Pool Chemistry

A cut above the rest

As pool service professionals “At least it’s not green!” isn’t the standard we want to live by. Your pool needs careful observation and chemical balancing to be considered swimmable in our eyes. Chlorine, pH, alkalinity, calcium, and cyanuric acid are in constant flux in your pool. Understanding the interactions between these items is the key to crystal clear pool water that never turns green, doesn’t burn your eyes, doesn’t destroy your pool finish/equipment, and will be safe for you and your family to enjoy anytime. What years of pool industry experience taught us is most pool service companies focus on brushing, vacuuming, and skimming while offering vague details and explanations on how they handle the chemistry of your pool. Let someone who is passionate and knowledgeable service your pool and balance your water chemistry trouble-free.

The experienced swimming pool technicians at Pool Wizard are here to help!

• Chlorine is the disinfectant used to destroy any germs that reside in your pool’s water. It does this through a process called oxidation. We use liquid chlorine as often as possible as it has the least amount of additives compared to other available “pool“ chlorine products. Other forms of chlorine may be necessary for certain pool sanitizing situations but can contain calcium or cyanuric acid. These two common chlorine additives can cause lots of headaches when it comes to mismanaged pool chemistry.

• pH is the measure of how acidic or basic your pool water is. Low pH water will burn your eyes, corrode your equipment, and even eat away at your pool’s interior finish. High pH water can reduce your chlorine’s effectiveness and may cloud your water. We use muriatic acid to lower a pool’s pH and sodium carbonate to increase it. The perfect pH to strive for is 7.4, this mimics the human eye’s pH!

• Alkalinity is the measure of water’s ability to neutralize acids & basis. Having consistent and correct alkalinity levels keeps the pH of your pool from swinging wildly up or down. Typically sodium bicarbonate is used to raise total alkalinity, but sodium carbonate can be used as well in certain instances where pH needs to be adjusted as well.

• Calcium Hardness is the measure of how much calcium is dissolved into your pool’s water. All concrete pools with a plaster finish need the perfect balance of calcium in the water to avoid aggressive water dissolving calcium from the pool finish. Pools with scaling formed on the waterline tile and water features typically have higher than necessary calcium and need to be diluted with fresh water. For pools with low calcium hardness, granulated calcium chloride is dosed.

• Cyanuric acid also referred to as conditioner or Stabilizer is used as a chlorine stabilizer in pool water. Chlorine on its own is quickly degraded by direct sunlight, cyanuric acid binds with the free chlorine molecule increasing its life by as much as 8 times. The downside to this is that cyanuric acid also reduces chlorine’s effectiveness significantly when overdosed. Many pool service companies use too many trichlor chlorine tablets containing 40% cyanuric acid by weight and quickly find that they cannot keep the free chlorine at sufficient levels to sanitize pool water. This leads homeowners with no option but to drain half their pool water in an attempt to dilute the cyanuric acid. Knowing this, we closely monitor and adjust your stabilizer levels to avoid costly water bills.