Conflicting Advice About Pool Maintenance
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A challenge that most pool owners will encounter is the difficulty associated with getting conflicting advice from different sources about how you should take care of your swimming pool maintenance. Your local pool store says one thing, but you have read conflicting information online...and your neighbor Bob swears that both of those are wrong and you should use his "super simple" process for pool care. With all of these sources offering a different chemical regimen and order of operations it sure can get overwhelming for pool owners who just want straight answers about how to care for their pool.
Even as a swimming pool industry specialist it is common to have differing opinions on what to do in any given situation in a room full of other swimming pool specialists. Such is the nature of the pool industry. There are a lot of moving parts on a swimming pool, and a lot of factors which will be unique to your situation only. Add in some regional and geographic differences for pool care as well as differences in which chemical protocol you use...the end result is a minefield of misinformation and confusing information for how to maintain your pool. This article aims to answer why this happens and how you as a pool owner can avoid this frustrating problem.
A lot of the misinformation surrounding pool care and specifically chemical maintenance relates to people looking for alternative solutions or "more natural" chemicals for maintaining pool water. I have written about this subject extensively, for example this article about do pools need chlorine? is a great write up of the problems associated with looking for alternative chemicals to use in swimming pools. In short, while attempting to make your pool water more healthy, you actually end up making it much more dangerous.
To solve the problem of conflicting advice about pool care you need to understand and accept that the traditional methods of using chlorine as a sanitizer, and then adjusting pH and alkalinity in the water to make it comfortable for the bather and to allow for the chlorine to function effectively. Add in a few more details like maintaining CYA at 30 to 50ppm as well as keeping combined chlorine under 1.0ppm with breakpoint chlorination and phosphates under 500ppb and that is 99% of the potential for problems you can encounter with pool water.
If you want a refresher, or just a fast course that will teach you what you need to know to remove the mystery from pool maintenance and water chemistry then be sure to check out the Swimming Pool Steve 10 minute pool chemistry crash course. This will cover most of what you need to know about pool water care and will massively help you to take control of your pool water care and evaluate the quality of the external advice you receive about pool care and water maintenance.
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Swimming Pool Steve is an award winning, second generation swimming pool specialist from Ontario Canada and one of the most trusted voices in the swimming pool industry. With over 20,000,000 views on the Swimming Pool Steve YouTube Channel, winner of the Pleatco 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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