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pH and Its Harsh Effects On a Pool

Maintaining your water is, arguably, the most important part of owning a pool. What exactly does “taking care” of water mean, though, when it comes to a pool? Chlorine is still the most effective and reliable sanitizer in the industry and for good reason. Have you ever tossed a ton of chlorine and algaecide into your murky green pool in hopes that the algae will die off and the clear water will return? If you did this and never checked the levels of the other pool water chemicals like pH, alkalinity, calcium hardness, and cyanuric acid, then you were just throwing chlorine and algaecide down the trash.

Maintaining balanced water requires keeping each of the aforementioned chemicals within a certain range that is safe to swim in and stable enough so that chlorine can sanitize the pool effectively. Of those chemicals, imagine pH stands for the powerhouse. It actually stands for the potential for hydrogen, but let us save the science talk for later, shall we? Balanced pH is an absolute must for several reasons. Here is a quick overview of the pool chemicals and their correct ranges:

Free Chlorine: .5 – 3 ppm

pH: 7.2 – 7.8

Alkalinity: 80 – 120 ppm

Calcium Hardness: 175 – 350 ppm

Cyanuric Acid: 1 – 50 ppm

 

Comfortability

Itchy skin and eyes as a result of swimming in a pool happens a lot, unfortunately. It would happen a lot less if everyone kept their pH balanced, however. One of the biggest reasons that pH is so important for water chemistry and swimmer comfort is that both low and high pH can lead to itchiness, eye and nasal irritation, and rough hair. Low pH means that the water is acidic, so this should come as no surprise. High pH causes chlorine to be ineffective, reducing the sanitation your pool is getting. 

Remember that 70% of the human body is water. Our bodies have a natural pH level of about 7.4 – 7.5. So keeping your pool water’s pH levels as close to the middle as possible will keep you and your swimmers from ever complaining about itchy skin or eyes.

 

Water Clarity

As stated above, high pH can reduce chlorine effectiveness by up to 75%, depending on how high it is. This is like a domino effect. You don’t balance the pH, the chlorine is inactivated, and then the pool turns cloudy, hazy, or even worse: green. We’ve seen this hundreds of times. To prevent “pH bounce,” be sure you’re monitoring and adding plenty of alkalinity increaser to help keep the pH in range. Alkalinity’s role is that of a buffer; it keeps pH in range and stable.

 

Chlorine Effectiveness

This goes hand-in-hand with the previous section because I cannot stress this point enough: chlorine will not work effectively if your pH, and all the balancing chemicals, are not in range. Actually, if your pool’s pH is really low, chlorine will indeed work quite well, but no one wants to swim in acidic water, no matter how clean it is. If your pH isn’t balanced, you might as well be dumping chlorine in the trash.

 

Pool Equipment and Surface

Unbalanced pH can lead to a multitude of equipment issues if not dealt with quickly. Vinyl liner and concrete pools especially. Low pH can cause a vinyl liner to stretch and wrinkle, and high pH can severely wear it down prematurely and end up color fading, leading to a replacement in both cases. Low pH in a concrete pool can lead to pitting or the creation of dents in your pool wall, which is both a cosmetic eyesore and very expensive to repair. I almost forgot all the corrosion that can happen to your rails, ladders, and diving board, and even your pump. Balancing your pH, in many ways, is a way of protecting the structural integrity of your pool.

 

Closing Thoughts

The pool season is almost over here in northwest Indiana and Chicagoland, but these are great notes to take if you are considering a pool purchase or even if you are a seasoned pool owner. Many of you are going to open up your pool to imperfect-looking water, no shocker there. Perhaps that opening-day cloudiness is a perpetual problem for you. Perhaps you’ve dumped in 12 gallons of liquid chlorine into your cloudy pool before, and it didn’t clear up. Maybe you’ve hosted pool parties and received complaints that the water irritated someone’s skin or eyes. These are all scenarios in which we would recommend testing your pool water and checking the pH levels. You now know how important pH is. Let’s put that knowledge to use. Curious how to test your pool water? Check out these articles below!

Is a UV Ozone System Better For Your Pool than Traditional Chlorine?

Top 5 Chlorine Alternatives For Pools!

How Often Do I Need to Get My Pool Water Tested?


Written By Logan Edgemon