How to Balance Pool After Heavy Use

This time of year, your pool can get plenty of use and plenty of warm weather. The heavy pool use is often called “Bather Load”. Balancing the pool after heavy use and bather load is even more important than maintaining it when not in use.  

People swimming in your pool can be one source of contamination, with body fats, oils, sun tan lotions not to mention the amount of microbes that our fury friends (our Dogs) bring after jumping in. 

You need to regularly test your pool water

This means that it is essential to test and balance the water after it has been used, especially if you have had heavy bather load or a party. To make sure you don’t wake up the next morning with a dull, green or cloudy pool and keep it sparkling all swimming season you must test and treat on a regular basis. 

Along with ideally having a local pool professional such as Jim’s, you should be checking at a minimum the pH and chlorine levels almost daily during the holidays as it is important to keep these chemicals at good levels, especially a minimum level of chlorine at around 2ppm. These tests should preferably be done before the first swim of the day so you can take action if needed to adjust. The other key levels you should be testing for include the total alkalinity (TA), sunscreen, salt and calcium hardness.  

If you find that the pool is beginning to turn dull, green or cloudy after heavy use, it may need to be chlorine ‘shocked’, which means adding a shock dose of chlorine to help increase chlorine levels and kill off any nasties that can be around when chlorine levels drop too low.  

Some Quick Steps to Chlorine Shock your Pool: 

1.     Make sure the pH levels are in the range between 7.2-7.6 

2.     Remove leaves, debris and the pool cleaning equipment from the pool, making sure its clean and empty.  

3.     Calculate how much shock is needed to bring the water back into balance. Seek expert advice if unsure and read labels.  

4.     Add shock to the pool as per instructions, ideally end of day or first thing when pool is not in use. Retest with strips after an hour or so before allowing bathers in. 

5.     Run the filter and brush the pool to help distribute and circulate the shock evenly.  

Need Further Pool Help? 

If you are ever unsure of how to proceed, or the pool will not clear up give your Local Pool Care Expert a call on 131 546, and we will do our best to fix the issue for you fast, but also give you the best advise in case you would like to learn more and to do some heavy lifting yourself ongoing. We have many “casual” customers who we help out a few times per year and this is fine with us. We also have a great regular service program that you can discuss with your local Jim. 

The summer holidays are the perfect time to catch up with family and friends and have fun in the pool, it is the Aussie dream to be bathing away in summer, BBQ going and cool drink in hand. 

If you follow these steps, you can do that with peace of mind knowing that the pool is always going to be ready to swim and safe for family and friends. 

REMEMBER:  Always be pool safe, ensure you pool gate closes, you have a current CPR sign and always supervise children, regardless of how good they can swim. Happy Swimming!