Hey everybody welcome to swim University today. We're gon na talk about the pool maintenance action plan and the first thing before we get started is talk a little bit about swim University. Why should you trust us the voice that you're hearing right now? My name is matt. Javonni see I'm the founder of some University, I started it back in 2006.

I had worked for pool company since I was 13 years old, so we're talking twenty plus years of pool care, knowledge and I've worked for stores. I've worked for service departments and I built some University back into when I was 25 back in 2006. Like I said, and some university is my is my core business and it is completely run by me. We are unbiased, we are an unbiased resource for all things pool care.

We are not sponsored by anybody, we have no affiliations or no partnerships. We're completely doing this on our own, trying to help everybody take care of their pool better and save some money in the long run, so that is swim University. It's just me and a very small team of people, and we keep the lights on by selling you products that are that are educational, about pool care. This is one of those things all those is free and we're gon na get into it.

So we're talking about the pool maintenance action plan. This is the basics of pool maintenance and I'm gon na give you actionable tips to keep your pool clean and clear all year long and we're gon na talk about the three C's of pool maintenance. This is something that I've come up with over the years and there's three things: there's circulation the most important part of pool care, then we're going to talk about cleaning your pool and then finally pool chemistry, the water chemistry. If you can master these three areas of pool maintenance, you will have a crystal clear pool all the time and it's safe to swim in and everybody will be happy, including your friends and family.

So, let's just dive in pun, intended we're gon na start with circulation. So circulation is, like, I said, the most important part of pool care and there's a few things. We're gon na go over. So first we're gon na start with running your pump and filter system, ideally on a if, if things were great and we had a lot of money, I would I would recommend that you run your filter 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all the time.

That's the best circulation. It's like your body, your body's, constantly circulating blood. Your pool should be constantly circulating water, but that's just not realistic, and so I recommend that in the summer or when it's hot, that you run it 8 to 12 hours a day closer to 12 hours a day would be great. That's that's! That's highly recommend it and if it's colder, if you keep your pool open all year long, you can run it to about 4 to 6 hours a day.

If you have a variable-speed pump, you may be able to drop it to a lower speed and keep it running all the time and actually save yourself some money, so that'd be good. Also, if you run your filter system at night, you might save a little bit but a little bit of money, because not everyone has their electricity on and so you're actually saving some some money there. But if you, I recommend hot summer day 12 hours a day and you can split that up 6 hours here 6 hours there and that's the recommendation there so running your pump and filter system. The most important now we're going to talk about angling, your jets.

So you have jets that are in your pool that are pushing you know. Once the water goes through your skimmer basket through your filter system, it gets pushed out through your jets. You might have step Jets, you might have just one jet gave an above-ground pool. You may have multiple Jets if you have an in-ground pool and what you're seeing is you want to angle some of the Jets at about 8 o'clock and the reason we do this is so that water can be pushed underneath to the bottom of the pool, and Then that water will come back up and then the other one you know if you have more than one jet, you want to keep it spinning in a clockwise motion.

So if you have your skimmer, that's right! Next to your return jet, your turn. Jets should be facing away from your skimmer so that it creates a whirlpool and gets back into your skimmer, but I like to keep my jets at around 8 8 o'clock. 7:30 s 7 o'clock. You know right kind of diagonal in that direction.

So that's it's! Pointing down - and you can get that and that'll help. If you have any dead spots in your pool, there's a you know, might you might have a corner or a crevice that just doesn't get a lot of water? It might help with that and that's super important. Then we're going to talk about cleaning your skimmer and pump baskets, so your skimmer or multiple skimmers, if you have an inground pool, gets filled with debris. If you check these every single day and just empty them out, that's gon na help the flow of water go through your filter system, and it's just gon na make your circulation better.

On top of that, you have a pump basket. You have a basket in your pump and you want to make sure that that's also cleaned out that won't be as filled with the debris as your skimmer baskets, because your skimmer baskets are the first line of defense and then it moves into your pump. But you want to make sure that those are free and clear of debris, so it helps the water get through your filter system. Now we're going to talk about filter maintenance, because the filter is the heart of your pool and if it's clogged well, you know what happens so.

We're gon na talk about a sand filter first. So if you have a sand filter great one of my favorite filters are very easy to use and you want to make sure that you backwash it every once in a while, because when it builds up with pressure, then it's clogged and it needs to be backwash. It needs all the gunk that the filter has been collecting pushed out of the backwash port and the way we do. This is there's that pressure gauge on the top of your sand filter or on the side, depending on which one you have, and you want to make sure that, right after you backwash you take note on where your pressure lies and pressure is pounds per square inch, Which is psi, and you want to see how many pounds it's operating at when it's clean, you might see it between 10 and 15.

