It’s more fun to swim in your pool than it is to clean it, but preventative pool maintenance is the best way to avoid costly repairs along the way. With consistent and regular maintenance year-round, your pool will remain in great condition for you and others to enjoy.
Pool maintenance doesn’t have to be confusing or complicated. Let’s explore some easy preventative maintenance hacks that every pool owner should know. These tips will help ensure that your pool remains a place for fun and leisure, not stress.
Run Your Pool Pump Daily
No one wants to swim in cloudy water or a pool covered with algae. This is most often the result of stagnant water. Running your pool pump with a clean filter is vital to keeping your pool water clear, refreshing, and most importantly, safe to swim in. Keeping the water circulating throughout the day will help maintain the best swimming conditions.
How often should your pump run? Ideally, 24 hours a day to keep the water constantly moving. If running the pump that often isn’t an option, aim for at least 12 hours daily. Fortunately, many pool pumps come equipped with timers, which makes this task easy to automate.
Clean Out Debris Regularly
Floating debris can be visually unappealing and an annoyance to swimmers. It’s also bad for the pool’s long-term health. Debris will eventually end up in the filter or sink to the bottom of the pool, where it’s harder to remove.
Use a hand skimmer every day or every few days, depending on the need, to remove floating leaves, twigs, feathers, insects, and other debris. This is a quick and easy task that keeps these items from getting sucked into your pool’s filtration system. You should also clean out the pool’s filter and strainer baskets at least once a week. This is a simple task: shake out the baskets and dispose of debris.
Brush and Vacuum Your Pool
Pool chemicals help sanitize your pool but can’t magically clean everything. You’ll still need to brush and vacuum your pool to keep every surface clean.
Pools should be brushed at least twice a week to avoid algae buildup. Get into every corner and edge. Every few days, you should vacuum your pool to pick up contaminants that your filtration system may have missed.
It may seem like a chore to brush and vacuum multiple times a week. However, cleaning the pool frequently means that your pool will remain a stable, clean environment. You won’t have to spend hours scrubbing on stubborn algae or trying to fix drastic pool chemistry issues.
Do you have a large pool, or do you find yourself forgetting to manually brush your pool? Robotic pool cleaners, while pricey, can be a good investment to save you the time and energy of cleaning the pool by hand. Hiring professionals for such regular maintenance can also take some of the work off your hands.
Maintain Pool Chemistry
Monitoring your pool’s pH level should be a part of your pool maintenance routine. This sanitizes the water, keeping swimmers safe and your pool clean. Testing kits are simple to use and come in several types, with testing strips and reagent kits being the most common.
Want to take any guesswork out of your pool chemistry? Many large commercial pools have a digital system that automates this process, monitoring the chemical balance of your pool and adding any necessary chemicals. Hiring a professional to check and maintain these systems should be incorporated into your pool care routine.
Pool chemistry doesn’t have to be complicated or confusing, but it’s essential to understand what each chemical does before adding it to your pool water. If you have any questions, ask an expert pool service technician.
Establish a Regular Cleaning Routine
Keeping your pool clean is one of the most critical tasks for pool ownership. But testing your water chemistry, skimming, brushing, vacuuming, and cleaning filters may seem like a lot of work when written down on paper.
Don’t be intimidated. Pool maintenance is straightforward when you do it consistently, and remember that maintaining your pool for a few minutes each day is less work than neglecting care and having to fix a larger problem later. We recommend creating a schedule, incorporating it into your routine, and sticking to it. Your pool’s needs may change throughout the year, so shift your routine as needed.
Keep Your Pool Covered
Dealing with seasonal changes is an inevitable part of owning a pool. A high-quality pool cover is vital for any pool, especially if located outdoors.
While your pool should always be covered during the winter, we recommend using a pool cover year-round. Pools lose a majority of their heat from evaporation. A cover helps retain heat, saving you water and energy. You can also save 50 to 70 percent on pool heating bills, as your heat pump won’t have to work as hard to keep your pool at a comfortable temperature.
Remember that your pool cover needs to be maintained too. A neglected cover can quickly grow mold and bacteria, contaminating your pool. It should be washed every few months.
Winterize Your Outdoor Pool
If you live somewhere where the winters are cold and rainy or snowy and icy, winterizing an outdoor pool is crucial each fall to avoid damage to your pool’s structure and equipment. Doing it correctly means it’ll be easy to reopen your pool once warmer weather returns.
Winterizing should be done carefully to avoid damage. Throughout the winter, you will still need to maintain your pool’s chemistry and check on it periodically to ensure the cover is secure and free from debris. It’s especially important to check on your pool cover after heavy winds or snowy weather.
Winterizing is a multi-step process. If you’re unsure of what to do, hire a professional to make it quick and easy for yourself. An experienced pool maintenance company can properly winterize your pool for you.
Contact the Professionals
Pools are a wonderful addition to any property. Sometimes, you might have questions along the way that you don’t have the answers to. Pool preventative maintenance shouldn’t be stressful. A professional pool maintenance company, such as Strong Refuge Pool, will happily answer your questions, schedule maintenance, and do necessary repair work.
