Pool Chemistry and Maintenance From a Backyard Pool Owner
Nadia Caldwell · July 14, 2026
You’ve probably encountered two conflicting pieces of advice online or heard them poolside: “Just buy a suction cleaner, they’re cheap and easy,” versus “Suction cleaners will destroy your filter in one season if you have trees.” One of those statements is misleading, and the other misses crucial context. The truth sits in the middle — … Read more
Nadia Caldwell · July 13, 2026
What’s actually stopping your pool from clearing up when algae blooms hit? Odds are strong it’s not your chlorine dose — it’s the brush you’re holding. Picture this instead: it’s dawn on a Tuesday at a big 75,000-gallon pool outside Phoenix, and the shallow end’s concrete steps have developed a yellowish-green film thick enough to … 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
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 · June 30, 2026
A call came through one Tuesday morning from a property manager in Tempe: “The water looks fine, but the bottom feels gritty. My guy says we don’t need to vacuum because the filter’s running 24/7.” I drove out that afternoon. The pool floor was carpeted in a half-inch layer of silt, algae spores, and decomposed … Read more
Nadia Caldwell · June 19, 2026
Talk to two different pool owners online or at your local pool store and you’ll hear contradictory advice: one insists manual vacuuming is the backbone of proper pool maintenance, while the other claims it’s an outdated chore. The first statement contains truth; the second one is incomplete. Manual vacuuming isn’t wrong — it’s just unnecessarily … Read more