to replace, costing almost as much as the chlorine used in that time frame.
I guess no matter what you do it's a hole in the ground you throw money into.
My father in law is like a pool whisperer. He has always just done his own thing when it comes to their above ground pool, but I have never seen one that is consistently has clean and clear as his. The robot I have never seen before and I might have to pass that along to him. We live in the north too where the pool is basically only open from Memorial day to Labor day. It's nice to run over and take a dip after a hard day working in the yard for sure! Great post on what has worked for you to keep your pool in tip top shape!
I like the pool cleaning robot the best! Have you tried other options for keeping it clean with fewer toxic chemicals? I was reading about Sphagnum moss, Ionic pool cleaner. Unfortunately, the pool will not look super clean like with chlorine.
No, I see no point to use anything else as this works so well. The amount of chemicals per million parts of water is so small the impact on human life is insignificant.
Good job
When you gotta shoot up the school by 10 but have to finish your Christmas shopping by 11.
Spending time in a pool can be relaxing and fun but taking care of it can be quite tasking (yet rewarding). I am glad you found a method that works for you.
well done.. thanks for sharing
This post has received a 17.64 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @themarkymark.
Amazing advices! it seems like you really know your thing! My dream goal is to have someday a big house with a pool, so I'm going to memorize your recommendations to have them in mind when that time comes.
A long time ago I was a life guard and had to know how to maintain a pool's chemicals. They had huge machines doing most of the work but it was still a pain in the butt. Not sure I will ever want a personal pool for these reasons, too much of a hassle and an expense.
Not really when you break away from the normal routine most people use. Once I add a Stenner pump to automate the liquid chlorine, it will be almost hands-free most of the season.
Pools are great! Especially at hot days. But, I think it's just too much work for me.. I'm just too lazy haha. So I think I just go to an open area swimming pool.
The Maytronics Dolphin is awesome and I'm glad you got to find something to make your life easier and now you can actually enjoy the pool instead of hating it because of all the work it requires.
Thanks for sharing these cool tools to make our lives easier.
Nice! My buddy just got a pool and this is super helpful. Forwarding now!
the question is has your kids or you or anyone ever POOPED in your pool and what do you do once that happens? drain it? clean it? what do you do
Nope never, but I do have fake poop I throw in the pool for parties.
But to answer your questions, it depends if it is wet or chunky. I mean a firm turd is fine, just scoop it out and the chlorine will do its job. If someone had an explosion in their shorts, it would likely be a situation I would need to clear the pool and clean it for a few days. As someone who poops on a regular basis, I noticed the consistency changes often.
Oh, my God! Your pool looks awesome.
I have always dreamed of having one in my house, the pools have immense benefits for our health by being closely linked with sports, swimming is an aerobic activity and a good cardiovascular workout. I hope someday to have one and enjoy it like you
Come on! Not all are negative things, right? I bet you love to take a quiet bath at the end of the workday, download stress by doing sports, a relaxed conversation by the pool, splashing with your feet in the water, observe the surface of a calm pool...Thank you for sharing this information for the care of the pools, I hope can follow them one day jaja.
By the way, if it's not too much trouble I wanted to invite you to read my posts. I would greatly appreciate if you take the time to read them, and in case you like them, I would appreciate it if you would give me a vote, a comment, or a resteem.
You have my vote, and I stay attentive to your next publications!