Just a brief update with regards to my quest to heat the pool through the use of solar power. Through a lot of internet research, as well as questioning numerous different pool supply and service reps, I’ve discovered a number of crucial things about solar pool heating:

1. Solar panels are only effective if you also have a solar cover/solar blanket
2. Solar blankets are extremely heavy and difficult to remove, especially for one person, even if you have a reel for your solar cover
3. If your pool is not rectangular or circular (i.e., if it is free-form, boomerang or kidney shaped, etc) then:
• You will need to get a solar cover that is larger than your pool and cut it to exactly custom fit your pool after first leaving it out over the pool for several days so that the solar cover heats up and flattens out more
• You will have an extremely difficult time removing the solar cover from the pool. My pool guy, who I really trust, told me that he wouldn’t sell me a solar cover for my boomerang shaped pool because even with a $300 reel, “you’d be cursing the reel and solar cover every time you tried to remove it, and you’d have to keep switching back and forth from reeling in the solar blanket to straightening out the solar cover when it got bunched up in places because it was not perfectly rectangular or round.”

My pool guy basically said that my only real solar option would be to use the solar rings, but that he hadn’t heard back from the manufacturer since they first demo’d them for him so he probably wouldn’t be able to get them this season. So, even without having any to sell to me, he still recommended the solar sun rings. And that since the solar sun rings were so new, no one can predict how long they’ll last and they’re more expensive than just getting a solar cover. But that either way a solar cover wasn’t really a viable option for me - and the only way to maybe have a solar cover where it wasn’t a nightmare to remove and put it back on the pool would be to cut it into thirds so each peace wasn’t so heavy - but then you would risk having them blow off the pool if it was very windy, and it would still be a hassle to take off and put on.

In my next post I’ll tell you about my further research into solar sun rings, why I decided to buy them, and how they’re working out for me so far.

Our pool supply guy told us that there were these new things called Solar Sun Rings that just came out that are supposed to be better than a solar blanket because they’re world’s easier to remove (we’re looking for a solution that’s easy for a single person to quickly remove the solar cover/solar rings and start swimming). The Solar Sun Rings are apparently 6 feet in diameter, and have magnets on the rims of them. You buy enough to cover your pool, and the magnets join them together. They’re also supposed to reduce the amount of algae that can sometimes be caused by solar blankets because there are small portions of the pool that aren’t covered. Apparently the solar pool rings are inflatable, and float on the surface of the pool and are supposed to be more effective than solar blankets and way easier to remove and maintain - especially for one person and especially if you have an odd shaped pool. The solar pool rings are a little more expensive because they are new, and no one knows how long they will last, either (again, b/c they’re new) although they have a 2 year warranty. Sounds pretty cool in theory — does anyone have any real world experience with solar discs for heating their pool?

I’ve read a lot of mixed reviews of solar blankets (which are supposed to not only increase your pool temperature by up to 15 degrees, but also decrease the amount of water that evaporates, saving you money on chemicals and water).

Some people have said that they end up using their pool less because it is such a hassle to remove the cover. Is this really the case? Even if you buy a reel for the solar cover so you can just turn the crank to remove the cover? Does it make it not worth the expense? And if you have solar panels is it overkill to also get a solar blanket (we’re in Northern California)?

We have a gas heater for our pool that’s decades old and would probably cost us hundreds of dollars a day to run (plus it’s supposedly too small to actually heat our pool - great.) But we want to extend our swimming season in an affordable manner, and we get TONS of sun all day long (when the sun is out..) so it would seem that solar is the way to go!

The expense of installing solar panels is minimal compared to the cost of getting a new heater, and there are no operating costs. So for us it’s a no brainer. Only question is, which are the best solar panels to get? There are numerous manufacturers for solar panels for in-ground pools and I’d love to get opinions from those already using solar panels about what their experiences with them have been with regards to durability, degree to which it heats the pool, ease of installation, etc.

I’ll also be doing a bunch of researching on my own and posting my findings on this site.

If you have solar panels to heat your pool, please let me know what brand they are and how much you like ‘em!

We’ve been having a lot of rainstorms here in Northern California (it’s finally stopped, but it rained for like the past two months straight!) All those storms blew hoards of leaves into the pool, and it was kind of hard to motivate to clean the pool when it was pouring every day straight (we did, however, keep adding our chlorine when needed to keep the water balanced). Now that the rain has finally subsided, we’re faced with a pool that’s filled with hoards of leaves and dirt. Yuck.

One thing that’s really important to keep in mind is that when you have a lot of leaves in the pool you don’t want to start out by vacuuming the pool. There are a number of reasons why this is key. First of all, you’ll then end up with a hoard of leaves in your pool filter, only requiring you to backwash the filter even sooner than before, wasting a lot of filter media. But what’s also important is that you because leaves could get stuck in the right angles of the pipes and cause blockage in your pool plumbing - something that could be expensive to repair.

