Do you want to throw the coolest pool party before summer is over? Have you seen some amazing things on Facebook and Instagram that made you think “Wow, that is so cool, I should do that!”. Well, we don’t want to be the ones to burst your bubble but most of what we see online are not recommended and they can cause a lot of damage to your pool. How can these guys do it? Well, they’re making a LOT of money from advertising views and they can afford to fix whatever these things can do to their pools. So without further ado, here are things that you should NEVER do to your pool.

Fancy holding a pool party with black pool water or red pool water? Looks cool and amazing right? Well, no matter what the manufacturers say, there’s nothing really to indicate that these dyes won’t do any lasting damage to your pool. There’s no saying that these dyes will react with the chemicals that you have in your pool. At the very least, you’ll have staining in your pool filter elements, and at the worst, you may end up staining your pool surfaces! Want a safe way to give your pool some color? Get yourself a multicolor LED Pool light like the Spa Electrics Multi Plus Color so you can safely colorize your pool, and on demand as well!

Unless you have a pool cover that is SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED to be walked on i.e. solid pool covers and safety covers, NEVER EVER walk on your pool covers. This is especially true if you have a thin pool cover like a tarp or a mesh. Here are the things that can happen when you try to walk on your pool covers:

• For tarp-type pool covers, the fasteners / lawn pins might snap out of wherever they’re attached. And we’ve seen enough movies to say that whenever anything metal snaps out of where they’re supposed to be, they’re heading for the nearest person. Even if it doesn’t hit a person, it can cause damage to whatever they hit after snapping from their mountings.
• If you’re on a tarp-type cover and the fasteners snap off, this will cause all of the tension to disappear and will cause anything heavy on top of the tarp to sink like a rock. At the worse case scenario, the tarp will wrap all around you and pull you down with it. This is an extremely dangerous situation and can cause death. DO NOT DO THIS.

Unless you’re related to Gina Rinehart, Jack Ma, Bill Gates, or Elon Musk, it’s not really a good idea to heat your pool to hot tub level heat. While it sounds like a cool (hot!) idea, it’s really not. The energy cost alone to heat the pool to these levels is prohibitive. If you really want to lounge around in hot pool water, you can get a pre-built spa for the cost of heating your entire pool to hot tub levels just for a couple of days! Our suggestion? Get a hot tub or a spa and enjoy simmering in hot water on demand!

We’ve gotten a lot of inquiries about going “chemical-free” and it’s not a good idea. Too many people have been posting how they have successfully eliminated chemical usage in their pools and this is just asking for trouble. The pool chemicals are there for a reason! Algae and bacteria thrive in warm stagnant bodies of water and what’s a swimming pool except a large pool of stagnant water right? Without chlorine to take care of bacteria and algae, you’re looking at a disaster waiting to happen.

Even with salt-water chlorinators or if you have a Naked pool system installed, you will still need to add some sort of chemical to protect your pool. And as for chlorine? These systems actually create chlorine, and it’s not chemical-free. Even tap water is being treated with chlorine and other chemicals for safety purposes so

While it may sound like a really festive idea, never ever, we mean never, hang string lights over your pool. The reason for this is simple, if ever something hits that string of lights and it falls into the pool, it’s more than lights out if you get what we mean. Not only is this dangerous, but this also limits the things you can do in your pool like play with inflatable balls and other stuff in fear of hitting the string lights. So whatever you see on Facebook or Instagram, just say no! If you want to have a festive look in your pool, opt for buntings or banners, but never anything electric over the pool.

SEE ALSO: Tips for Getting the Best Photos of your Pool

Another popular thing that seems to be popping up all over social media is having bubble parties or foam parties. Again, no matter what a manufacturer says or doesn’t say, it’s not advisable to put any sort of chemical in your pool, we don’t know how they will react with your existing pool chemicals and how they might affect your filtration system. The same goes for soap, shampoo, and bubble bath foam. Adding those to create a bubble party in your pool will just cause havoc on your pool chemical balance and will ruin your filter elements.

Yes, dropping dry ice into the pool looks cool and it can give you that effect of fog floating on the pool effect, but it’s actually very dangerous. If someone swims in the pool, they can get suffocated by that cloud of carbon dioxide. Not only that, special precautions are taken when handling dry ice for very important reasons (like frostbite burns). What happens if someone jumps into the pool and hits a solid piece of dry ice? Yep, you guessed it, frostbite city!

That’s it! If something looks “too cool” for your pool, then it probably is! If you really want something fun to do with your pool, keep it poolside. Cook up some amazing poolside food, get some inflatable pool toys, and set up a themed pool party! Remember, safety before fun!