Having a pool right outside your doorsteps is one of the coolest amenities to have. A clean pool is always the envy of your guests and adds value to your house. It’s one of the best spots to hold parties with your friends especially during summer. Nothing tops swimming as the best hobby to do during the hot season.
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Why Do You Need to Clean Your Pool?
Summer or not, it’s important to keep your pool clean. With the proper maintenance procedure, you can extend the pool’s life expectancy for many more years. A clean pool also means that you can enjoy swimming without worrying about dirty water’s harmful effect on your health later.
Whenever you take a plunge at your pool, remember that you’re leaving dirt on it. The scum from your body mixes with the water without you knowing it. If a lot of people are using your pool, imagine swimming on their residue as well. That sounds disgusting. If you add the poop from birds and toddlers, the contamination can take its toll on your health and the pool’s condition.
Debris is not the only enemy of the pool. While it’s true that chemicals help keep your pool clean, they don’t affect dirty water. You cannot expect that dissolving tons of chlorine can magically make the dirt disappear. These chemicals can’t take out the leaves and debris for you. You have to do the cleaning by yourself or pay a professional cleaner to do it for you.
Cleaning Equipment and How to Use Them
Whether you’ll clean the pool manually or you’re going to use pool cleaners to do it for you, you’ll still need to use some tools to make scrubbing and washing more effective. Here are some of the must-have tools to buy and how to clean your pool with them.
Telescopic Pole
This is an extendable pole that can get into hard-to-reach areas of the pool. On its end, you can attach various cleaning instruments like skimmers, brushes, vacuum heads, and so much more. The telescopic pole can extend up to 18 feet. Aside from cleaning, you can use it to pick something from the pool.
Skimmer net
A skimmer net is probably the most common cleaning tool known to everyone. When attached to a telescopic pole, you can use this to collect debris on and below the water surface. It’s easier to scoop out leaves, twigs, debris, dead birds, etc., using this tool. If you can’t skim your pool daily, at least do it every other day.
Brush
With the help of a telescopic pole, you can use a brush to scrub the walls and floor. This action can remove dirt and loosen up algae before it gets out of control. Try brushing the different spots of the pool at least twice a week.
Vacuum head
Again, this tool needs a pole to work properly. Just press the vacuum head against the surface to detach the dirt. This device is connected to a hose that sucks the debris. The dirty water goes to the pool’s filter system to strain the scums and direct the clean water back to the pool.
Robotic Pool Cleaner
Cleaning your pool manually using all the tools above can deliver good results. Still, it can be labor-intensive, especially if you’re cleaning after a heavy thunderstorm when your pool looks like a forest of leaves. There are situations when manual cleaning comes in handy, but to make pool cleaning easier, you better invest in a robotic vacuum cleaner.
A robotic pool cleaner is a small yet ingenious device that drives around your pool, sucking up debris as it moves. Since it has its own filter, it works without turning on the pool’s filter system. Because of this, you can conserve water since you don’t need to do a lot of backwashing. Also, the filter system will last longer since you don’t use it that much.
Most robots are so easy to use. All you need is to plug the device into the power outlet, put it on the pool, and turn it on. This machine comes with a long and tangle-free cord, so you don’t need to stay while it works. Best of all, you can use its dedicated mobile app to make basic commands to the device such as stop, pause, and start. You can also use the app to set a cleaning schedule and monitor the robot’s cleaning performance. As long as your phone is connected to Wi-Fi, you can program the bot even when you’re far from it.
Pro Tip: To get better deals on the pool cleaners’ prices and all the equipment above, buy them before the start of the swimming season. Prices tend to go higher as summer comes closer.
Additional Cleaning Steps
After using the tools above to clean your pool, you’re not done yet. You need to take simple additional steps to ensure that your pool is ready to swim at.
Clean the pool filter/backwashing
You don’t need to do backwashing every time especially if you did not do extensive cleaning. However, it’s recommended that you do backwashing as part of weekly maintenance if the pool is used heavily or after every general cleaning. The steps for backwashing depend on the brand of filter and pump that you are using. You can refer to the user manual for the proper steps.
Chemical balance
The right amount of chemicals helps sanitize the water. It removes bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms that are harmful to your health. The chemical balance of the pool is made up of:
- pH (acidity/alkalinity level): 68%
- total alkalinity (TA): 16%
- calcium hardness: 16%
You need to test the water for these factors to ensure its safety. The pH balance must be between 7.0 to 7.8, while the chlorine level must be between 2.0 and 4.0 ppm. Add or decrease chemicals to adjust their strength according to these standards. You might need to do shock chlorination at least once a month to remove those pesky germs. The amount of chemicals you need depends on the brand that you’re using. Please refer to the product manual for instructions.
