All You Should Do To Maintain Your Salt Water Pool

Introduction

In this short doc I listed the actions needed to maintain a pool for a short period. Just remove the trash. Here all the necessary actions are listed to make sure your pool is in a good condition. Currently only summer actions are listed; what to do in winter, I'll add in winter. See also www.troublefreepool.com

Components of a Pool Life

• Regular Maintenance
• Clean Water
• Correct Water Level
• Salinity
• Chemical Status

Regular Maintenance

• Cleaning (see this short doc - from once a day to once a week
• Checking chemistry and salinity - once a week
• Cleaning the filter - once in two-four weeks
• Cleaning pump skimmer - once in two-four weeks

Checking Chemistry and Salinity

Salinity

On the chlorinator controller, click "salinity" button, and you will see the number, in ppm units. Normal status is 2500 to 3000. You will need 1 lb of salt per 1000 gl of water per 100 ppm. That is, to raise salinity from 2500 to 2600 for my pool of 26k gl, I need 3 bags of salt, preferably from Walmart (cheaper and nicer). How often, depends on mysterious factors. Where does sodium go, no clue. Chlorine goes up in the air.

Chemistry

There are test strips sold in Lowe's. Put one strip into water (1 foot deep), pull it out, and use Clorox pool phone app to check the chemistry. Ignore "stabilizer", we don't need it for salt water. I don't see why we should care about hardness. If "free chlorine" is low, increase chlorine generation in the chlorinator. if pH is too high (above the norm of 7.2), add muriatic acid (HCl) (see what it says on the bottle, probably 8-16 oz is good). Careful with the acid, it's dangerous.

Cleaning the Filter

Unroll the hose that is attached to the pipe connected to the filter. This salt water is not harmful to the plants, because the salinity is pretty low (10 times lower than the ocean); stop the pump; switch the water flow from "F" to "B"; turn on the pump; watch the murky water getting out of the filter tank; it will take 30-90 seconds until it starts looking clean; stop the pump; switch the water flow from "B" to "R"; turn on the pump for about 30 seconds; stop the pump; switch the water flow from "R" to "F"; turn on the pump. one.

Cleaning the Pump Skimmer

Prepare a bucket of water (e.g. from the pool); Stop the pump; Close the valves (both "bottom" and "skimmer") by turning them 90 degrees to any direction; Open the pump skimmer, by unscrewing two large bolts and taking away the top; Dump the contents of the pump skimmer; Put the pump skimmer back; Prepare to lock the top of the skimmer; Pour as much water as you can into the skimmer container, from the bucket; Lock the top immediately, screwing the bolts; Open the valves; Start the pump.

Water Flow

Water in the pool makes this cycle:

• gets sucked in to the skimmer on the side and to the drain on the bottom
• goes through pipes to the valves (one for the skimmer pipe, another for the drain pipe)
• gets into the pump skimmer
• gets sucked into the pump
• goes up the pipe into the filter tank
• in the filter tank it gets pumped into the sand that fills the tank
• at the top the water goes into the pipe that leads to the chlorinator
• on its way there's a flow sensor that tells the chlorinator controller whether to chlorinate
• next the water goes through the chlorinator cell: titanium plates to which some electric power is supplied (10-25 volts)
• the electricity breaks the salt, NaCl into sodium and chlorine; sodium connects with the ions of water, OH^-; chlorine partially connects with the ions H^+, partially remains free: both kill bacteria
• this water is pumped into two jets which are strategically placed to direct the surface flow towards the skimmer (leaving the bottom to the cleaner machine to work on).

The pump controls the flow; normally, the whole volume of water should go through the system twice a day. The pump can control the flow by schedule. Since the chlorine is getting out of water when the sun shines, we need to run more water during the day, and less when the sun is down. I also have a break in the flow between 5:30 and 8:30 in the morning, so that the pool a) looks quiet and nice, and b) there's no smell of chlorine (to which I'm too sensitive). The chlorinator does not work when there's no flow.

The water level is never guaranteed. It's natural to expect that the level is high enough to make the surface water get easily into the skimmer. Having the level at the middle of the skimmer opening is considered normal; but of course you can have it a bit higher, or a bit lower.

Water evaporates, it may also leak mysteriously. Rains adds water. But we have to add water; there's a hose with a valve that supplies additional water. In our case, the valve is controlled over the phone. We have to be careful: turning it for more than two hours may be bad for the well pump. Two hours of water coming from the hose raises about one inch of water level.

Replacing the bulb in pool light

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