Your new in-ground swimming pool will be able to bring you and your family and friends plenty of healthy, fun-filled memories for decades to come — but only if you make certain to continually maintain it properly. In addition to daily and weekly maintenance routines, you should also keep some other maintenance tasks on your radar. While they may need to be performed less regularly, they are no less significant.
Monthly Task: Clean Filtration Pipes
Even with daily skimming and weekly filter cleaning, you’ll need to occasionally clean out your pool’s filtration pipes. Most recommend performing this task once a month. All you need to do is to set your filter to the “backwash” setting and then remove the leaf basket. After cleaning out the basket, turn on the pump and let it run until you see clean water flowing out of the waste pipe. You may also want to make sure that your pool’s filter runs for at least 6 hours per day; a timer can make doing that more manageable. One caution, here: be sure you’re not turning your filter on and off unnecessarily, or mechanical cracking may result.
Occasional Task: Shock Your Pool
Even with weekly chemical testing, you’ll occasionally need to shock your pool. How will you know when your pool needs to be shocked? You’ll notice that your pool water has become cloudy or murky. By shocking your pool, you’ll temporarily raise chlorine levels, killing the culprit: bacteria. (You will often notice cloudy water after a pool party, when more swimmers than usual have been enjoying your pool.) All you have to do is to slowly pour about 5 times the typical amount of chlorine into the return line. Once the chlorine filters through the pool water, the issue should be gone. How often should you shock your pool? About twice during a typical pool season should suffice; if you do it more often than needed, you may cause damage to your pool’s liner.
Occasional Task: Get Rid of Surface Oils
Sometimes your pool may not need a complete shocking, but you’ll notice an oily sheen on the top of the water’s surface. Caused by the body’s natural oils as well as artificial ones ranging from sun block to hair products, pool chemicals really won’t get rid of the issue. However, all you have to do is throw an everyday tennis ball into your pool and let its fibers absorb the oils. Your water’s surface will return to its clear, clean “normal” in no time! Unlike some other “occasional” pool maintenance tasks, you really don’t have to worry about doing this too often; no risks will be involved if you do it all the time.
Continue reading with Part 3.
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