The Basics of Caring for Your Swimming Pool's Water

Did you recently have a swimming pool installed in your home's backyard? If so, you'll need to know what it takes to maintain it over the years and which swimming pool services are necessary. It all starts with knowing how to keep the water clean, which is necessary to avoid algae growth that will make the pool uninviting to use. Here are some tips to help you do it.

Determine How Big Your Pool Is

The first step to caring for your pool water is to know how many gallons of water the pool holds. If you do not know the answer already, you'll need to do some calculations by multiplying the depth, length, and width of the pool to figure it out. This will help you determine the quantity of chemicals necessary to maintain clean water.

Run the Filter When Adding Chemicals

Many people make the mistake of adding chemicals to their pool water and thinking that it is all they need to do. The trick is to make sure that the filter is running when you add chemicals. This will help circulate the chemicals throughout all of the water rather than have it concentrated in a single spot.

Test the Water

There are a few ways that you can test your pool's water, which can be done with either test strips or a liquid test kit. You'll want to test the water at least once a week if you have a bigger pool, and test it more frequently if you have a smaller pool. A small pool can have the water quality affected much faster by people using it, rain, and debris that gets into the pool.

Balance the Water

With the test results, you will want to raise the pH and alkalinity to the proper levels. Make sure you follow the directions for the balancing chemicals, which will be based on the test level and how many gallons of water that is in the pool.

Sanitize the Water

With the water balanced, you can now sanitize the water with chlorine. You can add chlorine tablets, use a chlorine float, or really any method necessary to add it to your pool's water. Once again, you'll need to know how many gallons of water the pool has to put in the proper amount of chlorine. Pool shock should also be used once a week to kill off bacteria and other harmful things that are in the pool water.