Why Bother to Balance My Pool?

In Blog, Chemistry by Timothy Petsch

So the (convoluted) logic to this one is …” Why should I balance my pool water when it looks fine to me?”

By “balance” I mean bring it as close to zero on the Langlier Saturation Index as possible After mentally shaking my head, and right after I have taken a deep breath I explain:-

Water is a universal solvent, so unless it is “balanced”, meaning it has the correct proportion of a certain cross section of chemicals, it can wreak havoc on plaster surfaces, metals exposed to water – heaters -and cause other water related problems such as severe cloudiness that could have your pool closed by the DoH, or worse…drownings; which have happened in front of bystanders who have been unable to see the body under water due to excessive cloudiness.

Here is the adage “if you don’t give water what it wants, it will take it from where it can; and if you give it too much of what it wants it will give it back where it can” Neither are situations you want to allow. Trust me!

In truth it is a very simple fix; here is my simple and proven approach to water balance:

1. Perform this once a week, I like Friday’s 2. Bring your Calcium Hardness to 250PPM 3. Bring your Total Alkalinity to 100PPM 4. Now let’s get your pH to 7.4

You are Balanced!!..pretty simple hey?

OK so I have left out TDS and temperature, but if you concentrate on the above 4 points, your pool will be within the parameters, and you won’t be having to explain yourself to management!