Undoubtedly, pool chemistry is one of the most difficult aspects of pool ownership. Pool experts like the fact that there is such a huge variety of pool chemicals with frightening scientific names, for example, potassium peroxymonosulfate. It allows them to sell you on the costly services you could otherwise do yourself.
Actually, pool maintenance isn’t too difficult. There are a few simple facts you should be aware of from the very beginning. Other details, such as various chemicals, products and processing techniques can be learnt during the process. All you need is time and a readiness to do everything necessary to maintain your pool clean. Below you can find a basic set of materials to help you start.
Contents
Significance of pool chemicals
No one likes them. Pool chemicals irritate our eyes and skin. They are expensive. Even worse, they’re difficult to maintain. But why do we need them? Below you can find the major reasons:
Security.
In the absence of proper treatment, the water in the pool can become filled with bacteria, algae and hazardous microorganisms.
Beauty.
Have you seen many azure blue ponds in nature? Chemical substances make your pool water look beautiful and attractive.
All the chemicals added to pool either perform of one of these tasks, or work to maintain the efficiency of other chemicals. The latter is where it can become more complex.
Basics
The task of chlorine is to disinfect the pools. Most pool owners add it straight to their pool as a liquid; however, it can be found it in the form of tablets and granules as well. Otherwise, you can use a chlorine generator for turning salt into chlorine in the pool. Many pool owners choose this option since they don’t have to deal work on chlorine storage (and the dangers that poses).
The rest of the work on pool maintenance is related to preventing the chlorine from degrading or leading to undesirable implications. To provide the smooth functioning, you require a kit or device intended for testing your water to find out when you need to add chemicals. Below you can find some main terms you need to remember:
Stabilizers.
By itself, chlorine is quickly destroyed by the sunlight. Stabilizers are chemicals interacting with chlorine to create a more solid compound, increasing its performance.
Shock treatment.
Chlorine becomes increasingly ineffective over time; thus, even if your test kit indicates that you have enough of it in the pool, it may not be active. To press a restart button, you should shock treat your pool with a large dose of chlorine from time to time.
pH Level.
The thing is, unbalanced pH can have a negative effect on your pool equipment and stop chlorine from functioning properly. To prevent these issues, you have to test your water om a regular basis and add chemical substances to maintain it at a specific pH level (7.4-7.5 is the golden mean).
There’s much more to find out about pool chemistry, but major maintenance is just a matter of controlling the concentration of different chemicals and making adjustments where necessary. It is not necessary to know the way all this staff works. All you need is to understand what really works.