I just wanted to say a big thanks to the folks on this forum.
We've had our pool for over 4 years now and folks comment on how well maintained it is and how sparkling my water is.. This is in no small part due to the advise that I got from reading articles on this forum. (Which incidentally I recommended to all my friends with pools)
We have all levels of expertise on here, from chemists to people like myself who want a nice sparkling pool but are not chemists my any stretch.
Some advise for newbies from a novice like me..
I spend a max of about 20 mins each week on my pool.. no big deal... My water is always perfect.. I take it to the pool shop for a check now and again and sit smuggly as the guy declairs that I'm in perfect health LOL!
My advise to people like me who are none experts is:
1) Brush your pool weekly and in the summer twice a week
2) Check Ph 3 times a week and add acid when needed. This is a very quick job. Check Chlorine levels at the same time and adjust it (in my case the SWG) accordingly. Remember that Chlorine effectiveness is inversely proportional to Ph level. In simple words, as your Ph goes up the effectiveness of your chlorine at killing the nasty's goes down. Also remember that Ph is a logarithmic scale..and just about everything else is linear usually in parts per million (ppm) so one little increment on your Ph scale is 10 times the level of the one before it! So keep an eye closely on Ph!
3) Check Total Alkalinity weekly and add baking soda as needed to maintain about 90ppm with my SWG. It will swing lower and lower because you are adding acid three times a week. I normally need to add about a 16 oz cup of baking soda to my 10K pool every 4 weeks. Costco sells it in big bags.
4) Check both Ph and TA immediately after rainfall!.. can you see what happened to the TA and Ph?.. try and understand why that happened
This is all stuff I learnt from this forum! (clue: google a video of a raindrop hitting water in slow motion)And that's about it!
- Check salt once a season
- Get phosphates checked once a season (this should be the only time in a season that you ever need to use anything more than simple acid or baking soda)
- Clean filters when you see a slight haze in your water.
DO NOT use any of these fancy chemicals that the pool shop will try and sell you!!... every chemical like a drug will have a side effect!.. you really don't need them if you follow steps 1 to 4 three times a week.
Anyway.. that's my pool maintenance made easy and it works for me!!