Pool Myth-conceptions, which ones are true?

There’s never a shortage to pool experts and pool gurus out there that have some sort of fact or information about your swimming pool that may sound shady or outright outlandish! Some of them are actually true so today we’re going to go through some of the most common misconceptions, or as we say myth-conceptions about swimming pools in general.

Definitely false. There’s no chemical that magically colors the pool water blue or any other color when it comes to contact with pee. The science and chemistry involved in making such a chemical would be so complex and would be so specific that it would cost much more than the actual pool water itself. Of course, if such a myth would deter the kids (and those who think they can get away with it) from peeing in the pool, then we’re happy to keep this myth alive!

Also False. There’s a reason the pee detector chemical came into being and that’s to prevent people from peeing in the pool. Your pool is chlorinated for a reason, and that reason is to sanitise it and get rid of any contaminants that may enter your pool. Pee in itself is a contaminant and it will use up your pool’s available free chlorine, leaving it less effective in dealing with other more dangerous contaminants in your pool. Also, you really don’t want to be swimming in someone else’s pee right? (or your own for that matter)

Both true and false. You don’t absolutely have to shower before entering the pool, but it just makes the life of the one maintaining the pool a lot easier. By showing before entering the pool, you’re washing off any dirt, grime, lotion, cosmetics, and dead skin cells that would basically use up your pool’s free chlorine and mess up your pool’s pH levels. Of course, the effect isn’t as large as peeing in the pool, a few seconds under the shower for each pool user would save you hours and $$$ in pool chemical balancing costs.

Totally False. In fact, we have a whole post dedicated to debunking myths with regards to salt water chlorination which you can check out here.

SEE ALSO: How To Treat Pool Water For The First Time

Both true or false. If you don’t care about wasting energy, then you don’t need a pool cover. But if you want to save up on your pool heating bills, then a cover is essential. Think of it this way, hot water inside a thermos stays hot/warm much longer than hot water in an uncovered mug. The pool cover functions the same way. It prevents heat from escaping your pool (it cools faster than you might imagine with the wind pulling heat away from the pool surface) and at the same time traps heat that comes from the sun.

Both true and false. Let’s clear the water (pun intended) once and for all. It’s too much chlorine that’s bad for you. For a properly balanced pool, at least chlorine-wise, the chlorine levels should just be in between 1ppm and 3ppm. Believe it or not, even our drinking water has chlorine, and sometimes even higher than that of our pool water! The Australian Drinking Water Guidelines by the National Health and Medical Research Council, the maximum amount of chlorine that’s allowed for drinking water is 5ppm! So yeah, there’s probably more chlorine in some drinking water than in your pool!

Note: CHLORINE IS DANGEROUS IN LARGE AMOUNTS. But in your pool in the correct levels, it's pretty harmless.

Both True and False. There’s really no easy way to say this but the less you maintain your pool, the harder it becomes as the pool problems will start to pile up. You know what they say, slow and steady wins the race! As long as you do your pool maintenance tasks, the easier it will be (confusing right?) Well by keeping your pool clean, you’re avoiding stains, wild chemical balance swings, and preventing other things that make pool maintenance hard.

And you can also cheat at this you know, well, not exactly cheating but there are things that you can get to make pool maintenance a lot simpler!

By getting a salt water chlorinator, you’ll be cutting your chlorine dosing tasks down significantly. This means less checking your pool chlorine levels, less chances of getting algae blooms, and overall less maintenance work for your pool! Read more about how salt water chlorinators work here.

One of the biggest tasks for pool owners is scrubbing and vacuuming the pool. By getting a robotic pool cleaner like the Tornax TX30, you’re basically handing off that task to someone else, totally eliminating the need to slave away under the blazing Australian sun! Click here to learn more about the benefits of a robotic pool cleaner.

Both true and false. Yes, we’re the first to admit that the cost to maintain swimming pools can be a little bit high. BUT, (All-caps for emphasis!) there are some ways in order to bring those costs down significantly.

Getting an energy-efficient pool pump like the Water TechniX Pump VorteX ECO can drastically cut your energy bills by up to 80% or up to $900 per year! Don’t believe us? Check out our post where we compared standard pool pumps with the Water TechniX Pump VorteX ECO.

By getting an oversized filter, you’re cutting down on water usage when backwashing or cleaning the filter. Not only does this reduce your water usage, but you’re reducing the chemical loss associated with this as well, meaning less chemical expenses! We have a more in depth explanation here in our article answering the question “Can a pool filter be too oversized?”

This was true years ago when the only option to heat up swimming pools was with gas and electric heaters. But now, we have pool heat pumps like the ones made by Water TechniX that heats up your pool at a fraction of the cost. This myth came to light when pools heated by traditional methods brought with it bills upwards of $500 a month! But with the newer pool heat pumps, you can effectively heat your pool and extend the season for under $50 a month! We have a more in-depth look at the benefits of using a pool heat pump here.

This is true only if you live in areas where the water freezes, but for the rest of Australia, getting a good pool heater, or better yet, a heat pump can actually extend your swimming season for a few more months. If you’re using it in combination with a good pool cover then you can even have a year-round swimming season if the weather cooperates!

Definitely False. Water clarity is only one factor that determines the cleanliness of your water. This is why it’s always important to always test your pool constantly! Clear water is very deceptive because we get the feeling that our water is clean, but that doesn’t mean that if we don’t see anything, it isn’t there. We’ll never know what’s lurking in our pool water until we know that our chemical levels are on point.

We’ve gone over this multiple times already and no, water that smells like chlorine is not good! You’re actually not smelling chlorine but chloramines, leftovers when chlorine binds with the contaminants in your pool. Learn more about chlorine with our Pool Chemical in Focus: Chlorine post right here.

Many people will assume that a little rain is no problem for the pool as long as outside water doesn’t flow into the pool or if the pool water doesn’t overflow. That’s actually not the case. Any water that’s added to your pool, be it from rain or from a hose will effectively dilute your chemical levels. If it didn’t overflow then great, no need to partially drain the pool, but you’ll still need to test and re-balance your pool. It’s just like adding water to your soup or stew while cooking it, you’re diluting what’s already there and you will need to re-season to adjust the taste.

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Happy swimming :)