4 Ways Pool Owners Make Problems Worse
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I approve of pool owners who like to take ownership of the pool care and maintenance as this pride of ownership attitude will almost certainly reward you for your effort. However there is a fine line between being a savvy, cost saving pool owner by doing things yourself, and getting in over your head with a technical repair that you really should not be attempting in the first place. It can be tough to recognize when you might be over your head and impossible for you to know that you are potentially making the problem even worse without the benefit of experience. This article will talk about four ways that pool owners make problems worse so that you can be sure to avoid these and hopefully save yourself some money and headaches as well.
In addition to making repairs (poorly) pool owners often make problems worse for themselves in less obvious ways like prolonged periods of time with poor or unbalanced water chemistry. It says it right in the name, balanced chemistry, that there is a balancing act happening with pool chemistry. This is actually a very apt description for the interaction between pH and total alkalinity in a pool. Further to this, the saturation index is also a balance equation where you can inadvertently operate your pool in a state which is known to cause damage over longer periods of time. Maintaining the water quality in your pool is more than simply adding chlorine and making sure the water does not turn green. Prolonged periods of poorly balanced water chemistry is the number one cause of early component failure in swimming pool systems. It would actually be pretty easy for a pool owner, especially a new pool owner, to end up costing themselves a bundle of extra cash in repairs or renovations that they might have been able to save if they understood more about the technical nature of swimming pools.
Make repairs to your pool when problems are found - Of the many things in your life which you might be inclined towards ignoring the problem and hoping it will go away on its own, I think swimming pools might be the holy grail of bad things to apply this logic to. When you notice a deficiency with your swimming pool from a tile or two falling off, new cracks, the liner coming out of the track, or any other seemingly small issue you need to be aware that these small problems can add up to be big problems pretty quickly. Even worse, often these deficiencies are actually symptoms of much worse problems which may already exist within the pool system. Ignoring a small thing in your pool might actually be a giant problem and this was your only sign that the pool is going to give you before you have a total disaster on your hands. This happens often enough that it made my list of how to avoid swimming pool nightmares.
Properly balance your pool chemistry - Swimming pool chemistry might as well be black magic to some people but it really does not need to be all that mysterious. You can learn a lot of what you need to know in ten minutes with my pool chemistry crash course but the truth is that swimming pool water chemistry is actually pretty complicated stuff. It would be not all that hard to manage your pool chemistry so poorly that you actually damage equipment and components early which can cost you a ton of extra (or at least early) money. Just because your pool water looks clear does not mean that your water is balanced well. Far from it in fact. You maintain chemical sanitizer like chlorine in the water to stop bacteria and algae from turning the water cloudy and green, but chlorine is not everything that a pool needs. You also need to balance the water for bather comfort, and for long term protection of your pool and pool equipment. Poorly balanced saturation index in either a scaling state or acidic state is known to cause long term damage to water systems and equipment. If you want to prevent yourself from early pool heater failure, or early failure of the interior surface of your pool, then you need to learn more about saturation index balancing and how to maintain your water in a neutral state.
Do not use repair epoxy to fix your pool - Using a pool repair epoxy to fix problems with your pool is almost never the correct course of action to take. Unfortunately every pool store has repair epoxy for sale right on the counter and there are many pool problems that look like they might be able to be solved with epoxy. In almost every case using something permanent like this will end up costing you more in the long run because it will not fix the problem you have, and now you have to deal with the repair epoxy mess in addition to the original problem. Some common ways that pool epoxy is used incorrectly are fixing suction side pump leaks, fixings leaks from pool filters especially sight glass or pressure gauge leaks, leaks around faceplates and gaskets, leaks in plumbing fittings...none of these deficiencies should be fixed with repair epoxy as that is, at best, a temporary repair where a permanent repair is the better solution. Even worse is that using an epoxy in the wrong place, like the suction port of your pump can actually result in you needing to replace the equipment as you can no longer make a connection to the pump. So in an attempt to fix a small problem quickly instead of properly you have cost yourself a new pump, or at least a new wet end on your pump. In 30 years of working on swimming pools I have used repair epoxy perhaps six times total which should be an indication as to how rarely a repair epoxy is the correct course of action.
Do not exaggerate problems to get faster service - A surprisingly common problem relating to repairs with swimming pools, especially something like pool leak detection is that swimming pool owners will often embellish or exaggerate the severity of their pool problem in an attempt to get more prompt service. At peak times of the busy season you can end up waiting weeks for a service call even for a fairly serious problem, at least from the pool owners perspective. By making some more serious claims about the problem you might get someone out to look at your pool faster, but now we are looking for the wrong thing. Almost every large pool company I have worked with had such a problem with this exact scenario that they implemented a protocol for verifying the water loss claims prior to actually beginning the leak detection process. If a pool owner says they are losing six inches of water a day, this most often would be equal to one inch of water loss per day. Still a serious problem, but the rate of water loss will send leak detection specialists looking in the wrong places first, on your dime! Be as accurate as possible when communicating problems about your pool.
The truth is that there are many more ways that pool owners can make problems worse for themselves, or make repairs cost more than they might have. Owning a pool is a huge responsibility and not everyone who owns a pool has the same technical aptitude, or even just time available to deal with problems with the pool. Still, like a car you have to maintain it or you can count on having breakdowns more often than not. While cars are a good parallel to draw for people the truth is that problems with a pool are much worse than a car. A more suitable parallel would be that a pool is like a car that never turns on or stops driving. This is why ignoring problems in your pool is a terrible idea, and learning how to manage the chemistry is so important.
With enough time you will learn more about when you can make repairs yourself, and when you should call in a pool professional for help. The same goes for water chemistry as someone new to owning a pool will spend a great deal of time fussing with water chemistry however experienced pool owners usually have the chemical maintenance down to a half hour per week or less. The longer you own your pool the easier things will get for sure. For more tips to help you take care of your pool be sure to check out this list of the most common problems that pool owners ignore.
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Swimming Pool Steve is an award winning, second generation swimming pool and spa specialist from Ontario Canada. With over 10,000,000 views on the Swimming Pool Steve YouTube Channel, winner of the 2018 Pool & Spa Industry Leadership award and author of hundreds of pool and spa articles both online and in print Steve is committed to helping pool and spa owners as well as pool and spa industry workers learn more about the technical side of building, renovating, repairing and maintaining all types of swimming pools and spas. Follow Swimming Pool Steve on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
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