Water Balance - Tuning the Pool Triad
The pool. You
fill it. Add in your sanitiser and implement your sanitiser management plan.
Bring your pH, Total Alkalinity and Hardness level to their ideal levels. Your
pool is perfectly balanced. Then you open it up for use… And your perfect pool
isn’t perfect anymore.
Your pool water
will be constantly changing, everything from the weather to oils, dirt,
cosmetics and more will affect your pool water balance readings. Are we sure?
Yes, it's any and all things that come in contact with your pool water.
Unbalanced water will exhibit these
symptoms:
Swimmers
experience eye and skin irritation
Staining of the
pool walls
Unsightly wrinkles
in vinyl liners
Interferes with
the efficiency of your biocide
Corrosion of
metals (pump seals, heaters, lights, etc.)
Cloudy water
Scale build up
(white chalky appearance) on pool surface as well as inside filter and heater
Pitting and
corrosion of gunite/concrete pools
Pool Water balancing is all about the relationships between three chemical
measurements: pH, Total Alkalinity and Hardness. At first glance, this may seem
complicated, but we’re here to simplify things. Join us over the next three
articles as we delve into more detail on each of these measurements with you.
Some people in
the business may also define ‘water balance’ as your pool water being either
corrosive or having a high level of scaling. This use of ‘water balance’ is
greatly affected by the Hardness of your water and the products added to it.
Corrosive pool
water seeks to leech minerals from everything it comes into contact with as it
hasn’t reached a level ‘saturation’ of minerals. If your pool water is corrosive
it will start to attack and deteriorate mechanical parts, your heaters and
pumps… even your pool walls.
A pool at the
opposite end of the spectrum has scaling issues. This is where your pool water
has more minerals than it can hold leaving behind scale on any surface it comes
into contact with, also know as ‘oversaturated’. It’s very similar to having
lime scale in your kettle. Either kind of ‘unbalanced water’ is not only bad
for the health of your pool and mechanical systems, it greatly affects swimmer
enjoyment!
Water balancing
is on par with the proper use of biocides for your health and safety as well as
the effective management of water. It makes sense that they both work hand in
hand. In fact, the pH of your pool has a direct impact on the amount you use
and how effective your biocide is! We’ll go into this and more in greater
detail next week when we cover pH, the art of being neutral.
For our
commercial and trade contacts, please contact us for a personalised quotation.
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