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Saving Tips on Pool Maintenance With a Pool Cleaner (Plus More!)
Is your pool summer-ready yet? Have you done everything to keep it clean to the envy of your friends and relatives when they visit you one of these days?
If your answer is yes, that’s great. If not, don’t worry because you still have a few months more to ready your pool for that hot, summer weekend dip.
If you’re a bit anxious that you will spend a lot on pool maintenance, there are many ways to cut your upkeep cost to the minimum.
Invest in Pool Cleaner
If buying a pool cleaner doesn’t come on top of your list, we understand why. You want to save money, not to increase its cost.
However, buying a high-quality pool cleaner can lessen your maintenance cost by as much as 50% monthly. An innovative automatic pool cleaner that does the job tirelessly
for more than 2 hours is better than buying a lot of chemicals and running your pool’s filter most of the time.
Suppose you will invest in a pool cleaner with its own filter system. In that case, you will only incur an additional $7 or so on your electric bill.
That’s more economical rather than cleaning your pool manually and running the pool’s filter system at the same time.
Another advantage of using a pool cleaner is choosing which cleaning mode to set depending on the water condition.
If you need basic cleaning, select the gentle cleaning option to clean the pool within an hour.
This feature will only add a few cents to your electric consumption, unlike when you use the pool’s pump and filter system during manual cleaning.
Also, since you can clean the pool as often as you want with an automatic machine, the pool will be much cleaner than before.
You don’t need to spend a lot on expensive chemicals or other cleaning materials, except for chlorine which you will need for shocking your pool.
A durable pool cleaner can last for about five to six years.
In its lifetime, you can save a lot on electric bills and chemicals to offset the upfront payment that you had on purchasing the device.
Other Money-saving Tips
Aside from using an automatic pool cleaner, there are additional tips that you can do to save money on pool maintenance.
Baking Soda
Using chemicals to sanitize the water and balance the proper pH level is essential. Pool disinfectants are necessary for the prevention of diseases. Some of the most common conditions associated with dirty water include diarrhea, athlete’s foot, dermatitis, itching eyes and skin, nasal irritation, and so much more.
Buying chemicals can be expensive though. The good news is you can keep the pool water clean and sanitized using baking soda.
This hack is cheaper and readily available in your kitchen. The general rule is a 1.5lbs of soda per 10,000 gallons of water can increase the alkalinity by about 10 ppm.
Initially, you can add half of this amount first, then test the water if it reached the suitable pH level, which is anywhere between 7.2 to 7.8.
Add more baking soda when needed following the simple formula.
Buy Chemicals in Bulk
Baking soda works great, but you may not be satisfied by its performance alone. If you want to use chemicals specially formulated for sanitizing pools, you can save money by buying them in bulk.
If you’re lucky, many stores give discounts or buy-one-take-one promos during the off-season. Make sure to buy your needs months before summer to score the best deals.
Use Solar cover
Solar covers or blankets help maintain the heat of the pool. It also prevents falling trees and debris from landing in the pool.
Using a solar cover means you don’t need to use a pool heater or clean the pool often.
If you really need to use a heater, you can turn it up until it reaches the desired temperature, shut it off, then keep a solar cover at night. This technique will make the heat last longer.
Run Your Pump Less
In summer, it’s recommended to run your pump 10 to 12 hours every day. It’s necessary to keep the water moving to prevent algae growth.
Algae love to thrive in warm water. If you live in a region with a mild climate, even during summer, you can run the filter in just 2-4 hours a day during summer.
Run Your Pump at Night
Do you know that the peak hours for using electricity are from 7:00am to 7:00pm? During this time window, it costs you more when you use electricity.
This is why it’s recommended to run your pump during off-peak hours to incur less in your electric bill.
Shock Your Pool?
By shocking a pool, you will add chlorine or other chemicals to the water to raise its “free chlorine” level. The purpose of doing this is to destroy harmful organic matter such as algae and bacteria.
You can also shock the pool after a long time of not using it, after a heavy rain, or after winter and at the start of summer.
Conserve Water
A pool isn’t a pool without water in it. Due to many factors, water loss happens, which will force you to refill the reservoir often. When this happens all the time, you’ll pay more on your water bill.
Some of the most common reasons for water wastes include evaporation, leaks, splash out, and filter backwashing.
Know what’s the root cause of water wasting on your pool and do something about it. For instance, if you’re living in a dry and humid area, using pool cover can prevent evaporation.
Also, maintaining the pool’s cleanliness using an automatic pool cleaner would mean you don’t need to do filter backwashing intensively.
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