New York Swimming Pool Maintenance, Accessories, and Contractors

The New York summer is infamous for its intensity, especially for the city's relatively northern location. The dynamics of the urban jungle covers the city in literal heat waves. Of course, the residential swimming pool market in Manhattan is nearly non-existent. While still connected to the heat, the more commonly cited benefit of a swimming pool throughout the five boroughs and greater New York area is the ability to conveniently take a relaxing soak at your own home after a chaotic and draining day. Whether you're interested in looking to install a new pool, maintain, clean, or repair a current one, or remodel an old one, ServiceMagic can help you find the right pool professional for your needs.

New York Swimming Pool Maintenance
Swimming pool maintenance in New York is composed of numerous elements: some small, some tedious, some technical, but all critical to the well-being of your pool. Essentially, every pool owner knows that the chlorine, pH, and alkalinity levels of a pool must be balanced, but new pool owners, like teenagers, often unwittingly take a cavalier, somewhat negligent, approach to this basic aspect of pool maintenance. More than the general usability of a pool and its affect on your hair, eyes, and skin, these chemical measurements have a huge impact on your pool's ability to resist algae, bacteria, and other organisms and harms that can befall it. Infiltration of these organisms can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars to remedy and put your pool out of commission for days or weeks on end.

Other swimming pool maintenance includes washing the pool's lining, backwashing the filter assembly (although one common mistake is to backwash too frequently), and inspecting your pool filter and hose assembly for any problems. In moderate climates such as New York, swimming pool maintenance also frequently involves closing the pool for the winter and opening it in spring. Homeowners who can take care of the rest of their basic pool maintenance, often hire a pool contractor for this last and somewhat involved piece of maintaining a pool.

New York Swimming Pool Accessories and Pool Heaters
Any number of pool accessories will enhance the enjoyment of your swimming pool: Pool covers will retain heat within your pool water; pool fences are a necessity for homeowners with children; various automatic pool cleaning robots or devices; and an entire array of items for your pool surrounds, such as decks, vegetation, furniture, slides, hot tub attachments, among others. By far the most popular pool accessory for a swimming pool in New York is a pool heater. This popularity is nearly self-explanatory: If you're going to spend anywhere from $10,000-$50,000 on a pool, you might as well front another grand or two to extend the usability of your pool for several months out of the year.

For many homeowners in New York, pool heaters may not have been part of an initial pool installation. It may surprise (and will certainly please) you to know that retrofitting a pool with a pool heater is a fairly simple matter, since most heaters are attached to the pool's piping and not your interior plumbing lines. The average cost of a new swimming pool heater is about $2,000, although you may be able to install one for $1,000 or less. The size of your pool and energy-efficiency of the heater will determine how much it costs. Solar powered pool heaters, for example, will cost more to install but eliminate the high cost of running the heater, a common drawback to electric and gas-powered heaters.

New York Swimming Pool Contractors
Like so many home improvement contractors, the quality of New York pool professionals range widely from those who may not show up as scheduled to those who represent the longevity of a pool repair to those who do what exactly the job you would expect and finally those who learn the names of your children and pets, send you a Christmas card, while delivering exemplary pool service. ServiceMagic gives you the tools to find the latter types of contractors rather than the former. We put each and every one of home improvement professionals through a rigorous ten-step screening process that unreliable contractors can't pass. We also give you access to our online customer ratings and reviews section. This will allow you to see what other homeowners have thought about their experience with individual contractors and some tips about pool maintenance in general. It also provides powerful incentive for New York swimming pool contractors to meet and exceed your expectations.

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