Psi, that's pretty normal, and if it's, if it goes 10 pounds over that. Well, that means your filters clogged and you need to backwash it, so you want to backwash your sand filter. You won't do this very often because you know, unlike your heart, the more clogged it gets, the more it helps to filter out things. So that's actually a good thing, but too much is too much.

Then we're going to move on to a cartridge filter. There is no back washing with a cartridge filter. What you do here is you. You actually take the cartridge out of the filter system and you rinse it down with a hose or you soak it overnight in a cleaning solution.

This may not have to be done nearly as much as a sand filter, but just make sure that your cartridge is always cleaned and if the again, the the pressure gauge here is your indication on when you have to do that. If you, you know, have a very clean cartridge, filter and you're running at about 10 to 15 pounds per pressure great once it reaches 20 to 25 pounds per pressure. It's time to shut off your filter system, take apart your cartridge, filter and clean the cartridge inside or even replace it and then finally we're talking about a de filter. These are the only three types of pool filters and a de filter very powerful at cleaning.

A pool, but it does need to be back washed every once in a while, and when you backwash it. You need to replace the de that you back washed out of the pool in de stands for diatomaceous earth, which is a fine white powder, and you want to be very careful when you use this stuff because it is a carcinogen. So just wear a mask. Wear some protective eye gear when you're dealing with this white, fine white powder and the pressure gauge again, that's your indication.

If you need to backwash or not, like I said earlier ten pounds over pressure over normal running pressure, it is time to backwash. Those are the three filters and how to keep them clean. Now we're going to talk about cleaning the actual pool itself. First, we're gon na talk about skimming skimming.

Is you have a leaf net? You have it attached to a pole or maybe you're, just using your hand, you want to skim the top of the pool every day. I know that may not be practical, but try if you can do it every single day, great and and consider it a break from your day. You know go outside if it's nice out just stand. There move the thing around.

It's like a. I kind of think of it like a yogic Chinese Zen like a Zen garden. You know you're just kind of moving it around and picking up all the debris and dumping it out, and that is going to help you so much because the debris that collects on top of the pool eventually ends up at the bottom of the pool. And then you have to vacuum it, which is much harder than just skimming the top.

So if you can skim it every day great, if you can do it every other day, a every three days, that's fine, the more you do it! The healthier! Your pool is gon na. Be then we're gon na talk about brushing brushing is something a lot of people skip, but you got to brush your teeth. You got ta brush your pool, so you take your brush, you put it on the telescopic pole, you replace the skimmer and you want to brush the walls, the steps, the ladders and you want to do this every day. If you're gon na skim your Mazal brush too, if you have those hard-to-reach places, and you know how they say with teeth, if you have those hard-to-reach places in your pool where debris likes to collect brush it out of there, so that way at least it gets Circulating and perhaps your filter can pick it up or your vacuum will pick it up, and you want to do this every day again, if it's not practical to do it every day, every other day, every three days, but try it again, the more often you do It the cleaner, your pool, is going to be in the long run, it'll just help with.

If you you know, you won't, have cloudy pool problems and algae problems. If you just keep it clean and then vacuuming vacuuming, I say you can do it once a week or you can invest an automatic pool, cleaner that'll. Do it for you all the time. So we have the regular manually vacuuming your pool.

We do have. If you don't know how to do this, this is a video that we have in our course at the hot tub handbook, and it's also on our website. So you can check that out. Do this once a week, maybe more, if you, if you clean your, you know, if you skim and you brush all the time you may not have to do this as often but weekly should be good.

I recommend that you invest in some sort of automatic pool cleaner, whether it's a pressure, side, suction side or a robotic pool cleaner, which is which I highly recommend. So that way, your pool is constantly being vacuumed by a robot. Instead of you, it's it's totally worth the investment. I promise now we're gon na move on to chemistry.

Chemistry is the confusing one, but it doesn't have to be first thing: we want to do test the water one to two times a week. It's that simple! You can use the home test kit, you can use test strips. You can take it to your local pool dealership wherever you get your water tested make sure that your water is good to go. Do this off the more often you do this, the better you'll stay on top of your water chemistry, and you won't have problems with your pool.

Those readings that you want to look out for is first we're gon na look at the pH and alkalinity, no matter what sanitizer use: salt, chlorine, bromine, Bock, whistle, minerals, whatever you use, everyone has to deal with pH and alkalinity, and this is the balance you want To keep your ph between seven point, two and seven point six, and you want to keep your alkalinity between a hundred and a hundred and fifty parts-per-million. If you keep your pool balanced at all times within these ranges, you are doing 90 % of the work here. If you have good balanced water, all the other chemicals will just work much much better and now it's time for the sanitizer we're gon na go over all of them. Okay, the first one we're gon na go over is chlorine.

