Hot Tub & Pool Cleaning Service Jacksonville FL

Pool Maintenance: The Importance of Routine Cleaning Programs

The best thing that you can do for your swimming pool is keep cleanings consistent. A single cleaning once a month isn’t enough to keep water clean and usable. In fact, it can end up causing damage to swim spaces and surrounding areas. If you are having a hard time keeping up with the needs of your swim space a professional cleaning program is highly recommended. 

When pool owners schedule a professional for your regular maintenance they can expect full-service water balancing, sparkling clean surfaces and insight into the condition of swim spaces. 

Water Condition: When chemical levels in pool water become imbalanced it won’t take long for water to go cloudy, followed by green and an overall swampy look. This looks terrible but it is also a serious health and safety risk. Stepping into contaminated water can cause skin irritations, eye infections, ear infections and other recreational water illnesses. Instead of using cheap test strips that only focus on chlorine levels Puddle technicians use speciality testing kits that measure sanitizer levels, pH levels, total alkalinity and calcium. Balancing each of these chemical levels leaves your pool cleaner, over a longer period. 

Pool Surfaces & Debris: When you want to remove debris from a swimming pool it’ll take more than a quick skim to get the job done. Robotic pool cleaners claim to suck up unwanted items from the bottom of swimming pools but they aren’t built to navigate complicated areas. If floating items aren’t removed quickly they will become water-logged and sink. As debris breaks down against pool liners it will leave permanent staining behind. Pool experts use speciality manual vacuums to navigate around hard angles like steps and corners, as well as soft bristle brushes to remove residue from water lines. Using a hard bristle brush to scrub sides, walls and flooring can cause tears in vinyl liners. 

Internal Water Systems: Even with regular chemical treatments water won’t stay clean for very long if it isn’t moving. Keeping pools in good, working order means going below the surfaces treating pool filters, pumps and checking up on plumbing lines. Pool filters are designed to trap and hold the small bits of debris that are often overlooked during a cleaning. If filters aren’t cleaned regularly it makes it harder for water to circulate through. Pool pumps will have to work harder to circulate water through. This means additional wear and tear on internal components and equipment, along with the need for premature pool repair and expensive replacements. 

Jacksonville Pool Care for Atlantic Coast Climate

Jacksonville pool owners face a specific stack of conditions that inland Florida cities do not. Atlantic salt air settles on the deck and waterline year-round, accelerating metal corrosion on heaters, salt cells, ladders and pump housings. Combined with summer humidity above 75 percent and mild winter rain, the water needs more aggressive chemistry management than most regions and the equipment needs proactive inspection more often.

The municipal water source is the Floridan Aquifer, which runs soft to moderate at 60 to 120 ppm calcium hardness. Soft water below 150 ppm is aggressive to plaster surfaces and metal equipment, dissolving calcium out of the pool shell and shortening the heater element life over time. We test calcium hardness on every visit and add calcium chloride to bring water into the 200 to 400 ppm pool range. Oak pollen runs heavy from late February through April thanks to the city's mature oak canopy in Riverside, Avondale and San Marco. We bump filter cleaning frequency during pollen season and use enzyme treatments to break down the organic load before it stains plaster.

Hurricane season runs June through November. Jacksonville sits inland of direct landfall risk most years but still gets storm surge, tropical-depression rainfall and wind debris. Before a named storm we lower water level six to twelve inches, pull heater drain plugs, secure deck items and shock the water heavily. After the storm we vacuum debris, refill to operating level and rebalance chemistry from scratch. Winter brings occasional January and February freeze nights cold enough to risk equipment, so we run pumps continuously through those windows or winterize the equipment pad if you prefer that approach.