Heavy rain dilutes swimming pool water

[SwimmingPoolsThailand]

Heavy rain dilutes your swimming pool water and sends all your precious chemicals and salt down the drain.

Stock up with chemicals now at our special prices.

Swimming Pool Services are also  available from our SwimmingPoolsThailand agent in Chiang Mai.

[bobholds]

Yes its true, I'm a pool consultant brought up in many years through the ranks.  In some rare cases in remote areas a bit of free water maybe a blessing, but for the rest of us it's no good as it dilutes our pool water and yes, that means our sterilisation chemicals get diluted making them less effective, but worse still, depending on the acid/alkaline in the rain it can throw the pH levels haywire making our chlorine up to more than 50% less effective! And this is the real deal breaker, because even if we have good chlorination machines what good is a high Chlorine if it's only half working?  Add this together with all the dust, pollution and airborne algae in the rain, and after a couple of days of hot sun even the best kept pools will suffer, some seriously! So what to do.... 

1. As soon as the rain stops adjust water to the correct level before adding any salt or chemicals.  This might be a good time to use any excess water in the pool to give your filter an extra long backwash and rinse of your sand filter.

2. Test the pH (and chlorine) taking your sample at least 1 arms length below the surface, as the surface water might be rain water! Without any knee jerk reactions from you, adjust the pH to 7.4 to 7.6 by adding your pH chemicals to the water in a bucket (in all chemical work, add chemicals to the water, NOT water into chemicals), pour the diluted chemicals around the shallow end remembering it can take 6 hours or more to disperse, even with the pool pump constantly running.  Retest again next day and add more chemicals if necessary.  Try to get the pH balance right first then the  salt, then the chlorine.  I usually leave the pump and filter running for 24 hours on manual to clear the water of dust and dead algae etc. Remember don't wait too long after the rains, even if your pool looks good, check it!

We look after many pools here in Chiangmai and even 2 of ours went off a bit after the heavy rain last week!!  Pm if you need help I'll send a chart with chemical levels on it for you...