Having a pool is absolutely awesome, and a privilege in the warmer weather. Being able to jump in the pool to cool off after a hot day, let off some steam with a fun water battle, or get in your daily exercise quota with a few quick laps are all excellent benefits to owning a pool. 

However, in the excitement of getting a pool, people often overlook the sheer amount of maintenance required to keep it looking good and safe to swim in. A pool is at its most basic just a warm, wet environment, and thus is a great place for colonies of harmful bacteria to get established. 

But maintaining your pool doesn’t have to be a chore. Keeping on top of your pool’s health is totally doable with the right balance of chemicals and water testing in order to diagnose and treat any existing problems. 

What Pool Chemicals Are Effective?

Really, the efficacy of pool chemicals comes down to the problem that they’re trying to treat. For example, some pool chemicals are designed to try and break down organic materials in order to reduce the amount of living bacteria in the water. 

But if you happen to have a whole bunch of leaves or other organic debris falling into your pool, using this kind of chemical is unlikely to make much of an impact until you can sort out your other issues. In these cases, using a physical intervention like a skimmer basket filter, or a pool cover might be a better first step. 

Other pool chemicals are designed to clean the water, removing the buildup of hard materials that can form, like dried soap scum, on the moving parts of the pool. Breaking these off may result in damage to the internal machinery of the pool, so a chemical solution might be the right choice in this scenario. 

So, the efficacy of the chemical will depend on what other compounding factors may be in the water, and whether or not other interventions are available to put in place before using chemicals to manage the health of your pool. This helps to keep chemical management as an effective long-term strategy.

How To Decide What Treatment to Use

With all of those treatment options available, it can be really challenging to know which chemicals are right to use and which ones can be used safely together. It’s important to have a solid understanding of the risks of each of your chemical management tools and be able to mitigate those risks by not combining the chemicals in unorthodox ways or through improper storage. 

Even if you keep your chemicals in tip top shape, it can be difficult to know which chemical is the right step at the right time for the health of your pool. This is especially true when trying to develop a routine pool care system or if you’ve been away for a long time and need to bring the pool back into a healthy environment. 

When all of those options begin to be overwhelming, consider using a pool chemical testing kit. This takes a small amount of water from the pool and tests it, letting you know relevant diagnostic information about the health of your pool. 

For example, if you used the testing kit and found that you had really high levels of carbon in your pool water, it would indicate that there’s degradation of living material like leaf fall happening somewhere in the pool. If you can’t see any leaves, it might be an indication that the filter is full, and needs attention. 

On the other hand, if your pool testing kit gave high readings of mineral content and low levels of organic material, then you’d know that any residue on the walls is likely to be mineral deposits and not live tissue, and you’d be able to use the appropriate water conditioner to soften and remove those hardened crystals from the water. 

How Hurstbridge Garden Supplies Can Help

Hurstbridge Garden Supplies offers a full range of pool chemicals as well as extensive pool water testing kits. They also have a variety of non-chemical interventions for scenarios where a physical intervention might help solve a problem more easily. 

If you struggle with the interpretation of your chemical testing kit or have any questions or concerns around handling, storing, or otherwise dealing with pool management chemicals, come have a chat with one of our friendly and knowledgeable staff members. 

Hurstbridge Garden Supplies is open 7 days a week and has been around for more than 40 years, so you know that they know their stuff. Get in touch to sort all your pool problems today!

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