What Happens Inside Your Pool Equipment When Temperatures Reach 115 Degrees?
115 degrees at the pool equipment pad isn’t the air temperature reading from the nearest weather station. It’s the starting point. A pool equipment pad in direct afternoon sun in Phoenix or Havasu in July absorbs solar radiation from above and reflects it from the concrete below in ways that produce temperatures exceeding the air […]
Why Do Pools Develop Problems Right Before Holiday Weekends?
The pool that develops a problem the Thursday before a holiday weekend didn’t develop it on Thursday. It developed it over the preceding days or weeks, and Thursday is when the timing, the usage, or the temperature finally pushed it past the threshold where it became impossible to ignore. Holiday weekends don’t cause pool problems. […]
The Real Cost of Waiting Until a Pool Looks Dirty Before Cleaning It
Waiting until the pool looks dirty before cleaning it is the maintenance approach that feels reasonable and costs the most. The pool looks fine, nothing is visibly wrong, and the cleaning gets deferred until the visual threshold is crossed. By the time that threshold is crossed, the conditions that will make the next cleaning harder, […]
What Causes Pool Problems to Repeat Year After Year?
Pool problems that keep coming back aren’t random. The green water that appears every July, the algae that establishes in the same corner every time, the equipment that fails on the same schedule regardless of when it was last replaced — these patterns have causes that repeat because the conditions producing them haven’t changed. Treating […]
What causes foam or bubbles in pool water?
Foam in a pool isn’t dangerous in most cases but it isn’t normal and it doesn’t resolve without addressing whatever produced it. The instinct to shock the pool when foam appears is understandable and usually doesn’t work because chlorine isn’t what foam is about. Foam is a surface tension problem. Surface tension problems come from […]
Why is my pool losing chlorine so fast in the summer?
Chlorine disappearing faster than it should in summer has a specific explanation that most pool owners haven’t been given clearly. The answer isn’t to add more chlorine more often, though that’s what most people end up doing. The answer is understanding why the chlorine is leaving so fast and addressing that rather than chasing the […]
How do I know if my pool filter needs to be replaced?
Most pool filters don’t fail dramatically. There’s no moment where everything stops working and the problem becomes obvious. What happens instead is a gradual decline that’s easy to explain away; the water’s been a little cloudy but it rained last week, the pressure is higher than it used to be but it’s always been finicky, […]
Why does my pool stay dirty even after I clean it?
Cleaning a pool and having a clean pool are not the same thing. Most frustrated pool owners figure this out after the third week of vacuuming on Saturday and watching the water go cloudy again by Wednesday. The cleaning happened, the chemicals went in, the surface looked fine, and then suddenly it didn’t. Cleaning it […]
Why Pool Circulation Time Should Change With Arizona Seasons
Setting your pool timer once and then ignoring it for a year is a classic Arizona mistake. Our desert doesn’t stay the same, so your pump shouldn’t either. If you don’t adjust, you are either burning money in winter or growing a swamp in summer. For pool owners in the summer, it is all about […]
How to Prevent Mustard Algae in Arizona’s Hot Climate
Mustard algae is a total ninja in the Arizona desert. It doesn’t look like that gross green slime you see in old movies. Instead, it looks like a fine, yellowish dust sitting at the bottom of the deep end. Most people just think it’s sand from the last windstorm. But there is a quick trick […]