We test it, we write the number down, and we send it to you.
Pool maintenance is a measurement job wearing a cleaning job's clothes. The brushing matters. The readings are what keep the pool open.
| Reading | Sits at | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Free chlorine | 1 to 4 ppm | How much sanitiser is left to work with. Low is a closed pool. |
| Combined chlorine | under 0.5 ppm | Chlorine already used up. This is the smell people call "too much chlorine", and it means the opposite. |
| pH | 7.4 to 7.6 | Whether the chlorine can do its job at all, and whether the water is quietly eating the plaster. |
| Total alkalinity | 80 to 120 ppm | The buffer holding pH still. When this drifts, pH stops staying where you put it. |
| Calcium hardness | 200 to 400 ppm | Soft water pulls calcium out of the surface. Hard water leaves it on the tile. |
| Cyanuric acid | 30 to 50 ppm | Sun protection for the chlorine. Too much and the chlorine is present but asleep. |
| Filter pressure | clean, plus a few psi | Read against the clean-filter figure, never on its own. The climb is the signal. |
| Water temperature | logged | Warm water burns sanitiser faster. It explains a reading that otherwise looks like somebody skipped a dose. |
Light use
Fewer visits
- Test and dose
- Baskets and skimmer weirs
- Brush walls, steps and the shallow shelf
- Backwash on pressure, not on the calendar
- Written report
Neighborhood pool
The common case
- Everything in the column to the left
- Vacuum, and vacuum to waste after heavy use
- Tile line, before it becomes a scale job
- Check the feeder and refill it
- Pump seal and motor noise, listened to on purpose
Heavy or guarded
Most visits
- Everything in both columns to the left
- Second daily test where guards are on site
- Deck, drains and the bathrooms
- Chemical stock held on site and counted
- Same technician wherever the schedule allows
The plant room is where the money is
Almost every expensive pool failure announced itself first as a number nobody was writing down. Filter pressure creeping up over five visits. A pump running two degrees hotter than it did in May. A feeder emptying faster than the load explains.
None of those are emergencies on the day you notice them. All of them are emergencies six weeks later, and they pick the weekend. So the readings go in the report every time, including the visits where the answer is that everything is exactly where it was.
When something is drifting we say so, we say what we think it is, and we say whether it can wait for the off season. Quite often it can.
Next step
We walk the site, read the plant, and come back with a visit schedule and a number.