Top 5 ways to stop swimming pool water evaporation.
Top 5 ways to stop swimming pool water evaporation. Stopping water evaporation should be a priority for everyone. Not sure if your water is evaporating or if your pool has a leak. I'll give you a simple test you can do yourself to check it out at the end.
First, let’s cover what causes evaporation. Size of the pool, exposure to sun and wind but most dangerous of all, splash-out.
That brings us to #1: Splash-Out. Try to limit the constant in and out of the pool. Play games that keep them entertained in the pool, Dive rings are a great way to do this. Ok, splash-out mostly means that the pool is being used for what it was intended for, fun. Just picture all the kids playing in the pool, in and out, in and out, and running around. Now look at all the water on the pool deck, that’s splash-out. The real trouble with splash-out isn’t that you need to refill the pool, it’s because that is how a pool loses conditioner. Conditioner is what holds your chlorine in the water so if you have a heavy-use pool always keep an eye on your conditioner levels.
Splash-out and our loving pets. Yes, Fido getting in and out of the pool leads to huge levels of splash-out, I mean, if your dog doesn’t fit in a purse. FYI, Fido leads to lots of filthy problems but it’s purely up to you if you let him swim. Each pound of a dog is like one person. A 50-pound dog is like 50 people in the pool at once. If you don’t believe me, go swimming with your dog at night and watch him swim in front of the pool light and watch the filth flowing from its ever-flowing fur.
2: Cover it. Pool covers almost stop evaporation. As a pool pro, I always hated working around these big blue monstrosities. Do you blame me, it’s extra work that no one was paying me to deal with. No more. I’m in Southern CA and after a few years of drought, I started recommending them to everyone. Now I figure that I’m doing my part.
If you have room to get one of the rollers that allow you to roll up the cover when you're going to get into the pool I highly recommend them, it will make life easier. Not just that but you can take it off and put it on with just one person. Another thing you can do is to cut it in half so you can manage the smaller pieces easier than one big one.
3:Solar Rings. If you have an odd-shaped pool or a pool that has ledges or hedges around it keeping you from being able to easily use a bubble cover you can get the round solar rings. Solar Rings are a couple of feet in diameter that you blow up and have small magnets around the outside so they stick together to help form the cover of the pool. Very easy to put in and take out of the pool. You must read the instructions to get the right amount of air in them. They seemed expensive to me at first but they run about the same price as a pool cover with the roller together. They are made to heat the pool and will melt themselves if you stack them up in a pile out in the sun on the cement deck so don’t do that.
4: Liquid Pool Covers. There are a few liquid products like the Pool Pill that you add to your pool weekly or leave in the skimmer basket and it lets some out every day. You can’t see it or smell it and it’s supposed to be proven safe.
5: Turn off extra fountains and waterfalls. If you have extra water features or fountains only use them when you want the ambiance and sounds of water in the background. Having friends or family over for that backyard BBQ, crank them up. These things cause lots of evaporation. If your fountain is on its own pump you will have to run it once in a while to keep the water from turning green in the pump basket eventually pumping algae back into your pool when you do decide to use it.
Warning, I said to turn off EXTRA water features. This does not include elevated spa returns. If you have an elevated spa the water that returns through it is a waterfall. You cannot turn it off or your spa will eventually turn green. However, you can turn it down a bit until you have that BBQ then crank it up.
Tips for filling your pool with water. When you fill your pool use a battery-powered automatic timer to keep from overfilling it. One of the biggest insurance claims for pool cleaning companies is filling the neighbors’ living room with water. If they wanted a pool they would have put one in. Picture it, pool pro stops by in the morning and turns the water on and forgets to turn it off and 10 hours later when the home owner comes home and their feet get wet when they kick off their shoes. Not good. You can also turn on your timer on your phone but do something, even leaving your car keys on the faucet is better than nothing unless you're done for the day. Heck, just go get a timer and set it for 10-30 minutes and feel safe knowing it will turn itself off. If you turn on your pool water at the house you can have a timer installed to it. Use a professional for this.
Not sure if you have a pool leak or just evaporation? Start with the bucket test. Get a 5 gallon bucket and put it on the second or third step with some rocks in it to keep it in place for a couple of days. Next fill the bucket up with water until it is level with the pool. Believe it or not, water evaporates at the same rate in the bucket as it will in the pool so all you have to do is wait a day or three and see if the pool water is obviously lower than the water in the bucket. If after four or five days you can’t see a significant difference then try some of the tricks you learned in this article, I think you’ll see a difference in your water bill.
Thank you for reading this article, feel free to leave a comment if you have any further questions. You can watch a quick video where I go over all this information at HappyPools and if you want to purchase any of the products above you can go to elitepoolcare.com