Taking Care of Your Pool After a Storm

Whether it’s heavy rain, excessive winds, or a power outage, your swimming pool needs some special attention. Taking care of your pool after a storm is important. So, let’s look at how rain, wind, and power outages affect your backyard paradise and how to correct things.

The Problem With Rainwater

Rainwater is acidic, and that can affect your pool’s water chemistry. The negative affects might include:

• pH balance
• alkalinity levels
• calcium hardness
• your pool’s cleanliness by throwing debris into the pool (if so, do be sure and vacuum and brush the walls)

While rain from the sky can affect your pool chemistry, there are other issues. When you have run off from a chemically treated pool deck or even your roof, that can cause problems with your water chemistry. Or, you may have problems from runoff from your chemically treated yard.

You also may end up with extra leaves, dirt, and debris in your pool, causing staining and other problems.

It is worth noting that light rains don’t usually pose a problem, while heavy, long-lasting rains cause a lot more issues.

How to Deal with Heavy Rains

The most important thing you can do at all times is test your water chemistry. Test it on a weekly basis for great results. If you do this, you are already well ahead of problems when the rain pours down.

If you know heavy rain is coming, you might also add some algaecide to preempt any algae issues.

In addition, take the following steps after a heavy storm:

1. Skim the leaves and debris out of your swimming pool
2. Clean out your skimmer baskets and pump basket
3. Check your electrical equipment and turn it back on
4. Clean and backwash your pool filter
5. Check your water level and remove excess water if necessary
6. Vacuum and brush pool walls and pool floor
7. Shock and balance your pool :
   • pH: 7.4-7.6
   • Total Alkalinity: 80-120 ppm
   • Calcium Hardness: 180-200 ppm
8. Run your filtration systems and circulate your pool

For Overly Full Pools

Always drain excess rainwater from your pool so it’s at a proper level for skimming. Remember – don’t drain below the skimmer, or you’ll have problems with your pump.

It’s also helpful to drain the excess water if your pool is near the entrance to your home so you don’t get any pool overflow in your home or basement.

Here are two solutions, depending on your pool:

• If you have a cartridge filter, think about installing an outlet valve so you can pump your water to the most appropriate skimmer level.
• If you have a sand filter or D.E. filter with a multi-port valve, change it to waste mode. This gets rid of extra water and avoids running it through your filter.

Always test your water after a storm so you can bring your pool back to the correct water balance. Bring us a sample, and we can run it through our ALEX computerized water system for free and tell you just what you need. If you need help, our expert service technicians can come out to your home.

In Case of a Power Outage

Are you a pool owner sitting at home without any power? We put together this video to show you what you need to do to take care of your pool during this or any other power outage. It’s a quick but important watch! Let us know if you have any questions!

Final Thoughts on Pool Care After a Storm

Power outages and rain can be hard on your swimming pool, but it will survive! Make sure your pool is balanced and shock if necessary. The best thing you can do is bring us a water sample so we can run it through our free ALEX system!

As your local hometown store for nearly 70 years, we are always here to help!