7 Steps for Pool Maintenance – The Ultimate Beginners Guide

Summer is on the horizon, and pool season is a few short weeks away.

Whether you’re preparing to open your pool for the season or are eagerly awaiting your summer install, now’s the time to begin planning your pool maintenance routine.

Caring for your pool is an essential part of enjoying its crystal clear depths all summer long and ensuring you get years of use out of it.

A well-rounded routine will keep your water clean and inviting, safe to swim in and keep it from doing any damage to the surface of your pool.

To create a well-rounded pool maintenance routine, keep reading.

Below, we’re going to share everything you need to know to care for your pool like a pro.

From essential tools to seven easy maintenance steps and some additional tips, you’ll find it all in this article.

Let’s dive in!

Pool Maintenance Essentials

While knowing how to care for your pool is certainly important, without the right tools, it’s difficult to maintain a balanced routine.

The good news is, maintaining your pool only requires a few different products:

• Pool brush
• Vacuum
• Skimmer
• Water treatment chemicals

Once you have these items, you’re ready to begin maintaining your pool!

Pro tip: invest in a telescopic pole to make cleaning those difficult-to-reach areas of your pool effortless!

7 Easy Pool Maintenance Steps For Expert Care

Taking proper care of your pool will require two different routines:

1. A daily routine
2. A weekly routine

The water in your pool is constantly exposed to the elements, making it prone to contamination.

Your daily maintenance will ensure your water stays balanced and clean so that you’re able to dive into your pool each day without worry.

Your weekly routine, however, serves to clean deeper to make your daily steps more effective with less work.

Daily Pool Maintenance

Your daily pool maintenance should consist of four key steps.

Luckily, each one can be done relatively quickly and will take minor effort to complete each day.

Test and Treat Your Water

Your water’s health is one of the most important aspects of your pool.

When properly balanced and treated with your chemicals, bacteria will be kept at bay, ensuring it’s clean and safe to enjoy.

Once daily, you should test your water to monitor it’s pH, alkalinity, and sanitizer levels.

For reference, these levels should be within the following ranges:

• pH: 7.4 – 7.8
• Alkalinity: 100 – 130 ppm

Your sanitizer levels will depend on which type of sanitizer you use.

If, like most people, you’re using chlorine, you’ll want to keep your levels at three ppm.

If you’re using bromine, on the other hand, you’ll want to maintain your sanitizer levels between three and five ppm.

Skim The Surface

Whether you keep your water covered anytime you’re not using your pool, or you have it open 24/7, your water is bound to end up with unwanted debris floating on its surface.

This could be things like leaves, dirt, or bugs, making it important to quickly skim everything out of the water before you dive in.

Empty The Skimmer Basket

Much like the handheld skimmer mentioned above, your pool also has a built-in skimmer.

Throughout the day, water is constantly moving through your this system to pull out larger debris before moving through your filters.

This means that any debris that’s been floating around in your water is slowly collecting in the skimmer basket, which will eventually block the water flow if not cleaned out.

After skimming the surface of your water with your handheld skimmer, remove the basket from your pool’s skimmer and clean out any debris that’s collected.

This will ensure your circulation system is always in prime condition and able to effectively keep your water clean.

Circulate Your Water

Your water circulation is important for more than just filtering out debris.

It also ensures your chemicals are evenly distributed throughout your water and that bacteria is unable to cluster together.

Additionally, when your pool has proper circulation, you’ll easily reduce the risk of algae forming in the water or it suddenly becoming murky.

We recommend having your pump run for a minimum of 10-12 hours a day to ensure your water is properly circulated.

Weekly Pool Maintenance

Alongside your daily maintenance, there are a few things you should be doing each week.

These tasks work to support your daily process, ensuring your efforts are rewarded with crystal-clear water every day of the week.

Shock Your Water

Shocking your pool is essentially adding a high dose of chlorine to the water to destroy any lingering bacteria or chloramines, a by-product of your chlorine binding to bacteria as it treats your water.

Chloramines are what cause that distinct, eye-watering chlorine smell often found at public pools.

Your water should never actually smell like chlorine, and if it does, it’s a surefire sign your water’s improperly treated.

Shocking your pool helps combat this, keeping your water clean and ensuring your daily treatment products are able to work more effectively throughout the week.

Pro tip: Shocking your pool should always be done at night. This ensures it has time to work without the sun breaking it down too quickly.

Brush The Underwater Surface

Over time, the constant exposure to water will cause your pool’s walls and floor to develop a thin layer of grime, often feeling slippery to the touch.

While your treatment products fight the bacteria in the water, they aren’t able to break down sediment that’s collected along the underwater surfaces of your pool.

This is where a brush comes in handy.

Once a week, you’ll need to scrub the sides and floor of your pool, loosening any build-up so that your vacuum is able to pull it out of the water, leaving your pool looking (and feeling) like new!

Vacuum

After you’ve brushed your pool’s underwater surfaces, you’ll need to vacuum it to fully remove everything you just scrubbed free.

Pool vacuums come in various styles, with suction-side vacuums being the most affordable and most hands-on, while robotic pool vacuums are more costly but work autonomously!

Whichever pool vacuum you have, it’s vital you use it at least once a week to keep your pool clean and your water clear.

Additional Pool Maintenace Tips

Congratulations!

You’re officially ready to begin caring for your pool like a pro!

While the above-mentioned steps are sure to keep your pool in good condition and your water sparkling, there are some additional ways to bring your pool care even further.

Use a Cover

Keeping your water covered with a pool cover can make a big difference in your maintenance routine and can even save you money throughout the season.

Pool covers serve three distinct purposes:

1. Adds a layer of safety
2. Minimizes chemical loss
3. Reduces debris in your water

Pool covers also come in various forms.

Some are simply a sheet of plastic that’s able to easily be unrolled to loosely rests on the surface of your water.

Others have advanced designs and aim to enhance the safety of your pool, including locking mechanisms and a tight seal around the entire edge of your spa.

Both of these pool covers will help protect your water from the sun, keeping chemical loss to a minimum while also reducing the amount of debris your water would be exposed to without it.

However, the second style of cover is the only one that will truly add an extra layer of safety to your pool.

With their tight fit and locking design, these covers can better ensure animals or children are less likely to get into your pool.

Include Professional Pool Service

Scheduling a professional pool service is a powerful way to ensure your swimming pool is always getting the care it needs.

This is a great way to help support the overall health of your pool long-term and can work alongside your regular pool maintenance routine to maximize your pool’s lifespan.

Whether you simply want to take the work out of owning a pool or would feel more confident leaving the larger jobs to the professionals, a pool service appointment is a great way to meet those needs.

Pool Maintenance in Edmonton

Are you ready to take the plunge and invest in a new pool?

Looking to maximize your time in the water by handing your pool maintenance over to the professionals?

Look no further than Sundance Spas of Edmonton!

With a range of above-ground and in-ground pools and a team of expert pool technicians, we can easily meet all your pool needs.

Contact us today to get started. Let’s redefine your summer fun!