Tulsa Pools : Information You Need

Cody: Welcome Divers. Welcome to the Dive Time show. I’m your amazing host, Cody. That’s kind of conceited, I take that back. And here with me as always, is my beautiful and lovely cohost and wonderful person in my whole life, my wife Rachel.

Rachel: Hi.

Cody: Hi. Together we own a business that you’ve may or may not have heard, Sierra Pools and Spas of Tulsa. You can find us online at sierrapoolsandspas.com or you can give us a dial, at 918-884-8427. Again, that’s sierrapoolsandspas.com or give us a call at 918-884-8427. Or give us a Facebook like. We’re on Facebook, and you can message us that way if you need to get in contact with us. Or a phone, or a website. Either way, you choose.

Today, we’re going to be talking about pools, go figure. We’re going to talk about maintenance. Maintenance of your Tulsa pools. And I think Rachel has some good information for us today. Don’t you Rachel?

Rachel: Yes, some very good information. So last time, we talked about the construction of your Tulsa gunite pool. Today we’re going to talk about maintenance of your Tulsa pools.

So after the construction crew is gone, your yard is clean, your pool is getting filled, and it’s looking really great, it’s time to swim, right?

Cody: Time to swim.

Rachel: Actually you have to have a break in period Tulsa Pools.

Cody: Oh, no.

Rachel: Yeah, it’s unfortunate but it’s necessary and it doesn’t take that long. So you have to break in your pool because the tap water that you’re filling your pool with, is not necessary good, clean swimming water. And also your pool is going to be a little bit dirty from the construction process. So during the break in period, the filtration system is going to have to run continuously for 24 hours a day, for several days. While this is happening, you’ll need to keep an eye on the filter’s pressure gauge. And you’ll need to know what its normal operating speed is, and the manufacturer should tell you that.

When it reaches about 10 pounds PSI over what is normal, you’re going to need to shut down the system, either backwash or clean the filter. We’ll help you understand what is needed for that break in period.

Cody: I have an emergency announcement. It has been confirmed that a Dunkin’ Donuts is coming to Broken Arrow. And I just thought that’s a pretty big deal to announce.

Rachel: Oh my gosh. That’s amazing.

Cody: That is amazing.

Rachel: But I haven’t tried Hurts Donuts and I’ve heard that that’s quite the experience.

Cody: It’s on News Channel Six so it’s got to be real. So.

Rachel: Yeah but I still need to try Hurts Donuts [crosstalk 00:02:59].

Cody: I’m sorry that we just stopped there and paused-.

Rachel: Donuts.

Cody: Okay, I’m sorry. Go ahead, continue Rachel.

Rachel: So anyways, we will help you with that process of breaking in your pool when we come and tell you how to set everything up, and how to run all your equipment, we will help you with that. So again, nothing you need to stress about. But there is a break in period that will have to happen to make sure that your pool is ready to go. Ready to swim in Tulsa Pools.

If you have a new gunite pool, it may take five days or so to get the water just right for swimming, because the filling process started while the plaster was wet. That plaster had to cure underneath the water. So it means that a lot of plaster dust is going to be left in the water and we’re going to have to get rid of that. And it’s going to take a few days to get rid of that.

You will have to turn on the pool filtration equipment again, and like I said, run it for 24 hours per day. Clean the filters as necessary. And you won’t want to turn on the heater if you have one, for up to three weeks. And you don’t want to let anyone swim in the pool until the break in period is over. After a few days of running the filtration system, you can begin testing the water, so you’re going to add chemicals or run your salt water generator to balance the pH. But do not add any sanitizer yet Tulsa Pools.

Cody: No, no.

Rachel: You’re going to want to brush the sides of the pool and vacuum it every day. Push all the debris towards the main drain. And after about three or four days, you can add sanitizer. Test the water daily. And continue the procedure until the water is crystal clear. And your testing has all the components covered that we talked about before. Just having that pH balanced, having clean, safe water, making sure your pool chemistry is all properly balanced.

So after that’s all done, you’re ready to swim. And you’re swimming and then there’s some routine pool maintenance that’s going to have to happen. It just comes with the territory of owning a pool. There’s maintenance involved and that’s one of the things you have to deal with. But none of it is hard, and we will help you understand all that Tulsa Pools.

So every pool’s different. And the requirements to keep your pool water clean are going to be different. The longer you own and use your pool, the more you will understand what kind of cleaning your pool needs, how often you need to do it, and it’ll make it easier as it goes on. A good place to start is with a maintenance schedule, I’m sorry. So there’s daily maintenance and weekly maintenance. There’s different things that you need to do to balance your water.

