Once a swimming pool is installed in your unfortunately there is the misconception that no time or money needs to be spent on it. A swimming pool is an investment, just like a car or any purchase you make and should be taken care of in the same way. If this is done on regular basis, you will never find that it becomes a terrible burden and begin to regret your investment.
Going to your local swimming pool shop to regularly check the balance or checking the balance yourself, will help you maintain that the equipment stays in good shape and that the correct water balance will not eat away or disintegrate the equipment. If the PH is low on a continuous basis it will eat away the shaft seal and bearings in the pump.
The biggest misconception swimming pool owners seem to have is that once a pool is installed or built is that nothing needs to be done. Apart from doing the weekly 15-minute routine, we suggest that you consider doing these maintenance checks on regular basis too, every 2 to 3 years.
Changing the sand in the filter is one of the biggest most important things that need to be done every 2 to 3 years. The sand acts as a filtration to purify the water. The water runs over the sand before to return the swimming pool. Initially the sand put in the filter is very coarse and rough and will be able to catch all debris, dust and dirt very nicely. As it gets used it becomes smooth and fine and not able to trap any dirt or debris. The sand filter gets opened and all the sand needs to be taken out by hand. No “equipment” can be used to take the sand out, you would need to use your hand to scoop the sand out, a very time-consuming unpleasant job. Once all the sand is out you replace it with new sand, which can be purchased at your local swimming pool shop. Sand varies in size so you would need to know how many bags of sand to buy. They come in bags of 40kg and on average 2 to 3 bags of sand are used. The sand needs to be gentle put into the swimming pool by hand once again. Once the filter is closed the very first thing is to backwash the new sand and then rinse it, if this is not done – a huge amount of dirt/dust will go into the swimming pool which you really do not want. Doing the sand change on a regular basis is a very big plus when it comes to swimming pool maintenance.
We suggest that the wagon wheel also gets checked when changing the sand. The wagon sits under the multi-port top and is the “gasket” which closes the different functions on the filter. If this is damaged you could experience big water loss thru the backwash when the system is running on “filter” If the multi-port top gets hard/difficult to turn this unit can be bought separately as a spare and does not mean that you need to replace the full filter unit. The 2nd check we would suggest that is that the swimming pool pump gets taken out and an overhaul gets done. When the pump gets overhauled, they replace the mechanical shaft seal, the bearings, and all 0-rings, including all body o-rings. Overhauling the swimming pool pump ensures that no water can get thru the shaft seal and cause damage to the windings of the pool pump motor. If the windings get damaged the swimming pool pump will need to be replaced. Doing these small check-ups as suggested will lead to a happy relationship with your swimming pool which in the end is what a owning a swimming pool should be about.