Swimming Pool Maintenance

That's actually where I'm leaning, but a saltwater pool is relatively easy if you just apply a little time to it. I just know I have not been as diligent as I should have and was looking for ideas.

I take a sample to the ppl who put our pool in about every week or two at the beginning of the season.

Then I spot check it during the summer- always taking it in to the store though.

We never close our pool though, so ‘opening it’ in early spring isn’t really that much an ordeal.

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That's actually where I'm leaning, but a saltwater pool is relatively easy if you just apply a little time to it. I just know I have not been as diligent as I should have and was looking for ideas.

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Thought about it but have too many trees with a ton of leaves all year round. I have to stick to chemicals because all the dirt and debris.

I have a new home with a new salt water pool. I am dong it myself. Get a good Taylor test kit and get a digital salt and PH tester. It is way easier to test those things than doing the chemicals every day

If your pool is New, the pH is going to be hard to keep a control for a while. All the new components in concrete make the pH go up. I am hearing this will last a few months. I text mine about every other day right now and the PH is costly to high.
You're going to need a good supply of muriatic acid to bring the pH and alkalinity down.

I also bought an app, pool doctor, which is very helpful with calculating your chemicals and keeping up with your chemistry. It also saves all your ratings and the dates so if you have some issue with your pool down the road, you can use your data for warranty work.


There are only a few things that you need to be concerned with with the chemistry and honestly now, it's not very hard at all. I've been doing it a few months. You just have to stay on top of it. It's probably more cost-effective just to pay someone 100 bucks a month to do it but they're only going to do it once a week and while it's new, it probably needs a little more attention than that. I will be glad to share with you what I have been doing if you need it.

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Get a test kit and read up on troublefreepool.com, they have recommended test kits.

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This is the answer!

Pool stores will screw your pool up bigly, and sell you lots of unwanted chemicals.

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i've only had to add something to alter the pH once

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Wow , that is amazing. Your PH is staying around 7.4-7.6 constantly? Awesome. Mine is still climbing in just a few days. My new pool is concrete, not fiberglass....

I have a 6 year old saltwater gunite pool. Your PH will almost never be "stable". Bubbles increase PH. The salt cell is producing small bubbles the entire time its generating chlorine. Also if you have bubblers or deck jets on a lot, they will increase PH. You will always have to add acid with a saltwater pool.

That being said, some people are absolute freaks when it comes to water chemistry. I am not. My water stays CRYSTAL CLEAR and I run my variable speed pump/salt cell on a 24/7 schedule at minimum speeds to "turn the pool over" once a day. I follow the troublefreepool method and use their test kit/app to keep up with it. In south LA I never "close" my pool.

Usually in April when it starts to get close to swimming temps, I will break out the kit and do a full water test then adjust everything to the level it needs to be. From there I check the PH maybe every week or 2, depending on how much we swim (I adjust it before my young kids swim). I check chlorine with the quick drop Taylor color test thing on the same schedule just to make sure the salt cell is keeping up with chlorine demand. Every month or so I check the CYA (stabilizer) depending on how much rain we get and how much I have to pump out the pool. I keep that within recommended range, so the chlorine stays protected. The other stuff I MAYBE check one more time that year....in winter I dont do shite. Maybe check the PH and chlorine a couple times if the water starts to look off, but there isnt much chlorine demand in winter.

A lot of "big" pool stores will try to sell you all kinds shite to put in your water. In reality you can get most things at lowes/HD. I keep a big box of granular stabilizer from amazon on hand, a 2 pack of muriatic acid gallons from HD for PH, and a couple gallons of liquid chlorine from HD if I want to quickly boost the chlorine to "shock" the pool. I've never put actual pool shock or any other magic elixir in my water. Once a year or so I buy some calcium from amazon too.

Its all really simple once you read enough to understand water chemistry and what each product will do and what environmental factors affect each part of the chemistry. shite I barely check my skimmers once a week, but I dont have many trees around. Also, if you have cartridge filters, invest in skimmer socks from amazon. They will catch a lot of the fines that clog your filters. You can go much longer between cleanings with them on your baskets.