Even if you’re not using your pool, you still need to maintain it. The most important part of this is the water chemistry, and the most important part of that is making sure you’ve got enough chlorine in the pool (which acts as a sanitizer, and helps prevent algae from growing).

Just get the simple test strips, and you probably just need to add about 1 cup or so a week of chlorine to your pool to keep the water chemistry stable once you’ve balanced it initially.

Even during the winter, which here in Northern California doesn’t involve the process of Winterizing a Pool (which I’ll write about later), you must keep the water balanced. It’s important for the life and beauty of the pool itself, as not maintaining it can results in staining, etc. Plus the cost to rebalance it after you’ve let it go can be quite hefty. When we first moved in, it was too cold to swim - so we figured why spend the money on maintaining the pool. DUMB. The water was pretty balanced when we moved in, so if we would have routinely added chlorine when needed (again, just use the test strips to know, and I’m sure it will differ depending on your pool size, but we generally have to add a cup of chlorine a week), we wouldn’t have ended up with the green murky algae filled swamp mess that cost a fortune in chemicals to clean up when summertime came around. As a result, we spent even MORE money than we would have if we would have just kept up the pool in the first place. Pinching pennies and paying $$ as a result. A little bit of DIY pool maintenance knowledge back then would have saved us some much needed cash. Ignorance isn’t always bliss.

Also remember that after a major rainfall, you’ll likely need to add some more chlorine to the pool. Again, use your test strips to check your chlorine levels, ph levels, etc.

If you’re going to maintain your pool yourself (and you should - why pay someone else an exhorbitant amount of money when you can DIY for much less?) there’s certain pool equipment items that every pool owner must have. First I will describe all of the necessary pool equipment that you’ll need, and at the bottom of the article I’ll provide links where you can easily purchase these items online - the prices are usually a tad better than if you were to go to your local pool supply store.

Here are your MUST HAVE pool supplies for maintaining and cleaning your pool:

• The first thing you’ll need is a Telescopic Pole. This is the pole that you will attach all sorts of items onto (leaf rake, pool skimmer, pool vacuum, pool brush, etc) in order to clean your pool. Because it is telescopic, that means you can adjust the length of it with a simple twist of the dial that is mid-way along the length of the pole — this way it’s as easy to clean the deep end of the pool as it is the shallow end. The telescopic pole will typically have two holes at the bottom of the pole, and the attachments that go on it will each have two buttons (sometimes referred to as ‘kwik-fit’ buttons) that stick out from it that you will manually depress with your fingers as you slide the attachment onto the telescopic pole, and then release once they are inside the pole - then you just need to twist the attachment around until the buttons align with the holes on the pole and stick out through them, thus holding the attachment onto the pole. To remove the attachment, simply depress the buttons again and slide the attachment off of the pole.
• A pool brush - you will need to use this about twice a week to sweep your pool to prevent algae from growing on the walls of the pool. The type of brush you buy will depend upon the material that your pool is made of and will attach to your telescopic pole. If you have a concrete/plaster pool, you can get a more sturdy pool brush that is a combination of stainless steel and synthetic bristles. If you have a fiberglass pool, you will need to make sure to get a nylon maintenance brush so that you don’t scratch the fiberglass in your pool. At the bottom of this article I will provide links to numerous options for brushes for cleaning the walls of your pool. They vary in price and in size — the longer the brush is, the more expensive it will be (only about $10 more) but the less time it will take you to clean your pool. If you have the extra cash for it, you may want to also spring for two seperate maintance brushes — one that is mostly straight (for sweeping the bottom of the pool), and one that is curved for easier handling of the walls of the pool
• A leaf rake. You will attach it to the telescoping pole and use it to remove large amounts of leaves from the bottom of your pool. I don’t know why it’s called a leaf rake, as it looks nothing like a rake - rather it’s more like a large net that almost looks like the kind that fishermen use. You attach the leaf rake to your telescoping pole, and then use it to scrape the leaves off of the bottom of your pool. In the beginning it may take you a little bit of time to get the hang of using the leaf rake in a way such that the leaves don’t fall out of it when you pull back on the telescoping pole. It’s almost feels like an art but you’ll feel like a pro in no time once you get the hang of it. You start by taking the telescopic pole and moving the leaf rake from the edge of the wall of the pool, along the wall, and down across the floor of the pool until just before you’ve run out of length on the pole, all the while filling the rake with leaves. Just before you’re about to pull the leaf rake out to begin the process again for the next batch of leaves, make sure to go just a little bit further and than quickly draw back on the telescopic pole so that the opening to the leaf rake is blocked by the force of the bag of leaves itself. It sounds complicated, but it really isn’t once you get the hang of it. When I first started, I was using the net from side to side trying to grab the leaves, and that resulted in grabbing the leaves and then watching them fall back out of the net. You want to just repeat the motion of starting at the top, moving the leaf rake along the wall straight down to the bottom of the pool and then along the floor of the pool, and then remove the leaf rake from the water and start again (if the bag’s got a lot of leaves in it you might want to empty it before continuing — make sure you empty the leaves in a place where they cannot just blow back into the pool!) The leaf rake is best used when there are a large amount of leaves that can easily be picked up. When the leaves are scattered in small amounts around the bottom of the pool, you’ll save time by using a Leaf Master (see below)
• To be continued

My aunt and uncle had bought a house in Florida with a pool. They soon found out that it had a leak (they didn’t even have to perform the ‘pool leak test‘ as it was blatantly obvious — they needed to add water to the pool every single day).

