Pool Cleaning Tips
By following these pool cleaning tips, you can enjoy a sparkling clean and inviting pool throughout the swimming season. Our commitment to effective pool maintenance makes your pool care routine efficient, ensuring a safe and enjoyable swimming experience for you and your family.
Key Pool Cleaning tips, that our team would like to recommend:
1. Regular Skimming: Use a pool skimmer or net to remove leaves, debris, and insects from the water’s surface. Regular skimming prevents these materials from sinking to the bottom and makes overall pool cleaning more manageable.
2. Balanced Water Chemistry: Regularly test and balance your pool water’s pH, chlorine levels, and alkalinity. Balanced chemistry ensures effective sanitization and prevents issues such as algae growth and cloudy water. Your pH objective is to find the proper pH range for maximum swimmer comfort and sanitizer effectiveness. Ideal pH range is between 7.2 – 7.6. When pH levels climb too high, 7.8 and above, the pool water has a tendency to look dull. Also, this can cause skin and eye irritation, as well as making the sanitizer less effective. At Kleanmatters, we offer Champion pH Down. This product is a fast, easy way to bring your pH to the proper level. Safer than muriatic acid and easier and more effective than dry acid. Champion pH Down is ideal for pools using a salt system.
3. Brushing and Scrubbing: Brush the pool walls and floor to prevent the buildup of algae and other contaminants. Scrubbing not only enhances the pool’s appearance but also helps maintain water clarity. Use a pool skimmer or net to remove leaves, debris, and insects from the water’s surface. Regular skimming prevents these materials from sinking to the bottom and makes overall pool cleaning more manageable.
4. Pool Sanitization: Sanitization is the process of destroying bacteria and viruses in pool water. A residual of 1 – 3 ppm of free available chlorine is sufficient to destroy algae and bacteria. Periodically administer a shock treatment to the pool to eliminate contaminants and restore chlorine levels. This helps break down organic matter and prevents the development of bacteria and algae.
5. Filter Maintenance: Clean or replace pool filters according to the manufacturer’s recommendations. Clean filters ensure efficient removal of impurities, keeping the water clear and safe for swimming.
6. Cover Maintenance: If you use a pool cover, keep it clean and free from debris. A clean cover prevents contaminants from entering the pool, reducing the workload on your filtration system.
Pool Treatment FAQ
1) How often do I test the pool water?
2) Why is it important to shock the pool water with Champion Liquid Chlorinator/Pool Shock?
Shocking the pool water is the intentional over chlorination of pool water for a certain period of time. Organic materials such as oils, lotions, sweat and algae are consumed by the chlorine in the water turning them in to Chloramines. This demand on the chlorine lessens the effect of chlorine to sanitize the water.
Shocking your pool weekly with Champion Liquid Chlorinator/Pool Shock will maximize your chlorine performance and keep your pool water in a pristine safe condition.
3) Why use Champion Liquid Chlorinator/Pool Shock instead of tablets?
Champion Liquid Chlorinator/Pool Shock is the most economical way to chlorinate your pool. One gallons of liquid chlorinator is equal to 2 chlorine tablets. Liquid chlorinator is easy to use, simply pour around the perimeter of your pool water with the filter running. Liquid chlorinator is fast acting and does not change your pH balance. Liquid chlorinator does not add cyanuric acid to the pool water. The buildup of cyanuric acid in your pool water can cause the chlorine less effective, and the sanitizing of your pool water, and every time you add tablets you are adding cyanuric acid.
4) Why shock your pool water with Champion Liquid Chlorinator/ Pool Shock rather than dry shock?
Champion Liquid Chlorinator/Pool Shock is safe and easy to use, as well as more economical and available. One gallon of Champion Liquid Chlorinator/Pool Shock is equal to 2 pounds of Calcium Hypochlorite. With Champion Liquid Chlorinator/Pool Shock simply pour around the perimeter of your pool water with the filter running, and you are finish. Champion Liquid Chlorinator/Pool Shock does not change the pH and leaves no residue. Shocking with Calcium Hypochlorite or Cal Hypo requires mixing of product with water before adding to the pool water. Also, Cal Hypo is not recommended in Salt, Vinyl Liner or Fiberglass pools because of the rick of fading the surfaces. Shocking with Cal Hypo will also raise the calcium hardness level in your pool water which can cause cloudy water and scaling of surfaces. High Calcium harness levels can cause poor circulation in your filtration system. Calcium Hypochlorite is a Class 3 oxidizer is very flammable.
5) Why is the pH balance so important in pool water? (Range 7.2 to 7.6)
Simply put, the pH is the measure of acid vs. base of a solution. In your case it is the pool water.
