What to Look for when Choosing a Pool Service

Expectations

The sanitation and hygiene of your swimming pool is a priority; therefore, sometimes finding a pool service can be challenging task with respect keeping your pool clean on a regular basis. Before you canvas the yellow pages looking for a company then, take some time to decide what you expect from a pool service before investing any hard-earned money in the maintenance of your pool.

Service Plans

A pool service typically offers a number of service plans which involve cleaning the pool once or twice a week. Maintenance offerings also entail inspections, one-time cleaning, replacement of filter cartridges, vacation cleaning, chemical delivery, new pool start-up services, repairing automatic pool cleaners and the sales of pool supplies. Most pool service technicians clean pools ranging from approximately 5,000 to around 250,000 gallons in size.

Trained and Certified

Therefore, look for a pool service that has employees who are certified to clean pools and can supply you with several references with respect to their service. Don’t hire a pool service whose employees work as subcontractors. Make certain they’re certified and direct employees of the company.

Pool Service Offerings

Also, make sure the company has a variety of offerings with respect to maintenance. In other words, they should be able to offer you one of the following services:

–Weekly chemical and filter service and cleaning;

–Weekly full service and maintenance for any type of pool;

–Bi-weekly service and maintenance for any type of pool; and

–Delivery and supply of pool equipment

Other Criteria to Consider when Choosing a Company

In addition, a pool service should be licensed and insured to cover both residential and commercial accounts. It’s preferable too to choose one where there are no initial fees or contracts to sign and that offers billing on a monthly basis. If you can find one who will undertake a detailed analysis of the condition of your pool’s water, then that is good too as it will help you determine the best maintenance plan to select with respect to caring for your pool on a regular basis.

Making an Assessment of your Pool’s Water

Analyzing the pool’s water for pH, calcium hardness, metals, phosphates, dissolved solids and determining the saturation index will better assist in facilitating a service plan that will maintain the cleanliness and overall condition of your pool’s system. Therefore, testing the components in the water first can save time and reduce total maintenance costs while keeping the water in premium condition.

Summation

The pool service you select  should be a reliable and established company in your community. It should be a company that can inspect and analyze your above ground swimming pool’s water and make the appropriate recommendations with regards to cleaning and treatment. Make sure you obtain references from other customers who have used the company and that the employees are certified technicians. Keeping this information in mind as you shop for a pool service can reap successful results in the care of your swimming pool and help keep it in pristine shape for many years to come.

photo credit: St.A.

Pool Filters for Your Above Ground Swimming Pool

Overview

The main purpose of your above-ground swimming pool is to remove debris that gets into it. This debris could be stuff that has fallen in from the outside of the pool. (Don’t forget to use your swimming pool cover!) But it is also an important part of the process of cleaning your pool along with your swimming pool chemicals.

When the chemicals have done their job and bonded with an organic molecule such as a virus or bacteria, the filter then removes the results.

Types of filters

There are three basic types of pool filters available today – Sand, Cartridge, or DE filters. They all work on the same basic principle of running the water of the pool in through the filtering medium, and then returning the filtered water back to the pool.

Sand filters use sand to sift particles out of the water as the water passes through the sand. This type of filter has been around the longest. It also happens to be the least effective at removing very small particles. It can only filter down to about 20-40 microns.

Cartridge filters can filter out much smaller particles than Sand filters. Besides being able to clean out more particles from your above-ground swimming pool, these pool filters require less cleaning on an annual basis. And let’s face it, if you don’t have to spend time cleaning the swimming pool filter every 1-2 weeks, the greater cost of the Cartridge system starts to be more appealing.

DE filters use diatomaceous earth for the filtering process. DE is the fossilized remains of algae. DE makes the best material for pool cleaning because it is able to filter out debris down to 3-5 microns.

Costs of Filters

As you might expect, the relative costs of the filters ranges in the same order as listed above, with sand filter systems being the least expensive, and Cartridge and DE filters being in the same general price range. Don’t forget that you will likely need to look at your pool pump to make sure that it will be able to work with the filter type you are thinking about using.

Conclusion

Take the time to think about what level of cleaning you’re likely to need, what kinds of costs will fit your budget, and how much time of your pool cleaning time you will need to spend on your pool filter system and you will be able to decide which system will be right for you.

photo credit: billjacobus1