Pool Chemistry and Maintenance From a CPO
Nadia Caldwell Nadia Caldwell · July 6, 2026
Want to know which pool toys your kids will actually play with instead of abandoning by mid-summer? The answer isn’t what most parents think—and I’m going to save you a small fortune proving it. Over my 15 years running water operations at resorts, homeowner associations, and municipal facilities throughout Arizona and Nevada, I’ve observed exactly … Read more
Nadia Caldwell · July 6, 2026
You won’t find this on the salt cell manufacturer’s label, and your pool store clerk probably won’t mention it unprompted: salt chlorinator cells need regular cleaning, and nobody tells you how often until the thing stops working. A property manager called me last month because their salt system had quit producing chlorine entirely. I extracted … Read more
Nadia Caldwell · July 5, 2026
Saltwater generators do not eliminate chlorine—they manufacture it on-site, which is a crucial distinction most pool owners miss until their water goes cloudy. Understanding this fact before you commit to either system will save you months of frustration and hundreds of dollars in wasted chemicals. What I use on my pool: Stops weekly chlorine runs … Read more
Nadia Caldwell · July 5, 2026
It’s Wednesday, and the water still looks brilliant — until you notice them. Three palm fronds clustered near the deep end, maybe a scatter of dirt. Two minutes with the wrong equipment turns into thirty. You weigh the options: hunt down the skimmer basket, thread the vacuum hose, bleed air from the line while your … Read more
Nadia Caldwell · July 4, 2026
The water in front of you reads 7.2 pH and 1.8 ppm free chlorine — good numbers on the test strip. But the real culprit behind most pool headaches isn’t chemistry at all. It’s the equipment humming behind the equipment pad: a pump that’s too large, drawing power it shouldn’t, grinding through filter media like … Read more
Nadia Caldwell · July 4, 2026
Saltwater chlorine generators beat liquid chlorine in consistency and cost per season — until black algae shows up. Then your salt cell becomes almost irrelevant, because no amount of electrochemical chlorine production can overcome what a waxy-capped cyanobacterium does to your plaster. That’s when you discover that fighting black algae isn’t a chemistry problem at … Read more
Nadia Caldwell · July 3, 2026
Dose 20 ppm of calcium hypochlorite shock at a CYA level of 50 ppm, and your free chlorine will oxidize contaminants efficiently. Miss either variable, and you’re wasting money on a treatment that won’t work as intended. That’s the essence of what I want to cover in this guide — the specific numbers, the reasoning … Read more
Nadia Caldwell · July 3, 2026
A pool store clerk once told a customer standing in front of me: “Just crack open that cover and dump a bucket of shock in there—your chlorine will handle the rest.” That advice fails the moment you test for it. The water stays green, the customer comes back furious, and nobody bothers to explain why … Read more
Nadia Caldwell · July 2, 2026
A free chlorine reading of 3 ppm at 102°F in a hot tub sounds acceptable until you test the combined chlorine — and watch it spike to 1.5 ppm or higher. That gap between the two numbers is telling you something critical: your sanitizer is degrading faster than your water chemistry can handle it, and … Read more
Nadia Caldwell · July 2, 2026
“Solar covers don’t actually warm pools much—maybe a degree or two if you’re lucky.” That claim is flat-out wrong, and I can prove it with field data I collected myself. During controlled tests across three residential pools in the Las Vegas area, I documented temperature swings of 8–12°F over 48 hours using nothing but a … Read more