The worst part about owning a pool is pouring hundreds and thousands of dollars into taking care of it. So if you're looking for ways to save money, maintaining your pool here are 12 money-saving pool tips. That'll. Keep that green in your pocket and out of your water check it out real quick before we continue.

If you want more help taking care of your pool, be sure to grab our free pool care, cheat sheet at swimuniversity.com cheat sheet, it's totally free and will help you keep your pool, clean and clear. All season. Long tip number one use a solar cover to retain, pool heat and chemicals. Solar pool covers aka, solar, blankets are large sheets of insulating plastic that look like bubble, wrap and lie on the top of your pool water.

They help warm up your water by capturing the sun's energy and help retain heat by reducing water evaporation, especially at night when water evaporates from your pool you'll lose both heat and chemicals in that water. A solar blanket can help stop this from happening. Tip number two use: a solar dome or black irrigation hose to heat. Your pool, gas and electric pool heaters can quickly run up your utility bill.

If you're looking for a cheaper way to warm up your water, you may want to consider a solar dome. A solar dome collects the sun's rays and circulates your pool water through warming channels before returning it to your pool. If you want to save even more money, you can make your own solar heater with black irrigation hose and a sump pump. It's the same concept as a solar dome.

You pull water out of your pool through a sump pump and into a large coil of black irrigation, hose the water warms up in that black hose and then returns to your pool. It's a simple low-tech way to harness free energy from the sun. To heat up. Your water tip number three use baking soda to raise alkalinity baking soda is a cheaper alternative to alkalinity increaser.

In fact, some brands of alkalinity increaser have just one active ingredient: sodium bicarbonate. Well, guess what that's just baking soda just be aware that baking soda is a little more powdery than standard alkalinity increaser. This may cause your pool to cloud up so add small amounts at a time to avoid cloudiness tip number four: learn how to close your pool yourself. It can cost hundreds of dollars to hire someone to close your pool.

So one of the best ways you can save a ton of money each year is to learn how to winterize your pool yourself. If you want a step-by-step walkthrough on how to close your pool be sure to check out our other pool, closing tutorial videos tip number five: keep your pool cover clean during the winter. If you keep your pool cover clean during the winter, you can save yourself from having to use a ton of chemicals to clear up swamp like water in the spring, throughout the winter, use a pool cover pump to get any water off the top of your cover And when the cover is dry use, a soft broom to remove, leaves and debris tip number six run your pump less. You want all of your pool water to circulate through your filter system once per day.

This is called your turnover rate once you have this number. You can run your system for the exact amount of time you need versus the standard rule of thumb, which is eight to twelve hours a day. If you end up needing to run your pump for four to six hours a day, this will save you a lot of money on your electric bill for help calculating your turnover rate check out our article on swimuniversity.com. Now, if you live in a milder climate or it's not as warm out, you may be able to run your pump even less.

That's because algae thrives in warmer temperatures, and if you keep your pool open during the winter and the colder months, you can run your pool even less around two to three hours a day. Finally, you may also want to consider investing in a variable speed pump that uses even less energy tip number seven run your pool pump at night. The peak hours for most electric companies are from 7 am to 7 pm during the week. This is when it costs the most money to use electricity, so run your pump during off-peak hours to take advantage of a lower electricity rate.

Tip number eight buy pool chemicals in the off-season and in bulk pool stores like to run spring sales on leftover chemicals. So they can make room for new shipments. If you buy pool chemicals early in the season, you not only can save money, but you can avoid shortages during peak pool time and buying in bulk can save you money as well, especially if there's a chemical like chlorine or shock that you use frequently throughout the Year, tip number nine test: your water every week, let's say it's the middle of the summer and your pool turns green or cloudy. Now you have to spend tons of time and money, adding extra shock to your water or running your filter longer.

This could have been prevented by just testing and balancing your water once a week. Test strips are a relatively inexpensive way to avoid bigger and more expensive pool problems down. The line tip number 10 use a robotic pool cleaner, buying a robotic pool, cleaner costs, more money up front, but this kind of investment will save you time and money in the long run, robotic pool cleaners consistently keep your pool clean and free of contaminants. That means you'll need less chemicals to sanitize or rebalance your water, and it costs much less to run a small, robotic pool cleaner than it does to run your entire filtration system tip number 11, maintain your chlorine, stabilizer levels, chlorine, stabilizer, aka, cyanoarc, acid or cya - prevents The sun from eating up the chlorine in your pool, when you add stabilizer to your water, it will help keep chlorine in your water longer to fight contaminants, and that means you don't have to keep adding chlorine to your pool because the levels keep dropping tip.

Number 12 conserve your pool, water, water, isn't free and your pool could be wasting water through evaporation, leaks and backwashing, so to fight evaporation, make sure your pool is covered when not in use like we mentioned before. A simple solar cover can prevent a lot of water from evaporating. You'll also want to find and fix any leaks. Most pool leaks are small and minor, but that loss of water can add up over time.

Finally, avoid backwashing your filter too long or too often the average 2 minute backwash expels about 200 gallons of pool water. So stop backwashing the moment the water runs clear in the sight glass. You can also decrease the frequency of backwashing by maintaining a clean pool and filter system. If you want to learn when and when not to backwash, your pool filter check out our other video and if you need more help, maintaining your pool throughout the season grab our free pool care cheat sheet at swimuniversity.com cheat sheet.

And if you found this video helpful 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.