Mr Pool Man started out as “The guy in the white van” or basically someone who provides pool maintenance services so many people will naturally assume that we will have a slant towards hiring other pool professionals when it comes to pool maintenance. A long time ago this would have been true, but with the current pandemic, advances in technology, and a number of other factors, we’ve been leaning more and more towards the DIY route. In this blog post, we will take a look at both routes, which route to pick for which situation, and what routes are the best when it comes to swimming pool maintenance in Australia.

Before we start getting into the nitty-gritty of pool maintenance, one of the first things we should look at is the cost of hiring someone to do the maintenance tasks on your pool. There is no one set price for pool maintenance because it all depends on where you live. But the average hourly rate for pool maintenance (not including chemicals, testing, and other ancillary costs) can be anywhere from $50-$70 an hour. Keep this figure in mind so that you can place a value on your time with regards to the type of pool maintenance you’re planning to perform.

As we mentioned before, pool cleaning costs do not include the cost of chemicals. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well, if you’re the type who takes pool maintenance seriously then the cost of getting your own chemicals is more than justified. Even if you hire someone to maintain your pool for you, having your own stock of pool chemicals can be cheaper than paying for these as an add-on to the regular pool cleaning rate. This way, you’re just paying the actual cost of the chemicals and not having to pay a premium on them.

Do you live in an area that experiences massive leaf falls? Or do you just get the occasional random leaf blown in by the wind? If cleaning scooping out your pool on a weekly basis only takes a couple of minutes then what’s the point in hiring someone to do it at $50-$70 an hour right? Not only that but if you allocate a few minutes each day to actively scooping out the leaves in your pool then you really don’t need to hire someone to do it for you at the end of the week right?

Obviously, if you have a large pool then it will take a lot more time to clean. Factor this into making the decision of whether to get a pool professional to do your pool cleaning for you! If you have a small pool that’s manageable, then you can do it all in one go. If you have a large pool, and if you don’t want to spend $150-$200 to get it cleaned then you can easily divide up the cleaning tasks into 20-30 minutes a day to keep it down to a manageable level.

If you’ve ever had someone clean your pool for you then you’d be surprised at how fast they can clean your pool for you. Do they have a secret? Yes. It’s called practice! The more you practice cleaning your pool, the more it becomes second nature to you and will eventually get up to their speed of cleaning. Aside from experience, their professional tools will make pool cleaning tasks easier because of the stability and they’re designed for it. Great professional-level cleaning materials and tools can make cleaning the pool a much more pleasurable job.

Do you want to improve your pool maintenance skills to professional-level? Check out our "Be Mr Pool Man Guide: The only Pool Cleaning Guide you'll ever need" post!

No, they won’t, unless you’re asking for it. Since pool maintenance is a service and their business depends on you being happy with their performance, most pool cleaning services will actually try to get things done as fast as possible. A happy customer will keep coming back! Of course, we’re just talking about the majority of pool cleaning services out there. There will always be bad apples in the bunch so if you are considering retaining a service to clean and maintain your pool, be sure to check out the internet and pool forums for reviews.

Don’t worry too much about it! We get that as new pool owners, it’s very hard to remember every single thing there is about when it comes to pool maintenance. Do you want to know a secret? Even as consummate pool professionals, we have a hard time remembering every aspect of pool maintenance! Even the people you’ll hire for cleaning and maintaining your pool will probably not remember every single aspect as well! This is why good pool maintenance companies will always have a checklist of tasks to do, so that they won’t forget anything! You can make your own checklist or you can download and print Mr Pool Man’s Pool Maintenance Checklist here.

The DIY-Friendliness of pool maintenance tasks depend on your level of comfort when it comes to tinkering around and handling equipment. Here’s a quick ranking of DIY-Friendliness of pool maintenance tasks from easiest to hardest.

• Routine Cleaning and Scooping out debris (easiest)
• Cleaning pool filters and backwashing (very easy)
• Scrubbing Pool Surfaces (easy, but labor-intensive)
• Pool chemical balancing (easy, but needs to be consistent)
• Dealing with algae blooms (medium)
• Pool Equipment troubleshooting (medium)
• Opening your pool (medium)
• Closing your pool (medium-hard, depending on your location)
• Minor pool repairs (medium, depending on level of comfort)
• Draining your pool (hard)
• Major pool repairs (hard)

As you can see, the easy pool maintenance tasks are pretty simple and these are the most common tasks which you can do by yourself. And by making sure that these tasks are consistently done, you’re going to be saving a lot of money. And with the money saved, you can opt to get better equipment (saltwater chlorinators, robotic pool cleaners, chemical dosing devices, etc) that will make the rest of your maintenance tasks much easier!

In terms of convenience, the most common task that pool cleaning companies are hired for is to basically scrub down all of the pool surfaces. From a cost standpoint, the high entry cost of robotic pool cleaners may be a turn-off for some people, but if we really take a look at it, hiring someone to do the scrubbing our pool once a week for 5-6 months will actually pay for the cost of a robotic pool cleaner! And the best part is, you don't need to go through the hassle of setting up a schedule for your automatic pool cleaner to go to work.

Not only do you get the benefit of getting your pool surfaces scrubbed, but you'll also get a host of other benefits when you get a robotic pool cleaner!

Mr Pool Man has also made it easier to get a robotic pool cleaner of your own with our payment partners that allow you to pay for your equipment upgrades on an installment/monthly basis! So instead of paying for a retainer for a pool maintenance guy, the payment goes into paying for your own robotic pool cleaner which you will already own! Check out our payments page for more information.

In the end, it all boils down to convenience vs cost. Pick whichever route feels best for your pool. If you do decide to keep costs down, then here are a bunch of resources that we have gathered over the years to make your DIY Pool Maintenance much more pleasurable.

• A Beginner’s Guide to Pool Maintenance: Keeping Your Pool Clean and Safe
• New Pool Owner? Welcome to Mr Pool Man’s World!
• The Only Guide to pool chemicals you'll ever need
• The Real Costs of Maintaining a Swimming Pool
• Mr Pool Man's Ultimate Guide to Testing your Pool Water
• Be Mr Pool Man: Everything you'll need to clean your pool

Not what you're looking for? Browse our extensive selection of DIY Guides, Troubleshooting Guides, Chemical Guides and more at our blog section here.

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• How to get your Automatic Pool Cleaners Ready for Summer
• Do THIS, not THAT. Swimming Pool Tips and Tricks
• Getting Back into the (Pool) Groove