How Difficult Is It to Maintain a Swimming Pool?

Having a pool is great. You can swim whenever you want. It’s an easy way to make the most of the hot months of the year. You can get great exercise, have tons of fun, and generally enjoy your home more than ever before. 

However, maintaining a swimming pool can be hard work. If you’ve never taken care of a pool before, you don’t really know what it takes. Before you invest in a pool, you might want a better idea of what it will require from you.

So, how difficult is it to maintain a swimming pool properly? While it’s definitely doable, and a lot of people even enjoy it, it can become a chore. You have to stay on top of things like water chemistry, filtration, cleaning, water circulation, and more. It can be a lot to handle if you’re a busy person.

How Hard Is It to Maintain a Swimming Pool?

The true challenge of maintaining a pool depends on the pool, your resources, your feelings about working on a pool, your lifestyle, and everything else. There is no single perfect answer. 

But we can discuss the general demands of a pool so that you can gauge the difficulty for yourself. Plenty of people maintain a swimming pool without struggling, while others find the process draining.

Let’s do a broad overview of what is involved in pool care and what will affect your effort levels.

The Crux of Care

For the most part, there are four things you need to do to maintain any pool:

• Clean it regularly
• Circulate the water
• Maintain the pool’s chemistry
• Maintain the pool equipment

The other component of maintenance is rare, but it does happen. Pools sometimes need to have damage repaired, cracks sealed, water drained, or tiles placed. This shouldn’t be an annual event, but over enough time, and likely sooner than you think, the pool finish itself will need a makeover.

The Pool Makes a Difference

So how hard is it to do those four things? When you’re consistent, the overall amount of work will shrink, but your effort depends heavily on the pool you have. Obviously, larger pools require more physical work to maintain. It takes longer to skim a larger pool, for instance.

You can supplement the extra effort with a pressure side cleaning system and more advanced chemical delivery systems, but ultimately, bigger pools come with more work.

The same can be said for pools with complicated designs. Waterfall features can create an extra opportunity for algae growth. Lighting features require their own maintenance. The levels of complexity of many large residential pools can be overwhelming to a professional.

Pool Usage Matters For Maintaining a Swimming Pool

Regardless of the size of the pool and the type of filtration you use, there is one factor that matters even more. Activity in the pool is your biggest determiner in how hard it is to keep everything clean and clear.

If the pool sees a lot of activity, it’s going to burn through sanitizing chemicals a lot faster. That means that it will be more prone to getting cloudy or growing algae. The filter has to work harder and needs more maintenance. Essentially, everything requires more work. This is especially true of nature’s active ways of affecting your pool. Tree coverage, pollen count, sunlight, and rain can alter your pool’s chemistry and cleanliness, often all on the same day in Texas.

If a family of four swims every day in the summer, this actually isn’t heavy usage, and your workload will be relatively low. If the pool sees regular parties and a lot of guests, the workload will rise. You’ll notice that the pool requires more attention as you use it more, and you’ll quickly be able to gauge how much activity it can handle before water chemistry and clarity are affected beyond what typical maintenance measures can control.

Finding It Difficult to Maintain Your Swimming Pool? We’ve Got You Covered

Here’s the bottom line. Pools can be a lot of work, but they don’t have to be. Millions of homeowners across the country handle their own pool maintenance, and they aren’t grinding themselves into the ground. Plus, you can supplement your efforts with routine professional maintenance and service. That prevents things from ever getting out of control. For any help maintaining pool equipment or renovating your pool when signs of age and wear start to show, contact the team at Select Pool Services. We’ll be happy to help.