Residential and Commercial Pool Care in The Winter Time

With fall temperatures around the corner, Clark County Pool & Lawn wants to make sure your swimming pool is ready for the offseason. We understand that when you spend a lot of your hard-earned money on a swimming pool, it’s extremely important to keep it clear and most importantly clean. Even when the weather cools down and you aren’t swimming, work still needs to be done. Pools come in various shapes and sizes and some have fancy decorative tile, negative edges, water features and raised hot tubs with spillways so it’s vital to be aware of all the different ways to keeping it looking great. First and foremost, balancing your water chemistry is important and we recommend the Taylor Test Kits to check for adequate amounts of chlorine, pH, cyanuric acid (CYA), Calcium Hardness (CH), and phosphates. Now with fall around the corner, checking chlorine, pH, CYA, and Total Alkalinity usually takes a back seat compared to summer but so does brushing the tile line, the interior finish of the pool as well as the steps and benches. During an occasional winter storm, you will also want to net out debris in your swimming pool as soon as possible. With cooler water temperatures, the following is appropriate water chemistry levels:

Chlorine: 1 – 2 ppm 

pH: 7.2 – 7.8

CYA: 30 – 80 ppm

Calcium Hardness: 200 – 400 ppm

During the cooler months you can begin to save money by lowering your chlorine levels and your filtration run times. If the pH climbs above 7.8 the water can become cloudy and scale on the tile can occur. Between the chlorine decrease and filter run time decrease, this will definitely put money back in your pocket and typically the time where you can make up for the expensive summer months.

Cyanuric Acid (CYA) which is also known as stabilizer and conditioner for your swimming pool is something that is necessary to help retain chlorine in your swimming pool but the key is knowing what happens when the levels go over what is recommended?  CYA protects the free chlorine from being destroyed by the ultraviolet rays of the sun. It helps reduce the chlorine loss by protecting the free chlorine in the pool from the sun’s ultraviolet rays, which in turn reduces the amount of chlorine needed to maintain proper sanitizer levels.  Because of this, cyanuric acid can help reduce the cost of maintaining a safe and clean swimming pool. You will want to maintain normal levels because when next summer rolls around this can be a challenge if your levels are high.

Finally, Calcium Hardness is a big-time issue in Las Vegas because our water is hard. You will want to monitor your calcium regularly because if you let your water get too hard you will have issues with scaling of your water tile line, filtration equipment, and decorative water features. Depending on where all these levels are most pool professionals recommend changing out your pool water when you Calcium Hardness and CYA levels get too high. When that happens we recommend recycling your pool water instead.

Not that fall is here and cooler temperatures are here, remember to still take care of your investment but making a few changes can and will help you save some money. If you should have any questions, please contact us today!