Maintenance
How to Shock a Pool
Shocking your pool is a great way to bring things back into balance. You’ll enjoy the pleasures of swimming in crystal clear pool water by regularly maintaining and shocking your pool. Shocking your pool breaks up combined chlorine (chlorine + contaminants). Understanding Chlorine When testing your pool’s chlorine level, it is important to first understand how chlorine is classified. Free Chlorine: The desirable chlorine available to sanitize or disinfect the water. Combined Chlorine: Undesirable, bad-smelling chloramines that form when not enough free chlorine is present to overcome the chlorine demand. Total Chlorine: The total amount which includes both free and combined chlorine. How Shocking your Pool Works Contaminants can get into pools and combine with chlorine. If the free chlorine level is not concentrated enough, it can cause the contaminant to become inert without fully removing it. Combined chlorine (or chloramines) are ineffective in breaking down harmful bacteria and undesirable organisms. Shocking a pool elevates the free chlorine level to 5-10 ppm. Elevated levels of free chlorine break up combined chlorine. Once your pool has been shocked, the water will be clean, clear, and safe for your family to enjoy. Shocking your Pool FAQ When is it time to shock your pool? Every couple of weeks during the swimming season. When your pool is outside of the recommended free chlorine levels of 1-3 ppm. Shocking your pool will raise the chlorine level. What about a salt pool? Yes, even salt pools need a little help once in a while. Salt water pools utilize a chlorine generator to convert salt into chlorine. You can adjust the generator to increase the level of chlorine produced to counteract higher chlorine demands caused by contaminants. However, even salt water pools need to be shocked when the generator cannot keep up with a heavy load of contamination.
