5 Swimming Pool Maintenance Tasks to Entrust to the Professionals

Skimming, emptying a skimmer basket, brushing a wall, running a robot cleaner: all reasonable things to do yourself. The five below are the ones where doing it yourself tends to cost more than having it done.

1. Chemical balancing beyond a test strip

Strips give an approximation of chlorine and pH. They do not really tell you about alkalinity as a buffer, or calcium hardness, or what the interaction between them is doing. Water can read acceptable on a strip and still be quietly etching plaster or scaling the inside of a heater.

The other half of this is dosing. Knowing a reading is low is not the same as knowing how much acid a specific volume of water needs to move a specific distance without overshooting. That is what the CPO certification covers.

2. Filter teardowns and media replacement

Opening a D.E. or cartridge filter is not difficult. Getting it back together sealed, with the O-rings correctly lubricated and seated, and knowing which grids are finished rather than merely dirty, is the part that goes wrong. A filter reassembled badly leaks, loses pressure and makes a mess of the pad.

Sand media replacement is heavier work again, and involves replacing the laterals at the base of the tank. Getting that wrong puts sand into the pool.

3. Anything involving the heater

Gas, combustion and water in one appliance. Beyond checking that it has power and that the gas supply is on, heater work belongs with someone licensed for it. In Texas that is a specific license, and Reed's holds it as Contractor License #960.

4. Anything electrical, especially lights

Pool lights sit at mains voltage inside a body of water that people stand in. There is no version of this that is a reasonable weekend project. The same applies to bonding, to the equipment pad wiring and to automation panels.

• Pool light replacement, incandescent or color-changing LED
• Time clock setup and repair
• Automation panels such as Pentair EasyTouch
• Salt cell wiring and IntelliChlor installation

5. Diagnosing why something is not working

This is the one that saves the most money, because the failure mode of do-it-yourself diagnosis is buying the wrong part. Cold water is usually not a dead heater. Cloudy water is often not a chemistry problem. A noisy pump may be bearings or may be cavitation from a restriction somewhere else entirely.

Working out which one it is takes measurement rather than inspection. Estimates at Reed's are free, and being told that the fault is not the expensive component is a common outcome.