With the swim season here, comes the goals from many to have their backyard a place full of fun and memories. Backyard Masters is here to help you achieve that by teaching you our tips and tricks to get your pool ready!

Have you been neglecting your pool and enjoyed the comfort of warm blankets throughout winters? Well, now that the winter ebbs, it’s time to get your pools summer-ready and enjoy cold splashes of water with a perfect glass of mojito and your favorite air tube that is craving to swim in the water. But before you start imagining all the ideal things, is your pool ready to refresh you yet? Let’s hope that the water of your pool does not look like an algae tank, but even if it is, we have got you covered. Let’s know what are the top 10 ways to keep your pool summer-ready:

Top 10 tips to get your pool ready

If you are planning to have a staycation in NY, then you don’t have to worry about the problem of cleaning your pools. While you are at it, do visit pools in Long Island that are alluring. But if you are not planning a staycation in NY, please know that you are definitely amongst the lucky people to have a swimming pool in your garden but keeping them always ready is not a simple task.

• Do Not Empty Your Pool

Although it may seem like the right step to empty your pool before starting to clean it, is it the right choice? Experts say that the water acts as a weight to keep the pool down. If the water is removed, there are high chances of ground popping or walls caving in. You might be wondering about the clarity of this theory, but it is true, if the pool is empty, the ground will start to form its shape, causing you a loss.

• Don’t Lift The Cover Immediately

If you have covered your pool throughout the season, they are very likely to accumulate leaves, dirt, twigs, and whatnot on the top and corners of the pool. Before removing the cover, ensure that you have cleaned everything from the top of it and collected the gunk pile from the corners. It is always an intelligent decision to clean the cover at the beginning instead of dropping everything right into the pool, causing more trouble. 

• Remove Pollen & Other Debris Off Your Pool

Keep your pool skimmers handy as they will help you collect big objects, and later, you can use a fine mesh to take out the pollen or smaller particles. But if you are not a fan of manually cleaning the pool with skimmers idea, then you can also install automatic skimmers in the pool that will take care of leaves and rock while also filtering the smaller objects

• Use Vacuum Cleaning

Using a fine mesh or pool skimmers will not do the job entirely. Instead, to maintain the necessary out-and-out circulation in the pool, you should keep the vacuum cleaner handy as it will quickly go through the pool’s surface and remove dirt deeply. An added advantage here is that vacuuming the pool is hassle-free and ensures faster cleaning. For effective vacuuming, you will need to have a vacuum head and telescopic poles, vacuum hose and vacuum plate, also known as the skimmer plate

• Technical Installation And Pool Equipment

Ensure that your pool has all the technical systems working, including the swimming pool filter, sand filters that can be replaced once in three years. You should also have pool opening chemicals and a pool vacuum at your disposal as mentioned earlier. While you are compelled by the idea of jumping right into the pool because the water looks clean, it is advisable that you run the filtration system for 8 to 12 hours during summers and 4 to 5 hours during winters. Doing so is highly favourable because the filtration system will ensure that there is no chemical imbalance in the water. 

• Check the pH, Alkaline and Chlorine Levels

Conducting a chemical analysis is very important, especially for the pool, which hasn’t been used for many days. Its ideal pH level should be anywhere between 7.2 to 7.5, Alkalinity level should be 100 – 150 parts per million, and 2.0 to 3.0 should be the chlorine level. 

Chlorine in water should be around 1mg/litre, but not being an excellent environmental option, there is another trendy alternative called salt electrolysis that disinfects the pool using salt. Chlorine is still used but in a minimal quantity. What is the added bonus of using salt electrolysis? The risk of skin allergy or eye irritation is significantly smaller.

• Shock Your Pool

If you want to clean your pool thoroughly, use chlorine or non-chlorine shock (MPS) but if you have not used your pool for a very long time and there is an accumulation of algae, brush the gunk off before shocking. Shocking involves highly concentrated chemicals that are splattered all over the pool, this is the last step in the process of cleaning, and it is a refreshing process for your pool.

• Don’t Take A Dunk Right Away

Before you think about entering the pool since you have accomplished all the cleaning methods:

1. Don’t just think about it yet.
2. Before joining the pool, keep a very close eye on the colour of the water and the filtration process.
3. Continue to clean debris from time to time.

This observation aims to be able to see the surface of the pool clearly through the water. 

• Check Your Water Levels

As every pool has a different size, the water level must be halfway up your skimmer plate. If you are wondering what a skimmer plate is in the pool, it is a rectangular opening that connects your pool to an excellent circulation system. If the skimmer is only halfway full of water, then the entire functioning of the pool will be brisk.

Suppose the water level of your pool is too high. In that case, the skimmer, which was earlier filtering out the debris into the skimmer basket, won’t do it anymore. It will also exhaust the sanitizer, paving the way for a much more expensive chemical cost. If the level of water is very low, then the skimmer will be sucking the water and the air, which then enters the circulation system, causing the equipment to work overtime. Not to mention a spike in the energy bills and harm to your pool pump which is a costly tool. 

• Safety Around The Pool

Now is the right time to dunk into your pool, but before doing this, please ensure that the handrails, ladders, slides and diving boards are all sturdy so that the children can enjoy every inch of the pool without any worries.

Also, assess the tiles around the boundaries of the pool to avoid any wound. Also, keep the pool safety kit ready in an obvious area. 

Bonus tip: The Right Way Of Draining Water

While many cities are giving different kinds of options to drain your gallons of pool water, it is ideal that you consult the local water authority beforehand and get their views on the same. You might be thinking that draining the water in your backyard is a good option, but do you want the chemically concentrated water in your grass? 

You will dispose of the water in gallons, so be prepared to pay a huge bill and start budgeting. In most cases, if you plan to drain the water, you should keep the chemical levels down. 

Cleaning and maintaining the pool is a tedious task but what you get out of all the cleaning is that you enjoy it for months and use it anytime you want without worrying about anything. Not as fancy as a staycation in NY, but it surely will be a wholesome experience to have all the fun at the comfort of your home. 

Is the water still clean?

It is an enchanting experience to combat the heat with a pool right in your backyard, and summer-ready pools are everyone’s favourite, from enjoying every splash of water with your friends or family to throwing light pool parties. Who isn’t a fan?

The real question of the decade is that is your pool’s water actually clean after doing all the efforts? Well, chlorine, flocculant and clarifier do their jobs correctly, but their effectiveness also depends on multiple factors, including the pH value and temperatures. 

The very first step to get the water clean is to balance the pH level and find the ideal chlorine that is completely soluble in water, contains cyanuric acid (CYA), sanitizes, kills algae, does not contribute to scaling and make it suitable for hard water. But only chlorine is enough? The answer is no. While chlorine is a type of the residual sanitizer, it can be combined with an advanced sanitizer to make up for what chlorine misses.

The advanced sanitizers have UV-C, Ozone and AOP (Advanced Oxidation Process) that can help in reducing the level of chlorine you need in your pools. Products with a balance of Ozone and AOP technology will make the pool shine brighter than ever. Since manual cleaning is ebbing, new technologies are paving the way for effective cleaning that is less time consuming and easy.

Get your pool ready now and come see us!

We are here to help you get your pool ready and make sure it is nothing short of an amazing summer. Contact us today and see how we can help you!