How To Shock Your Swimming Pool
A swimming pool’s shock treatment is for corrective purposes. If your water has lost its clarity and its crystal-clear appearance, if it has changed colour, tends towards green, and if you are afraid that it will get worse in the next 24 hours, shock treatment is the best option.
In the face of water that has turned, before considering emptying, even partial, of the pool, this is the last winning choice. In the event of a non-typical event, shock treatment may be necessary to restore clear and crystalline water.
Given the chemical load of the shock treatment, it is advised to shock the pool at least once in the middle of summer every 2 weeks.
Why shock treatment?
If the pool cleaning and filtration are correctly handled, then it will not be necessary to shock a pool.
In less than 48 hours, the water can then cloud rapidly and be overrun with algae, taking on a strange colouring that is ugly for swimming and potentially unsafe for your pool. The shock treatment is a radical approach that helps you to get safe and clean water.
When do you need to do shock treatment?
While it is an unusual technique, shock treatment will become less uncommon as the water ages (chemists talk of the age of water). Its goal is to use chemicals to find suitable conditions for swimming.
These are the times when a swimming pool will need shock treatment:
- After the pool has been completely vacated.
- When the swimming pool is put back into service, after wintering.
- After a weather event: rain, storm, heavy gales, excessive heat.
- Following algae proliferation or invasion: whatever the explanation.
- Due to the pool’s heavy use: a significant number of swimmers.
How to Start Shock Treatment?
Prepare the pool water.
- Stop all swimming: explain to the little ones if necessary and close access to the pool if possible.
- The accessories and items in the water are removed: toys, pipes. Get them clean and rinse.
- Remove any large debris using a net and drain the skimmers’ baskets and the pre-filter pump.
- Clean the swimming pool: walls, bottom, water line.
- Check the filter’s condition (in particular, pressure) and clean it if it seems too dirty for you: washing/rinsing if a sand filter is used or removing the cartridge/bag
- Analysis and adjustment of the water balance, especially the pH, according to the shock treatment used.
- Until the water has a gray/blue look, run the pump continuously.
- Placed the products for shock treatment in place. Before continuing, read the instructions. Check that no incompatibility is present.
- Put the filtration in continuous operation.
- If needed, wait for the treatment to take effect by cleaning/replacing the filter (stop filtration during these phases).
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If you have a pool pump that needs to be repaired, call our pool contractors at 076 274 7549.
