The PH in a swimming pool is a critical factor that not everyone takes
into account. I remember a customer purchasing a liner for his inground
pool a few years ago and during our conversation he mentioned that he
uses chlorine tablets only and never checks his PH or does anything but
put chlorine in the pool and the water is always clear. I dug into the
facts a little deeper and found out he was replacing his liner after 8
years of ownership, while our average inground customer typically gets
about 15 years out of a liner. Well, what this particular customer
didn’t take into account is that chlorine tablets are acidic and our
typical customer that has their water tested regularly will need to put
in about 60 pounds of alkalinity increaser every year to keep their
pool’s PH in the proper range. When the PH isn’t maintained and runs low
the liner puckers, shrinks and gets brittle. Therefore it is the main
reason why this particular customer was replacing the liner in 1/2 the
amount of time that our average customer would. The disturbing reason
why his water always stayed clear is that nothing would live in the
water. The water’s PH was so low that algae and most bacteria couldn’t
live in the water. I personally would not want to swim in this water,
nor would I want anyone else to either.
The advantage of a salt system is that creates chlorine from salt and it
does it at a higher PH than tablet chlorine. Generally if the pool’s PH
is allowed to drift on a salt system, it should go higher rather than
lower. This is good news for the liner, your eyes and the over all feel
of the water. One shouldn’t allow the PH to drift high and keep it high.
There can be adverse reactions to this as well. The most common thing we
see is calcium scaling on the salt cell which can reduce the efficiency
of the unit.
While salt systems are much easier to take care of and the adverse
effect of neglecting the PH in a salt system is less than a chlorine
pool, one should always monitor the PH. Your pool and your family will
thank you for it!