When it comes to pool maintenance, most (new) pool owners (myself included) will default to hiring a pool maintenance company as they have no idea what to do in order to maintain the proper water chemistry.

But after a rather bad experience with the company who started my pool and damaged my plaster by adding all sorts of chemicals, I ended up teaching myself how to maintain the perfect chemistry and bought the equipment I needed to automate most of the maintenance.

I hope this post will be useful to some of you and help you save serious dollars at the same time. So here is what you will need:

1. Remote monitoring: Optional but a must if you are currently building a pool and intend on doing your own maintenance. Consider adding automation in order to monitor your pool via your smartphone. Whether you use Pentair, Jendy or Hayward each of those companies have a remote monitoring module. Some pool builders will charge you some pretty penny (around $5k) to add this option, just educate yourself to know what the price of those options should be and negotiate the price.

2. PH monitoring: PH tends to naturally increase everyday, especially if you have a salt system, so it’s important to constantly monitor your PH to know when muriatic acid should be added. If you have an automation system like intellicenter from Pentair or other systems from other brands, you can add modules that will do that job and integrate into your system and alert you when PH is out of range. If you don’t, you can still buy stand alone products that will do the same. Those systems are in the $500 range, just be careful not to buy one that requires a recurring membership. Integrated systems like the intelliph from Pentair are more in the $1,500 range.

3. Pool vacuum: When building a pool, by default pool builders will price you a suction vacuum port in their quote, adding a separate pump at the same time. In my opinion this is very old school and you should tell them not to include this and opt instead for a wireless vacuum. If you already have such a vacuum, sale it and read on. In the last few years there’s been so much innovation that opting for a wireless vacuum just makes sense. Not only you will get rid of this ugly tethered pipe that connects to the vacuum and the return, but also will make your life easier by not having to carry the pipe in and out of your pool. In terms of wireless vacuum look for one that maps your pool intelligently (ie: doesn’t move randomly), climbs the walls and cleans the water line. Don’t fall for the major brands that sell inferior products for $1-1.5k. I particularly like Aiper as their products look nice, work flawlessly and are reasonably priced. Don’t spend more than $500-$700 on a vacuum.

4. Skimmer robot: This is a must and the most important tool to buy in order to automate your maintenance. They are a few options in the market and this year (2024) new models came on the market with app connectivity and wireless charging (although this one is not a must given that those systems are solar powered). A skimmer robot is solar and will stay in your pool all the time (remove it when you use your pool) and will roam around the pool in a random pattern and skim everything on the surface. The beauty of it is that it stores solar energy and will run most of the night. With one of those you will never (or almost never) have to use a net to remove the debris and your pool surface will always be spotless. This not only is a time saver but also avoids having debris accumulate around the waterline and create algae. With this robot your actual skimmer will mostly be empty and will require less maintenance. Of course you’ll need to empty the robot once or twice a week depending on your situation (ie: if you have lot of trees around, etc..). Such a robot costs $300-$500 but is the best investment you can make. One thing to note is that it won’t be as efficient if you have a tethered vacuum as it will be blocked by the pipe, hence the need for a wireless one (see previous comment).

5. Test kit: this will be the most intimidating part but you will need to buy a Taylor test kit to test your water chemistry once a week and ensure all parameters are within range. This is what pool maintenance companies use (you probably have seen them with their blue boxes). If you have a salt system make sure to buy the proper kit. Read the instructions to learn the proper range for each parameter. After a few weeks you won’t need the instructions anymore. Once you tested the water and know what the water chemistry is, you can either look at the appendix of the documentation that comes with the kit or enter this information into an app to know exactly what chemicals need to be added to your pool. Most pool owners will need to buy the following 2 chemicals: muriatic acid to manage PH down, sodium bicarbonate to increase alkalinity. At least those are the 2 main chemicals I use. I bought every sort of chemicals to handle all parameters but never use them as only those 2 parameters move in my personal case. So before you buy any other chemical you will want to test your water and see what it needs.

So there you have it. Monitor you PH daily through the app, leave the skimmer robot 24/7 and empty it twice a week, vacuum your pool with the wireless robot as often as you can (sometimes I even put it twice a day when I’m home because why not since it’s painless), test your water once a week with a kit and add the appropriate chemicals. Since you won’t have to net the debris anymore, once a week you can instead brush the walls, water line and bottom with a brush with metallic bristles but the robot should do a pretty good job already.

All this will cost a bit of money upfront to buy the different equipments but you will get your money back in less than a season given how expensive those pool maintenance companies are. The best thing is that you won’t wait for the week end to have a clean pool and will be able to enjoy it every day. Your kids will thank you.

Did I miss anything? If so, leave some comments below.