How to maintain your pool

Having a pool in your home is amazing, but maintaining it can be quite a drag. Imagine having the pool of your dreams just outside your home, only for it to be filled with sludge. What a waste. Pool maintenance is crucial to keeping the water safe for you and loved ones who would wish to enjoy the pool as well.

Aside from just collecting fallen leaves in the pool, there’s more to pool maintenance, such as keeping chlorine levels safe and stable. Here are some tools and tips to keep your pool in its best condition:

First, when cleaning your pool to remove the leaves, dirt and other grimey things, it helps to have a cleaner. You have to know that pool maintenance and the type of cleaner you would need would depend on your pool type whether in-ground or above ground, the pool size, the amount of leaves that fall into it, filtration system, plumbing, and last but not least, budget.

You can start off with a cheap option, a DIY method we call ‘hand vacuuming’, wherein the ‘vacuum’ is attached to the skimmer box, creating suction, then you can manually push the vacuum around surfaces of your pool with the help of a pole. This gets tiring though because it usually takes an hour or more to do and needs to be done once a week.

If you’re not up for the job, you can always hire a pool cleaner to scoop all the gunk for you. There are many pool-cleaning services and by hiring a professional, you also have someone to check if your pool is functioning properly and repair any troubles. Our team of professionals at Cityscapes Pools and Landscapes are more than happy to recommend someone for you.

You also have the option of getting a mechanical pool cleaner to do the job, although these might be more expensive, especially if you would prefer a pressure cleaner.

If you fail to regularly sanitise your pool, bacteria will develop and can pose serious health risks. To avoid this, most pool owners use chlorine. All health departments across Australia generally recommend that all domestic pool owners have a chlorine residual in their pool.

The tricky part about chlorine is that you need to monitor your chlorine and pH levels every day if your pool is used regularly, or at least once a week. If your pH level is off, this can cause itchy skin and red eyes and reduce the cleaning effectiveness.

Other factors such as rain, water refills, and people swimming would also alter your pool’s pH aside from chlorine.

To figure out your pool’s pH level, there’s a variety of test kits on the market you can use. We recommend you use a basic ‘four-in-one’ test that would measure chlorine levels, total alkalinity and pH, as well as the level of acid needed to rebalance the pH. An alternative to this would be purchasing an electronic tester that analyzes a disposable strip that has been dipped in your pool, although these are quite expensive.