Finding the leak turned out to be a very costly affair (thousands of dollars just for the leak detection using some sort of sonar equipment).

If your pool failed the DIY leak test, you might save yourself some money by trying to narrow down the cause yourself. If your pool has a leak, it could be in the construction of the pool itself — a crack within the pool shell, for example (which was the case for my aunt and uncle) OR it could be related to the plumbing or the pool equipment.

One easy way to help narrow down the cause of the leak is to re-run the pool leak test two different times — first when all of your equipment is shut off (no filter running, no pump, no nothing), and secondly when the pump/filter, etc are running.

If the pool leak test only comes up positive when the pool equipment is running, it’s more likely that the leak is related to the pool equipment itself or the plumbing (which is less costly to repair than a leak in the actual pool). In this case you can save yourself 5 grand or so by not hiring someone to use sonar equipment to detect the leak, and focus on figuring out which piece of equipment or plumbing is failing.

On the other hand, if your pool fails the pool leak test even when the equipment is off, it’s more likely that you will need to hire the big guns to bring in their sonar equipment to find the source(s) of the leak within the pool itself.

It can be very expensive to repair a swimming pool that is leaking (in fact, it can be expensive to hire a company to investigate whether or not there even is a leak in your pool), so before you buy a home that already has a pool make sure to do your own DIY pool leak test. This is probably best done during escrow, before you have signed off on your contingencies– and you’ll probably want the homeowner to sign a statement saying that they are not aware of any leaks in the pool, and that they will not add any water to the pool while you were performing your do-it-yourself pool leak test.

It’s extraordinarily simple to find out whether or not your pool is losing water because of the evaporation, or because of a leak:

Fill a bucket with water. Use a permanent marker to indicate the current waterline on the bucket. Make a notation where the water level is in the pool. Recheck the water levels in two days — if there are no leaks, the water should evaporate from the pool at the exact same rate as which it does from the bucket. If the water level drops more in the pool than in the bucket then your pool has a leak of some sort.

Don’t worry if it rains during the course of your ‘possible leaking pool’ test — water will fill the bucket at the same rate as it will fill the pool, so the pool leak test will still be valid.

The most amazing thing happened.  I bought a house in the Oakland Hills and it has a pool!!  This is awesome on so many levels, as I love to swim and even more than that I looooove to float - there is no more relaxing feeling.    But it’s also amazing because prior to buying this house, I really never, ever imagined that I might someday own a home with a pool.   And after living in San Francisco for 11+ years, it didn’t seem like I lived in a very pool-friendly climate, anyway.  But after 2 1/2 years of house-hunting in San Francisco, I finally learned just how much more you could get for your money in the East Bay.  And with better weather, to boot!  Seems like it’s always at least 10 degrees warmer over here than in the city.  It’s a wonderful change, although there’s lots that I miss about the city.  But anyway, the main point about this is that while I was thrilled to be getting a pool with my new house, I didn’t know the first thing about how to maintain it and all of the pool equipment and now that I was housepoor I sure couldn’t afford to hire a pool maintainance company to come service my pool like I was some kinda rock star.

I bought a bunch of books and did a ton of researching online so that my fiance and I could teach ourselves how to keep the pool sparkling and beautifully clean all by ourselves.  It was actually a little bit daunting of a task - I wasn’t particularly confident at first that we could do it.  But we got our pool from a nasty green lake-like swamp beast  (no thanks to the previous owner who had dumped pounds of soil into the pool prior to moving out) into a glorious, sparkling, crystal clear aqua blue.  But I gotta say it was a little tough because there really aren’t any pool maintenance books geared towards homeowners - actually, there’s really just one book that is "The Ultimate Pool Maintenance Manual", and it reads like a manual for those who aspire to work for pool maintenance companies or run a pool maintenance service company of their own.

So to be clear, I’m no expert - but I’m posting what I’m learning about the responsibilities of maintaining and owning a pool on this site and while your mileage may vary, I hope it helps you in your quest to enjoy your pool without having to pay up the wazoo for someone else to take care of the it.

I also plan to post some guidelines on things you should ask about or know before you buy a house with a pool (things I sure never thought to ask and wish I’d known about).  So stay tuned and swim happy