FAQ - Learn About Swimming Pool Maintenance in Townsville

Too much chlorine will make swimming uncomfortable. It can cause sore eyes and itchy skin. So it’s important to maintain correct chlorine levels.

Having the correct chlorine, pH, alkalinity, and calcium levels prevents scaling, corrosion, and damage to your pool equipment, and helps ensure the water is sanitised effectively.

Balancing the chemicals ensures that your pool water is safe to swim in. When the chemicals are not balanced correctly, the effectiveness of water sanitation is diminished.

Your sand media should be replaced every 5 years. Why? Well, what happens is that the sand in your filter is slowly being worn down over time. Eventually water will channel through, more or less unfiltered. This will reduce the filter’s ability to keep your pool water crystal-clear. Get in touch today if your filter needs to be checked.

Pool pump seals suffer wear as time passes. Seals in poor condition will allow water to reach the bearings, leading to corrosion—a common cause of pump noise. Get in touch with Ultra Clear Pool Care. We’ll give your pool pump some quick surgery in the form of a new mechanical seal kit and bearings.

The sun will eat into your pool’s chlorine levels. Stabiliser is cyanuric acid and/or its derivatives. Adding stabiliser to your pool water will bond loosely with the chlorine and minimise its degradation by UV light. Stabiliser will not be needed for indoor pools.

Your pool pump won’t need to work so hard if the filters are clean and the pool is kept free of leaves.

A variable speed pool pump is another way to cut energy costs. The efficiency benefit a variable speed pump has over the traditional pump is in the order of 30–50%. Pumps only need to be run at full bore when you’re cleaning the pool. Variable speed pumps allow you to dial down the power at other times.

Make sure your chlorinator is running off-peak—avoid 4pm–8pm. In the winter months—assuming you’re not using the pool as much—you can safely drop the run times for your chlorinator from 8 hours down to 6 hours. Dropping an hour will save you up to $100 a year.

Stay calm. Shocking your pool won’t involve blood and gore. It’s a chemical treatment to increase the "free chlorine” level so that contaminants, such as algae, bacteria, and combined chlorine (also known as chloramines), will be destroyed. This should be done after heavy use and when your pool is looking dull or cloudy. In the summer months, heavy use can mean that your pool will need a shock once a week. So it’s important that you do it correctly. Please call if you’d like us to run through the process with you.