If you have a salt system. This applies to you too, because salt systems are chlorine and you want to keep your chlorine between one and three parts per million more towards three parts per million. If you can once that goes below three or one, your pool is not being sanitized, you are open for bacteria and algae growth and cloudy water. So if you just keep your chlorine at three parts per million all the time, which is much easier to do with a salt water pool, but if you have a chlorine pool - and you have a chemical feeder like a like a chlorine, puck dispenser, that's the way To go, keep your chlorine in check at all times with balanced water man, you're gon na be really good to go.

If you have bromine, you want to keep that between three and five parts per million. If you use big y9, which is similar, which is Bach with Bach, with Bach whistles, sorry or soft swim, they come in different brand names. But but guanines should be between thirty and fifty parts-per-million. And then, if you're, using a mineral system which uses chlorine as a backup, so mineral systems nature too frog.

These are these are mineral systems which I love, but you have to keep your chlorine at 0.5 parts per million. So that's less than one part per million and that that half a part per million that you keep of chlorine. There is a backup in case the minerals, fail you for some reason or you didn't change the cartridge. You know that you were supposed to change, the chlorine will go in there and kill what it has to kill and that's that'll keep your pool safe.

If you keep all of these in checked. Well, not all of these, depending on which one you have you are gon na, be good to go, and then finally, we're gon na talk about shocking, so shocking. You have to do this with a chlorine pool, salt or just regular chlorine. You can do it with a bromine pool, definitely a mineral pool but quinine there are.

You have your own version of shock there, but basically you want to shock weekly and you may hear people talk about shocking, weekly or bi-weekly the hotter the summer, the hotter, the temperature out shock weekly, it's kind of a insurance policy. You know shocking is basically taking whatever sanitizer that you use and just putting a very concentrated amount in there, just wiping out everything killing everything. That's possibly in your in your pool. That's what shock does you do it weekly you're you're standing on top of it? If you want to do it by Belleek bi-weekly, that's fine too! Just if you're having you know you had all the other chemicals are on track.

You look good you're staying on top of it sure go bi-weekly! Okay, because that way, it'll save save you a little bit of money but shocking. Your pool super super simple and it's an insurance policy to make sure that you're not going to get bacteria and algae growth and cloudy water and all the problems that come with pool ownership. So those are the three C's of pool maintenance. Again, it's circulation the most important part.

If you have good pool circulation, then that's the first line of defense for everything, because the filter system is there to filter the water to keep it clean and then we're going to talk about cleaning or we already talked about it. Cleaning is this: is the second one. You keep your pool clean. You skim, you brush you vacuum yeah, you know you're not going to have a lot of your sanitizers.

Not gon na have to do that. Much which is awesome. That's that's! Gon na save you money in the long run and then finally, chemistry chemistry does not have to be difficult. It is very, very simple, but if you are still confused about any of these things - and you want more in-depth knowledge, we have two products called the the pool care handbook and its companion video course.

It is the easiest pool chemistry tutorial ever it. We talk about the secrets of handling green and cloudy water. If you get green and cloudy water you'll be able to take care of it instantly you'll save a ton of money on chemicals because we teach lean pool care, which means just what you need. Only what you need and nothing else, you'll know how to avoid being up sold.

You'll know how you'll know what you need and don't need, and then we talk about hacks to keep your pool clear all year long. What we just talked about is not a hack, but we have more things that you can do to sort of automate your way through this and then a real big one is how to open and close your pool. If you live in an area where you do open and close your pool, you're gon na save a ton of money. By doing it yourself, it's not that difficult and we keep both the video course and the PDF the pool care handbook, updated and available.

All the time always update it. So if you buy the pool care handbook and the video course you get both you get 31 video lessons that you can stream they're instantly available, they're always up to date, and you, wherever you have an internet connection, you can watch these videos if you have to Go back, you know you have to log in and go back to. You know to review a video that you maybe forgot about. You can go in and do that at any time once you own it you own it forever and then the pool care handbook, which we also update 300 plus pages.

It's fully Illustrated it's always up-to-date and you can download it to your computer to your smartphone to your tablet. You can take it out by the pool and use it as a reference guide. If you have any issues. So that's it.

If you want more information about it, go to swim, university, comm, slash, pool care handbook and that's it. I hope you guys enjoyed this. I hope it was super helpful, happy swimming.