So daily maintenance, this is going to be using a long handled skimmer net and removing leaves and any other debris that end up floating on the surface of the pool. If you do this simple task, you will save yourself or your pool service, a great deal of work later on because anything that floats on the surface of the pool, is going to eventually sink, and that’s going to make it much, much harder to remove from the pool.

While walking around the pool scooping up leaves and grass clippings, you’ll want to check the pool’s skimmer basket. So that’ll be on the surface and the deck somewhere, will be a hatch where you can lift that up, and you’ll be able to pull up the basket and clean out any debris that has been caught in there. You also want to brush off any visible dirt you notice on the edge of the pool.

It’s also a good time to check the water level in the pool. Evaporation accounts for most of the lost water over the course of the swimming season. That combined with water loss from splashing, and jumping, and just dripping from getting in and out of the pool, draws down the water levels. You want to make sure that they water level is adequate for the skimmers to operate properly. If that water level falls below the skimmer level, the pump could be damaged and you don’t want that to happen. So make sure you’re keeping an eye on that water level.

Another thing that you’re going to want to do on a regular basis is testing your water. There’s a number of test kits available but most homeowner kits will fall under one of two categories. So there’s the test strip and then there’s reagent kits. Test strips contain dyes that will change color when you immerse them in the water. And the directions will tell you how long to hold the strip under the water, typically just a few seconds. You compare the wet strip with the color chart that is part of the kit, and the color will tell you what your pool needs with regard to sanitizer, pH, and alkalinity. So it’s really easy to tell what you need to add — what is out of balance, etcetera.

Reagent kits consist of liquids or tablets that you add to a sample of water from the pool. Again the effect the reagent has on the sample in terms of color, will give you a reading of the chemical balance of the water. There’s two different types of reagent kits, there are the chlorametric kits and the titration kits. Both are color-based and they differ from one another in that the titration test requires that you add an indicator reagent and then a follow-up reagent which you usually add one drop at a time. The titration kit is the most accurate test kit Tulsa Pools.

There’s also some alternative testing systems. The alternative purification systems also require regular testing. So that’s going to be if you’re using salt water or bromine, for example. They will require a different type of test.

Some tips on testing. You’re going to always want to use a fresh kit. Don’t ever reuse kits, that’s not going to give you an accurate reading. You’ll want to rinse testing materials, make sure that they’re clean. And you’re going to want to run the circulation system for about 15 or 20 minutes before testing the water.

Another thing that you’re going to have to do on a regular basis is add chemicals, especially if you’re doing a chlorine pool or a bromine pool. This is something that you’re going to have to do on a regular basis. If you have a salt water pool, you’re not having to add chemicals all the time. But chlorine and bromine, you will for sure.

So for granular products, whether they’re sanitizers or acids or alkaline materials, granular products need to be added directly to the pool and never put into the skimmer for circulation. So you always want to make sure that granular material is just poured directly into the pool. Most granular products are concentrated so you want to avoid touching them directly, or getting them on your skin. The best way to do this is mix a required amount with water in a clean bucket. And pour the mixture at various locations around the pool.

Liquid products will be poured directly into the pool. Again, you’re going to want to hold the container as close as possible to the surface of the water to avoid splashing. You don’t want to get that stuff on your skin as it can irritate it. And you want to avoid pouring directly into the skimmers.

With tablets, many homeowners find that one to three inch tablets are a convenient way to sanitize their pools. You can place them in a floating dispenser that just floats around your pool. And they dissolve to add fresh chlorine to the water over a period of time. You can also put these in the skimmers to just dispense a little bit more evenly. Some tablets are really concentrated, so larger versions are not recommended for smaller pools. So just keep that in mind.

Some weekly maintenance that you might have to do would be vacuuming and brushing. And that’ll be just to get some of the harder spots that are in your pool cleaned up. Another thing that you might have to do every now and then would be shocking your pool or super chlorinating. So you’ll periodically have to add a massive amount of chlorine to your pool to shock the water, and to deal with the contaminants that build up in the water.

With your spa, it’s going to require a similar maintenance routine. But if the water in the spa is extremely dirty, it may make more sense to just drain the spa and then start over rather than try to correct the problem. So keep that in mind. And when you’re adding chemicals to a spa, you want to administer them a little bit at a time because you’ll want to remember that you’re dealing with only a fraction of volume of water found even in a small pool. So you want to go easy on the dosages. You can always test and add more chemicals later if needed.

So that is a basic rundown of the maintenance of your Tulsa pools and kind of what it’s going to look like.

Cody: Wow, that’s some great information Rachel, I appreciate it. I’m sure the Divers appreciate it too. Again, that was maintenance for your Tulsa pools. Some good info. But I think it’s about time for us to wrap this one up. Thank you for listening to the podcast. We’ll talk to you next time Divers. Again, as always, it’s Cody …

Rachel: And Rachel.

Cody: We’ll talk to you next time. See ya.