There are a few ways to lower chlorine levels in your pool whether your chlorine reading is too high or you just like to start using less chlorine in general. We'll show you how to reduce your chlorine levels and usage check it out and before we dive in. If you're looking for help keeping your pool clean and clear check out our free pool care cheat sheet at swimuniversity.com cheat sheet, it's a totally free easy to use guide to help you keep track of taking care of your pool. Okay.

First, how do you know if you have too much chlorine in your pool? Well, the easiest way is to just test your water. Your chlorine levels should be between 1 and three parts per million. When you test your water you're, looking to see how much chlorine is active and killing contaminants, this is known as free chlorine. When that chlorine has been combined with contaminants and has been used up, it's called combined chlorine, aka chloramines.

Now, if you notice a chlorine smell in your pool, it actually doesn't mean you have too much chlorine. That smell comes from the chloramines and it means your sanitizer has been used up. You could also get rid of chloramines by shocking your pool. This helps to reactivate your sanitizer.

Now, what if your eyes feel irritated when you swim is that from high chlorine levels, that's usually caused by an improper ph level, your ph should be between 7.4 and 7.6. Anything much lower or higher will cause burning red eyes. So what causes high chlorine levels in the first place? Well, there are a few reasons. This can happen.

One you may simply have added the wrong amount of chlorine to your pool. This can happen when adding shock to your water or putting in too many chlorine tablets. In your skimmer two, you may have added too much chlorine after adding chlorine, stabilizer chlorine, stabilizer, aka, cyanuric acid slows the process of the sun burning away, your chlorine and three, your chlorine isn't breaking down because your pool isn't in the sun. So your levels just stay high.

Okay, so here are a few ways to lower chlorine levels in your pool number one: stop adding more chlorine duh turn off your chlorinator salt, water, chlorine generator or chlorine feeder and take any chlorine tablets out of the pool floater or your skimmer. While you wait for the levels to go down, two, you can let the sun burn off some of the chlorine. A few hours of direct sunlight can reduce your chlorine levels up to 90 percent. Just make sure that your chlorine doesn't drop below the recommended range of one to three parts per million.

If you use cyanaric acid to stabilize your chlorine, this might not work as well. Remember, cya protects chlorine from being broken down by the sun, use hydrogen peroxide pool grade hydrogen peroxide reacts with chlorine to produce water and oxygen, just be sure to test your ph before, adding it. It works best at ph levels of 7.0 or higher. It will also lower your ph after using it so be sure to test and adjust your levels.

Then too number four add a chlorine neutralizer like sodium thiosulfate. This is one of the quickest and easiest ways to lower your chlorine levels, but it's easy to overdo it and it will significantly lower your ph start by adding smaller amounts to your pool and testing your chlorine levels as you go and be sure to test your Ph levels after you're done, you don't want your pool to become too acidic. You'll also want to test your cyanaric acid levels. Number five is dilute your pool water.

You can dilute your pool water by draining and refilling a little bit of your pool water with fresh water. The diluted water will lower your chlorine a bit, but it will also lower the other chemical levels in your pool so be sure to test and balance your water when you're done. Finally, what if you want to start using less chlorine in your pool? Well, there are a few ways to reduce chlorine usage number one is to add a mineral system. Minerals like silver and copper, can kill bacteria and help reduce chlorine usage up to 50 percent.

Mineral systems only need a 0.5 to 1 parts per million of chlorine. Another advantage they're easy to use an in skimmer pool mineral system lets you place the dispenser right in your skimmer basket and these last about six months and can sanitize pools that hold up to thirty thousand gallons two. You can switch to a salt water system. So you can stop buying chlorine altogether by making it yourself with salt.

That's right, saltwater pools are actually chlorine pools. The salt added to your pool passes through a salt water generator built into your filter system that salt gets converted to chlorine. Salt water systems also automatically monitor and keep your chlorine levels at three parts per million. So, while technically you still have a chlorine pool, you're adding salt to the system instead.

Now, if you want to learn how to convert your pool to a saltwater system, go check out our guide at swimuniversity.com, while you're there grab our free pool care cheat sheet at swimuniversity.com cheat sheet. If you found this video helpful, please leave a comment hit the like button and subscribe for more pool maintenance tutorials throughout the season. That's it thanks again and happy swimming.