Keeping the water chemicals inside your pool balanced is crucial to creating an environment that’s going to be healthy for swimming. Balancing your pool chemicals is not just as simple as making sure that there’s chlorine in the water. If you have any chemicals that are slightly off, it can throw off the chemical composition of others. It doesn’t take long before your pool becomes a hotbed for bacteria. Properly balancing the water chemicals in your pool is not a difficult solution, and it can become a routine when you start to gather some experience on pool maintenance. To speed up the process of balancing the water, working with an experienced pool maintenance professional can help you keep your pool protected at all times and make sure that you have chemicals which are perfectly balanced inside the pool. Here is some information on the process of balancing your pool water chemicals.
Balanced Pool Water Explained
Balanced pool water is a water supply that’s going to be comfortable, healthy, and entirely safe to swim in. As well as making sure that you have a water supply that’s comfortable for swimming, proper balance in the chemicals for your water supply will prevent damage to the structure of your pool as well as the equipment. Having too much chlorine or contaminants in the water can cause problems with skin irritations and increase the chance for illness in using the pool. Too much chlorine or chemical imbalance in the pool can also cause ongoing eye irritation, skin irritation, and is less effective in killing off algae and other contaminants.
If you notice that your pH level is too high, the water will also become cloudy and this can create scale deposits along the walls of your pool. If pH levels are too low, the surfaces and equipment can become corroded. The unbalanced water inside your pool can lead to unwanted issues. Making sure that you can keep your pool water completely balanced is crucial here.
How to Test Your Swimming Pool
Working with a professional can be a great way that you can get professional testing done on your pool in a regular manner. You should be testing your pool if you’re handling your own chemicals at least once a week. If you notice that there is an imbalance with your chemicals you need to continually test the water until the chemicals balance out.
How to Balance Your Pool Chemicals
Before you put any chemicals into the water of your pool, make sure that the pump is on so that chemicals can circulate through the water supply.
Adjust alkalinity: the alkalinity is one of the first things to balance in your pool water. TA refers to the alkaline material that’s in your water and it can affect the pH balance. Ideal alkalinity for most pool water is between 80 to 120 ppm.
Adjust pH: the pH level refers to how acidic the water in your pool is. A pH level for pool water should be between 7.4 and 7.6. PH increase like sodium carbonate can raise the pH but it is your alkalinity that stabilizes the pH more readily.
Calcium hardness: calcium hardness in a pool has an ideal level between 200 to 400 ppm. If you notice that white scaling is forming along the waterline, you can add calcium chloride to work at bringing it down.
Proper sanitizer: sanitizer for the water will keep it free of bacteria. Most of the common sanitizers include chlorine tablets, liquid chlorine, granular chlorine, salt chlorine, and more. Bromine can also be an excellent alternative, but it can burn away quickly in the sunlight so it’s not an ideal choice for every pool.
Cyanuric acid: this is an acid that can be found in pool shock and it prevents sunlight from burning away the chlorine in the water. The ideal levels of this chemical usually sit between 30 to 50 ppm.
Dissolved solids: there’s an acceptable level of total dissolved solids for every pool. If the number of PDS rises above 2000, it’s likely that you might need to train a small amount of your pool water and retest it.
Shocking the pool: if you experience a storm or other conditions that could seriously affect the chemistry of your pool water, adding shock to the pool will be required. Fill a 5-gallon bucket with the warm water, mix in a 1 pound bag of pool shock, stir it into the pool until it dissolves and test the pool at least six hours after adding the shock.
As well as balancing the chemicals as they go into your pool, you’ll also have to consider things like pool temperature, the temperature outside, the weather and more when assessing the chemical condition of your pool and planning for balance.
Working with a professional maintenance team can often be helpful if you want to enjoy more of your pool without having to worry about the ongoing balance. Contact us today if you would like to learn more about keeping your pool in balance with professional help.
