Baltimore Swimming Pool Maintenance

Baltimore swimming pool maintenance is, unfortunately, a necessary evil when it comes to owning a swimming pool. Why? Because from water quality to winterization, pool maintenance is what keeps your pool healthy, clean, comfortable, and functional. In the city of Baltimore and surrounding suburbs, that means you've got four main tasks to keep up on over the course of a year: opening, weekly maintenance, closing, and mid-winter checks.

Hiring a Pro to Perform your Swimming Pool Maintenance in Baltimore
As you'll see in a moment, keeping up on your pool maintenance does take some commitment. For some homeowners in Baltimore and the larger metropolitan area, it's no big deal. Print up a checklist, settle into a routine, and they're good to go. For the rest of us who are organizationally challenged or just too busy to fit regular pool maintenance into our schedules, keeping up on swimming pool maintenance in Baltimore can be difficult, if not close to impossible, to accomplish. If that sounds familiar, you might think about hiring a service to come in and perform the necessary checks for you for a monthly fee. Whether you choose to hire the job of pool maintenance out, or are just looking for a little information on how to do it yourself, here's a breakdown of the basic maintenance tasks that any pool owner in the Baltimore area ought to get familiar with.

Baltimore Pool Maintenance: Opening your Pool
The weather in Baltimore gets just cold enough that it's necessary you close your pool down in the fall. That makes opening your pool the first act of swimming pool maintenance in Baltimore that you'll need to do each year. Opening your pool consists of removing your cover, replacing any water loss that has occurred in the off season, checking and priming your pool equipment before start up, cleaning your pool, and finally, adding the necessary chemicals to get your water quality levels where they need to be.

Baltimore Pool Maintenance: Weekly Maintenance
Once your pool is open for business, your next chore is to keep up on weekly maintenance. Weekly maintenance consists of checking the water quality (ph levels, chlorine levels, etc.), brushing and vacuuming the pool, and removing any foreign debris (leaves, insects, etc.) from the pool and the skimmers. In addition, once a month you should have your water professionally tested, and about mid-season you should degrease and clean out your pool filter if you haven't already.

Baltimore Pool Maintenance: Closing your Pool
Whereas opening your pool marks the beginning of pool season in Baltimore, closing is the end of the road for pool lovers. Basically, closing your pool is opening in reverse. You'll need to check the water quality and the water level to make sure they're all set for a hibernation period, clean the pool, and then winterize the pool. Just how to go about that depends on the system you have installed. Some require that you add a little antifreeze to the lines to prevent freezing, while others require you to blow water out of the lines altogether so that there's no water in them to freeze in the first place. You'll also need to make sure all your pumps, filters, and heaters are prepared for cooler weather before shutting them off, and then you'll need to install your cover. In some cases, especially with concrete lined pools, you'll need to drain the entire pool. Fortunately, with most present day pools the water stays right where it is, just be sure to check with your pool builder/supplier to get the specifics on closing requirements for your particular model.