A Beginner’s Guide to Above Ground Pool Supplies

A Beginner's Guide to Above Ground Pool Supplies

Whether you are a new pool owner or are a pro in maintaining the equipment, you certainly need to have the right set of tools. This will ensure that you maintain and clean your backyard paradise properly. But do you even know the supplies to get?

Before you drive down to the nearby pool store, ensure you know the supplies that are necessary. You don’t need to buy everything in the store. So, in today’s post, we will outline the essential items you need to care for your swimming pool like an expert.

What Are the Essential Above Ground Pool Supplies?

The following are essential supplies to help you maintain your equipment:

1. Strips for Water Test

We cannot over-emphasize the importance of testing the pool water. You must do it once or twice each week. This helps you to know when the water requires more chemicals to prevent the growth of algae and bacteria.

Since you cannot take your pool to the store, you need to stock test strips. They are not difficult to handle, and they give instant results. They also cover the basic things to take note of such as bromine, total chlorine, free chlorine, pH, cyanuric acid, total alkalinity, and total hardness.

You just have to put the strip in the water, hold it there for about 30 seconds, and then compare the color with the color graduation on the strip pack. This will help you to get the right reading. In addition to the weekly test, you can take a sample of the water to a store for testing once each month. You may want to watch this video to learn how to test the water.

2. A Pool Shock

Your pool will be a storehouse for nasty microbes, oil, and skin cells from humans, except you treat it with some chemicals. And among all chemicals to get, a shock is vital. 

As soon as your water starts smelling like the one in a hotel pool, you need to shock it. In fact, it should not smell at all when it is balanced. The smell is a pointer that the sanitizer level is low; therefore, it is not doing its work.

Shocking the water restores the sanitizer level, kills bacteria, and ensures that it is pure. This can also take care of mild algae cases. You may want to consider a shock that contains calcium hypochlorite (cal hypo). You can also check out to see the other types of shock and what they are good for.

You can shock the water once each week. If you use the pool regularly, you must shock it very often. Also, you can shock it after a major change in the water level, an accident involving bowel emptying, a severe rainstorm, or when algae invades the water.

3. An Algae Brush

A Beginner's Guide to Above Ground Pool Supplies

Algae is a known scourge when it comes to swimming pools. This explains why an algae brush is essential. When handling a severe case of algae, you need to scrub them off the surface of the pool.

The bristles of the brush are made of stainless steel. Therefore, they can easily break the algae’s grip on the surfaces. This will help you to save time and energy. 

It is important to note that the stainless steel brushes are good for granite and concrete pools. If your pool has vinyl liners, you can choose the regular brushes that have nylon bristles to avoid destroying the liners.

4. A Manual Vacuum

Just like the algae brush, manual vacuum are lifesavers when dealing with algae infestation. After brushing the algae off the surfaces, how else will you take them out of the water? A vacuum is the easiest and fastest means of achieving that.

You just have to vacuum them to “waste”. This will prevent them from going through the filter. Some vacuum cleaners have compact heads that allow you to control the appliance when cleaning. 

An automatic cleaner may save you a lot of time, but it may miss some spaces that are difficult to reach. However, the manual type can assist you in spot-cleaning some minor problem spots before they graduate into major problem spots.

There are different types of above ground pool supplies, but these are just a few of the essentials that beginners must get. You can contact a trusted local store when you want to make a purchase or enquire about things for other supplies like how much vinyl pool liners cost.

Conclusion

Pool stores have tons of supplies and they like to convince buyers that they need to buy all of them to take care of their pools. But in the long run, you will discover that you don’t need many of them. Let the experts at https://www.poolsafetycheck.net.au/ help you decide what you really need to pass your pool inspection. 

Everyone has a way of maintaining their equipment. Just ensure that you have the essential supplies to keep the water clean and healthy.

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