Most pool owners try to balance the chemicals in their pool on their own. This could be a big problem if you are not doing it correctly. If you are not sure how much to add or how often to clean it, you should hire a local swimming pool maintenance specialist to perform these activities (Click here to learn about our weekly Swimming Pool Maintenance program). Or you can educate yourself and learn the right way to do it. After reading this article, you will have a little more knowledge about properly adding chemicals to your swimming pool. There are many different elements to swimming pool maintenance, properly adding chemicals is only one of those elements. To make sure your pool is running efficiently every single year, you need to know how to take apart and clean the filters, clean the pool itself, and even trouble shoot for problems associated with the filter, pumps, and heater. Right now we will begin with how to properly maintain your pools chemicals.

There are 3 different chemicals you need to worry about when trying to balance the water. The first chemical is chlorine. This is the main chemical used in swimming pool maintenance that keeps your water clean and sanitized. It comes in 3 different forms, either liquid, granules, or tablets. The liquid chlorine is the most popular with homeowners. It is easy to add to the pool and easy to measure how much you are adding. The granules are the most common for pool specialists because it works the fastest and is very effective. The tablets come in a few sizes, either 1 inch or 3 inch. These tablets can be placed in the skimmer baskets or in the automatic chlorinator to help circulate chlorine throughout the pool. If you are interested in reducing the amount of chlorine in your pool, click here to learn more about Salt Water Generators. To make sure you are properly chlorinating your pool, you will need to buy test strips from your local pool specialist so you can test the water before and after chemicals are added. The proper chlorine level that your pool water should be at is either 1 or 3, depending on how your test strips determine the levels. Your test strips will be color coordinated so it will be easy to tell if your pools water is too chlorinated or not chlorinated enough. The other 2 chemicals that you will be testing for are Bromine and Alkalinity. The test strip will let you know if you need more or have too much of these chemicals as well.

When testing the water, before you add any chemicals, simply take a test strip out and swirl it underneath the water for about 5-6 seconds. When you pull it out, the pads on the test strip will turn a certain color. You then compare those colors on the actual test strip to the “ideal” colors on the test strip bottle. They will tell you if you have too many chemicals or not enough chemicals in the pool. Swimming pool maintenance specialists use more complex resources to test the water, but for homeowner’s, test strips work just fine. After testing, if you need to add chemicals, add them now. Then after adding chemicals, test the water one more time and compare the colors again. DO NOT add chemicals unless you know how much to add. Adding too many chemicals to your pool water can affect your skin, eyes, and even hair. If you are having a negative reaction to the chemicals, call poison control immediately.