Provided you have the essential cleaning equipment and supplies, pool maintenance can be a walk in the park. Pool cleaning tools are made for the perfect job, and they are designed to finish the work within the shortest time possible. If any of the equipment fails, here is where improvising comes in handy.
While you can hire a team of pool maintenance experts to undertake the cleaning task, it’s recommendable to opt for a DIY (do-it-yourself) method. If you have a tight budget, cleaning the pool on your own turns out to be the best option.
Be it the swimming pool’s heat pump or skimmer, there is always a substitute to get the job done. Even if you don’t have the right tools, it’s still possible to end up with a crystal-clear pool to dive in. check out the top 8 DIY pool cleaning and maintenance tips for fast improvising below.
1 – Use Baking Soda to Increase pH and Alkalinity
Your pool’s pH and alkalinity are very vital in ensuring it’s super healthy. Indeed, it’s advisable to test the pool’s pH monthly to keep track of the fluctuations. If the water pH is lower than the suggested values, you have to increase the alkalinity or pH.
So, if you have a shortage of alkalinity increase, you can just use the readily available baking soda. The best thing about baking soda is that it’s a commonly used product in the kitchen. Basically, you can use one pound of baking soda to increase the alkalinity by roughly 7 ppm and the pH by 0.3 for a 10,000-gallon pool.
2 – Sanitize the Pool with Bleach
Chlorine is a commonly used chemical when it comes to sanitizing swimming pools. If you don’t have it at present and feel like the pool is emitting an odor, please use bleach to neutralize the smell. If the pool measures around 15,000 to 30,000 gallons, you can increase the chlorine levels by approximately 2 ppm by pouring a gallon of bleach into the pool.
When cleaning the swimming pool after the winter season, a chlorine boost is inevitable. So, you need to add 2 gallons of bleach to increase chlorine level by 3 -5 ppm. If you decide to use bleach as a chlorine alternative, you should include cyanuric acid.
3 – Use Baking Soda and Lime to Eliminate Pool Scaling
In addition to being ugly to look at, pool scaling is quite difficult to eliminate. Merely put, scales are calcium depositions on the pool walls. It is a typical occurrence whenever the pool water contains high pH levels and calcium.
This scaling makes the pipes block, besides making the walls feel rough. Keep in mind that using a brush to scrub the scales is not sufficient. Here is where you need to improvise a DIY method. The best process involves making a mixture of baking soda and using a brush to scrub away the scales. The solution containing baking soda, vinegar, and calcium will eliminate the deposits.
4 – Eliminate the Metal Stains with Citric Acid and Ascorbic
Metal stains are some of the things that negatively affect your pool’s aesthetic appeal. You may find stains around the safety handles or stairs in the pool. Eliminating the stains in chlorinated water is an uphill task. In this situation, cleaning specialists advise people to empty the entire pool first.
The best thing is that you can easily clean the metal stains by using citric acid and ascorbic. You can quickly get ascorbic acid from a vitamin C tablet. You only have to look for the vitamin C pills and then put them in a sock. Next, rub the sock over the stains, and they will progressively fade as the ascorbic acid breaks down on them.
5 – Using an Old Pantyhose to Create a DIY Skimmer Sock
If you assess your pool’s skimmer basket regularly during the leafy months, you will find out that it fills up very fast. Despite this build-up, you might realize that there is a lot of dirt that passes through the skimmer basket, and most of it ends up in the filter. In this case, it makes it get clogged up quickly.
As a result, you can prevent this by creating a DIY skimmer sock. Here’s the process of designing one:
- Look for an old pair of old pantyhose.
- Stretch the pair of pantyhose all over the skimmer basket
- Tie it up strongly
- Put the sock-lined skimmer basket back into the skimmer hole
The creation process is simple, as you can see. With this artless addition, the skimmer basket will be incredibly effective in trapping the small debris. In the end, your filter will not have plenty of work, and you will not spend much replacing it regularly.
6 – Using a Funnel, Pantyhose, and Garden Hose to Create a DIY Pool Vacuum
There is no need to worry if you want to clean the pool’s floor, and you currently do not have a pool vacuum. The items you need to design a DIY pool vacuum include a PVC hose, a funnel, pantyhose, and duct tape (rubber bands). With these items, here are the steps you need to follow:
- Lower the hose into the pool to fill it with water
- Attach the hose to the skimmer
- Attach your funnel to the hose’s free end
- Using the rubber band or tape, wrap the pantyhose over the funnel
- Put the hose’s funnel end into the water and vacuum the dirt
7 – Add DE Powder to Improve the Sand’s Filter Effectiveness
If you have a sand filter and want it to work in the best way possible, please add the DE (Diatomaceous Earth) powder. The powder will lock into the sand and add a layer for keeping your water pure as it traps the contaminants. You only need to sprinkle one cup or two of the powder into the pool’s skimmer. Afterward, it will mix with the water and move towards the filter.
8 – Remove Oils on the Water Surface with a Tennis Ball
A tennis ball helps remove the oils left behind by the swimmers, including the suntan lotions, natural body oil, hair, and makeup products. Generally, you only have to place a few tennis balls into the pool and allow them to float around. Else, you can place them in the skimmer basket and drop them down to collect oils.
You now have the best DIY pool maintenance ‘hacks.’ It is advisable to evaluate your swimming pool’s pH or alkalinity to make sure it has the ideal chlorine level. When the pool is cloudy, you can clear the skimmer and filter. Lastly, incorporate the above pool cleaning tips if you don’t have money to hire cleaning professionals.
She has a B.S.Ed. in Secondary Education/English and a Spanish Minor. In addition, she holds a Certificates in Natural Health and Herbology from accredited programs. She pursued these natural wellness certifications due to her love for herb gardening.
Despite freelancing to make a living, her love is "all things home."
Deborah grew up in a family that grew a large vegetable garden and a fruit orchard, helping her parents pull weeds and can home-grown foods as part of her childhood. In fact, she had no idea that she could purchase veggies and fruits in pre-packed steel cans until she went to college and made a food run.
Today, she lives in Bertie County, North Carolina, an agricultural rural area with more chickens than people. She lives with her husband and two rescue pets a sweet toy fox terrier and a cat who showed up one day and moved into the house. Together, they enjoy DIY projects, furniture refinishing, gardening, and canning.
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