Your pH objective is to find the proper pH range for maximum swimming comfort and sanitizer effectiveness. First, you need to be familiar with the pH scale. The pH scale runs from 0 to 14 with 7.0 being the neutral point. Pure distilled water has a pH of 7.0 and is said to be pH neutral, neither acidic nor basic.
When the pH falls below 7.0, your pool becomes acidic. This means your water will become aggressive to pipes, vinyl and plaster pool walls, and metal components in heaters, pumps and filters. All of these elements may become corroded. Low pH water also causes skin and eye irritation, making the eye look red. In addition, the sanitizer becomes very active which results in higher effectiveness, but has a rapid depletion rate.
High pH can also create problems of its own. When pH values climb too high (7.8 and up), the pool water has a tendency to look dull or flat. High pH can also cause skin and eye irritation. When the pH rises, the sanitizer becomes less effective. This means the pool will require more sanitizer to keep it clean.
The pH of pool water has a great effect on how comfortable it is for swimmers. Your eyes have a pH of about 7.3 to 7.5. As mentioned above, when pH strays too far from this point, pool water becomes increasingly uncomfortable. Red, irritated eyes are an indication that pH might be out of balance and should be checked.
Taking all this into consideration, you will meet your objective by keeping the pH between 7.2 and 7.6. This range combines the maximum swimmer comfort with sanitizer effectiveness.
CHAMPION LIQUID CHLORINATOR/POOL SHOCK DOES NOT EFFECT pH.
TABLETS LOWER pH OF POOL WATER.
CALCIUM HYPO CHLORITE RAISES pH OF YOUR POOL WATER.
6) What causes Algae in my swimming pool water?
Algae can grow in swimming pool water for many different reasons. It can be caused from run off of lawn chemicals, bird droppings, and other outside means out of your control. The best preventive to stop algae growing in your pool water is to maintain a proper chlorine level of 1 to 3 ppm. Also a weekly dose of Champion Liquid Chlorinator/Pool Shock will help to raise the Chlorine level to kill algae spores. It is also ideal to use a weekly Algaecide to prevent algae from growing in the pool water. Other than obvious green water, signs of algae starting to grow in your pool are slippery surfaces and cloudy water. If algae exist in the swimming pool water or on surfaces, you need to kill the algae by shocking your pool water with Champion Liquid Chlorinator/Pool Shock to bring the chlorine level to 10 ppm. Balance your pH to 7.2 to 7.36, vacuum pool and brush walls, steps, and ladders. Then depending on your filtration system, change DE, backwash sand, and clean or replace cartridge.
7) Why is my pool cloudy?
If your pool water is cloudy, hazy, or lack of sparkle, the most common problem is unbalanced pH, early signs of algae growth, poor filtration, or more than likely, low chlorine level. The solution is balance the pool water pH to 7.2 to 7.6, check your filtration system to make sure it is working correctly, and then shock your pool water with Champion Liquid Chlorinator/Pool Shock.
8) Why is CYA (Cyanuric Acid) bad for my pool water?
When using tablets that contain CYA you are building up the amount of CYA in your swimming pool. If your CYA level is higher than 50 ppm, the buildup of CYA in the pool water will significantly reduce the effectiveness of chlorine in killing germs, bacteria, and algae. Champion Liquid Chlorinator/Pool Shock does not add CYA to the swimming pool water.
9) How long should I run my swimming pool filter?
The filter system is designed to remove debris by circulating the pool water and screening out insoluble particle such as dirt, bacteria, algae, hair, suntan and body oils, and leaves. The importance of proper filtration cannot be over overemphasized in the overall condition of properly sanitized pool.
Whether using a DE, Sand/Glass, or cartridge filter system it is important to change the media according to manufacturing instructions. The filter should run long enough to run over the water at least once daily, although for best results, running the filter 24 hours a day insures consist circulation and screening of debris.
10) Why is Champion pH Down the best way to lower pH in my swimming pool water?
The most effective way to lower the pH level in your pool water is to use Muriatic acid. It is fast acting and does not add any TSD (Total Dissolved Solids). While very effective, this product should be handled with great care. As it has strong fumes, and can burn skin if it comes in direct contact.
Another way to lower pH is to use Sodium Bisulfate or dry acid. This product is a much slower process to lower the pH, it must circulate in the pool water for 3 to 5 hours. It will also leave TSD and is not recommended in salt water pools.
Champion pH Down is the smart way to balance water. It is a fast acting pH balancer that does not require mixing and it is formulated to work in conventional pools as salt pools. It also protects your pool from harmful scale buildup, and will not leave any residue (which is especially important in salt water pools). Simply open and pour, ready to use, no mixing required, quick results, much safer to handle, low to no fumes, and will not burn intact skin, no residue. It is dyed blue to dissipate when pH starts to drop.
