Weekly tip … (Opening your swimming pool)
by John - April 14th, 2011.Filed under: General Post, Swimming pools, Weekly tip. Tagged as: chlorine, opening, pool, shock, start, swimming, test, treat.
Opening your swimming pool is a pretty simple process. If you winterised your pool before closing, it should be easy … removing the winter cover, balancing the pH and chlorine levels, cleaning your summer cover and relocating the bolts in your roller .
If you didn’t winterise your pool then the chances are it may have gone green with algae.
Don’t panic, and don’t waste chlorine granules trying to kill the algae, you will need to shock dose your pool with the appropriate amount of liquid sodium hypochlorite. This is a much more concentrated, unstabilized form of chlorine that will kill the algae within a day or so. (When you’ve add the sodium hypochlorite run your pump for 6-12hr then turn it off.(NO SWIMMING / BATHING until the chlorine level has dropped to a maximum of 5ppm)
Once the algae is dead you will need to see if it has sunk to the floor of the pool, it should now look brown and cover the floor of the pool.
If the algae is still suspended in the water you’ll need to treat with a flocculant to drop the algae to the bottom of the pool.
The algae should then be vacuumed to waste.
The particles are so fine your filter will not remove them ensure you vacuum to waste.
Vacuum the floor slowly so you don’t disturb the algae too much. Once you’ve removed as much algae as you can. Switch back from ‘waste’ to ‘backwash’, run backwash cycle until the water coming out is clear. Then switch to ‘Rinse’, run the pump for 30 seconds. Switch back to filtration setting. This is a good time to clean your tile band, whilst the water level is lower than normal. Use a good quality tile and liner cleaning paste. Now top up your pool until the level is halfway up the skimmer mouth.
Net excess debris from the surface of the pool and ensure the skimmer pots are empty.
If the water is still a little milky add a sparkle tab as required to the skimmer pot.
Test & balance your pH & chlorine before swimming.
We recommend bringing a sample of water to our lab for further analysis. Provided for free if you subscribe to our annual water care service. (Please call/contact us for more information.)
NB.
STOP THE PUMP EVERY TIME YOU CHANGE A SETTING ON THE MULTIPORT VALVE … if you don’t you risk damaging the multi-port valve & seal.
Another good tip is to always turn the multi-port valve in one direction, this will ensure your multi-port valve & seal last as long as possible.
ALWAYS READ THE LABEL AND FOLLOW SPECIFIC PRODUCT INSTRUCTIONS.
We take no responsibility for damage to property/equipment and or to persons incurred by following this guide.
