Advice on how to keep your swimming pool well maintained

Having a swimming pool in your background is a great luxury. It adds value and prestige to your property as well as being a great way to exercise and unwind. However, swimming pools need to be maintained regularly if they are to be kept in presentable and usable shape. It can be very easy to let a pool become grubby and unattractive, creating an eye sore in your back garden. Here is some advice on how to prevent this from happening.

Skim and scrub

You need to skim the leaves and other debris from the surface of the pool on a daily basis. Ideally, you should do this in the morning so the pool is nice and clean for the day ahead. There are special types of suction units that you can purchase, which will clean the bottom of the pool for you. You should regularly scrub the sides of the pool in order to prevent a build-up of algae. You can do this once a week or so. By keeping on top of this scrubbing, you will prevent any algae from permanently staining the sides of the pool. A great tip for tackling those troublesome spots is to soak an old sock in chlorine and place it on the spot for a few hours. Scrubbing it should be a lot easier after.

Regularly empty the filter

The pool's filter is vital to the process of removing impurities from the water. However, over time the filter becomes clogged up with the large pieces of debris that it has successfully filtered. Many people forget to clean the filter itself and wonder why their pool is so dirty. If there is so much debris built up that no further debris can get filtered, you have a problem. You should empty the filter basket every week. It is important to also clean the pipes of the filtering unit about once a month. You can do this by simply setting your filter to "backwash." Turn on the pump and keep it running until the waste is simply water.

Consistent chemical levels

This is perhaps the most important aspect of pool maintenance. Water that is unbalanced chemically is murky, affects the skin and eyes of its user as well as encouraging the growth of bacteria. The water should be tested at least once a week. The six chemical levels that achieve the best balance are cyanuric acid, acidity/alkalinity, free chlorine, total alkalinity and calcium hardness. To test the water you simply purchase a testing kit from your local maintenance store. These kits allow you to easily and quickly determine if the chemical levels are satisfactory. The water should be crystal clear, have no odour and leave little no residue on your skin when it is optimally balanced.


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