Avoiding Common Pool Cleaning Mistakes
One of the good things about living in Singapore is that you can use your outdoor swimming pool year-round. This also means that the pool needs year-round cleaning. If you’re not hiring a professional to do this job, you’ll need to do it yourself to make sure your pool is both enjoyable and healthy. One drawback of DIY pool cleaning is that it’s easier for a layperson to overlook steps that make sure the job is done properly. Here are some common cleaning mistakes to avoid when it comes to your swimming pool.
Not Checking the Water Every Week
Your pool water needs to be checked once a week, or even more often if it’s used frequently. It’s easy to buy and use test kits that check the water’s calcium hardness, pH, alkalinity, levels of free chlorine and other attributes that keep your pool water clean. Also, checking and cleaning the pool needs to be consistent. It’s not enough to do cleaning or maintenance every week for a couple of months then ignore the pool for an entire season.
Backwashing Mistakes
If your pool uses sand or diatomaceous earth to filter its water, you’ll need to clean the filter through backwashing. That’s simply reversing the flow of the pool water to flush out any dirt or debris that’s still in the filter. One mistake is to never backwash your filter, and let dirt accumulate in it. This makes it work harder and can eventually cause it to fail. Another problem is to backwash the filter too often. Backwashing the filter too often can actually make it less effective. There’s supposed to be a little bit of dirt in the filter, for it helps trap particulates. The act of backwashing itself can also roil the DE or sand in the filter. Pool experts recommend not backwashing your filter until the pressure is 10 pounds per square inch over your filter’s clean starting pressure. It’s easy to read this on the pressure gauge.
Neglecting to Balance the Pool’s pH
Balanced pH and alkalinity levels in your pool help make your pool safe and comfortable. It also helps you maintain your pool. A pool whose pH is acidic, or below 7.0, may look wonderfully clean. It even deters algae and other pollutants. However, acid can eat into the pool’s liner, its pump, filter and any other equipment that keeps it in good shape.
Pool water is supposed to be a little alkaline. However, if it’s too alkaline, it can irritate your skin and eyes and allow damaging limescale to grow on your pool’s equipment. It also makes the water turbid and reduces the effectiveness of chlorine.
The remedy for a pool that’s out of balance is to regularly test the water. If it’s out of balance, you should treat it with chemicals that give it a pH of between 7.2 and 7.8.
Adding Chlorine Shock Right into the Pool
Concentrated chlorine is used to shock your pool, which just means it kills pathogens such as bacteria, clears up cloudy water and removes pollutants such as chloramines. Chloramines arise when chlorine mixes with waste in the pool. There are different kinds of shock, and each has a specific way it should be used. Generally, you shouldn’t add chlorine shock directly into your pool, especially if it’s granulated. Pouring shock directly into the water causes the granules to sink down to the floor of your pool, where they can eat at the lining. The best thing to do is to dissolve the shock in a bucket of warm water. Another interesting thing to note about many chlorine shocks is that they should only be added after the sun goes down. This is because sunlight destroys pool shock.
Even more dangerous than adding chlorine directly into the pool water is adding it into the filter’s automatic chlorinator. This can cause an explosion.
Not Vacuuming or Brushing the Pool Regularly
Another of the pool cleaning mistakes is not vacuuming or brushing the pool regularly. Vacuuming and brushing go together to make sure the pool is not only aesthetically pleasing but that its water is safe enough to swim in. Vacuuming the pool isn’t enough to thoroughly clean it, and you’ll need to brush those spots that the vacuum missed. Fortunately, brushing should be done directly after vacuuming, and the brush can be attached to the vacuum head’s telescoping pole. When this is done, clean out the pump strainer, and if it’s warranted, backwash your filter if it uses sand or DE. You should vacuum and brush your pool about once a week or more often if it’s in heavy use.
Another mistake to avoid is using an automatic pool cleaner if your pool is full of algae. These mechanisms simply push the algae around your pool instead of removing it. Eventually, the algae clogs the pool cleaner. On the other hand, automatic pool cleaners are useful when it comes to removing fine particles.
Ignoring Calcium Levels
Calcium is one of those elements that makes water hard, but pool water that’s somewhat hard is good. This is because hard water can extend the working life of the pool’s filter and shell. You or your pool contractor should aim for levels of between 175 and 225 parts per million if your pool is made of vinyl or fiberglass and between 200 and 275 ppm if it’s made of plaster or concrete. Make sure to check calcium levels regularly for as long as your pool is open.
Not Running the Filters Long Enough
As good calcium levels support your filter’s lifespan, the filter itself should be run at least eight hours a day when the pool is open. Unless your pool is the size of a lake, eight hours should be enough time to clean its volume of water.