Let’s get your pool ready for the season.

Four Seasons Pools can help open your pool back up after the winter so that it is safe for you and your family all summer long. Our efficient and effective opening services deliver timely and complete preparation for your pool in just 4 Days.

Day 1

Make sure the outside water is on and fill the pool.

Brush the pool.

Start the pump and put the filter in recirculation mode

Flock the pool with alum.

Run the pump on for 2 hours and turn off.

Explanation for using alum.

Alum is commonly used in water treatment facilities to remove phosphates, pathogens, and other undesirable particles. Removing phosphates is particularly important as high phosphate levels can lead to algae blooms and cloudy pool water.

Where do Phosphates come from?

• Chemically: there are phosphate-based chemicals like sequestering agents that are popular in the pool business to prevent scale and metal stains.
• Naturally (contamination): weather like wind and rain can introduce soils and other debris from nature that contain phosphates in them. Think about plants and grass near the pool, and if the yard uses any fertilizers that could be washed into the pool during a heavy rainstorm. How about this, are you in a rural area near farmland? When the wind blows, the fertilizers they use are a huge contributor to phosphates in pools. Another example of this, though rare, is soot from wildfires which is very rich in phosphorus and nitrogen.
• Tap water: Water treatment centers have been treating drinking water with phosphate-based sequestering agents. They do so to protect the infrastructure and pipes from scale formation and corrosion. And it’s a good thing they do, by the way. It’s just a problem for swimming pools that we need to be aware of. We strongly suggest testing phosphates in your tap water to see if this is a factor in your pool.

Go here for more information about phosphates (Insert link) https://blog.orendatech.com/phosphates-algae-chlorine-demand

Day 2

Your Pool water should be very clear by now.

How floc works:

• The flocculant neutralizes the electrical charge on the particles, allowing them to come together and form larger aggregates. 
• It appears white and fluffy over the pool bottom and must be vac’d very slowly to waste to not break the floc. This is best done with a separate pump and not through the filter. 
• This method has been shown to reduce CYA concentrations by 30 to 50%. 
• Test for CYA and determine if more water needs to be removed to lower CYA. 

(go here for more information about cyanuric acid CYA) – (Insert link) https://blog.orendatech.com/understanding-cyanuric-acid

Day 3

• Fill the pool and run the pump. Vac the pool one more time.
• Now we need to balance the pool water so that it is neither scaling nor corrosive.
• The international standard for balanced water is called the LSI or Langelier Saturation Index

 (Go here for more information about the LSI) – (Insert link)

https://blog.orendatech.com/langelier-saturation-index

Day 4

Ready to kick off your summer and cool down in your pool? Just one more thing!

Bather waste. Non-Living Organics. Carbon-based crud. Body Butter. People have different names for organic waste in the water, but here’s what you need to know: you need to manage it. If you do nothing, chlorine itself will try to oxidize the organics out of the water…and that’s great…except chlorine is not a very efficient oxidizer of organics. Chlorine is an excellent sanitizer and disinfectant, yet over 80% of its job in swimming pools is oxidation of bather waste.

Let’s prepare your pool for Bather waste right from the beginning with enzymes.

Go here for information about enzymes – (insert link)

https://blog.orendatech.com/treat-water-enzymes