November 2011
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Changing Your Hot Tub Water in 4 Simple Steps
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How to Choose the Right In-ground Pool for You
in Maintenance
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Your pool’s pH may be just one of many aspects of pool care and maintenance, but it’s “the single most significant element because it affects just about everything going on with the water,” says Paul Kurke, training manager for Arch Chemicals. Mystified by this acronym? Rest assured, maintaining your pool’s proper level of pH, or potential hydrogen, is simple and easy when you understand just a few basics. Here, Kurke answers the common questions associated with pH.
Q: What’s the recommended pH level for pools? How often should you check your pH level?
A: The ideal level is between 7.2 and 7.6. The closer you can maintain to 7.4, the better off you are. If you have a brand-new pool, you might want to test every day for a couple of weeks until you find out what your pH is doing. Different pools are going to have a different effect on pH. After a couple weeks, you will find a routine. Then you can back off to 3 or 4 times a week.
Q: Why is it necessary to test your pH level?
A: There are several very important reasons to test your pH level. No. 1 is our personal comfort. If the pH is too high or too low, it can dry out our skin. The pH of our eyes is about 7.3 to 7.4, so the closer the pH of your pool is to the pH of your eyes, the more comfortable you will be.
No. 2, as the pH drops below 7, the water becomes more corrosive. It will start wearing away the metal components in your pool, including your pump, your filter and your heater. On the other hand, if your pH is too high, instead of being corrosive, it is scale-forming. Scale can begin to form on the warmest parts of the pool, so the heater is the first victim. Scale acts as an insulator on the heat exchanger. That can run up the cost of operating your pool because you have to use more natural gas or electricity.
Lastly, pH affects the effectiveness of your sanitizer if you have a chlorine pool. The higher the pH, the less effective your chlorine is.
Q: What can affect a pool’s pH level?
A: First of all, the sanitizer you’re using can affect pH. Some can increase pH, like calcium hypochlorite or sodium hypochlorite. Trichlor tablets, sticks and pucks have a tendency to reduce pH. Also, rainwater can definitely affect pH. Most rainwater today is acidic, so that will reduce pH.
Q: Why do some pool owners find it difficult to maintain their pool’s pH?
A: Most people think pH—which is the measure of the acidity or basicity of the water—is measured on an arithmetic scale. But it’s actually measured on a logarithmic scale of 0 to 14, with 7 being neutral. What that means is a pH of 8 is 10 times more basic than a pH of 7. A pH of 9 is 10 times more basic than a pH of 8. So a pH of 9 is 100 times more basic than a pH of 7.
Some people think their pH may be a little off. Here’s the shocker: Your pH is never a little off. If a person thinks their pH is just a point off at 8.5, multiply that by a factor of 10! The pH scale is kind of like the Richter scale for earthquakes. An earthquake of 7 is much more severe than an earthquake of 6, which is 10 times worse than an earthquake of 5.
