Caring for Your Pool After a Big Storm

For help with pool maintenance after a heavy rain, call your friends at Pinnacle Pool Services. We can help you correct a variety of issues after the storm.

Heavy rain has been known to pound the Southeast in the past, no doubt leading to frowns among those who opened their pools hoping to enjoy otherwise beautiful weather. After a storm, your pool can look more than a little disheveled. Overflowing skimmers, leaves, debris, and cloudy, green water all give pool owners extra work once the storm passes.

Fortunately, cleaning this mess out and getting your pool ready for the next sunny day is not difficult. Follow these tips, and make sure to seek help from an Atlanta swimming pool repair company immediately if your pool structure or equipment is damaged in any way.

There are certain steps of pool maintenance after heavy rain that must be done for safety reasons. For instance, if your pool area is flooded or damaged following a storm, you may have a risk of your pool equipment short circuiting. Exposed electrical components could electrocute you, especially if they are in contact with water. The equipment may also get damaged further if it continues shorting out. 

So, make a quick judgment call whether you have flooding or damage, and respond appropriately by shutting off the breaker to your pool pump, filter and other equipment until the waters subside. You should also consider shutting your equipment off at the first sign of the next storm to avoid electrical problems in advance.

If you just had a storm, chances are great that you have plenty of leaves, limbs and other debris in and around your pool. Pick up the big stuff by hand, and then begin skimming out any debris floating on your pool surface. Once the surface-level debris are gone, vacuum out the remainder. Anything left will affect your pool’s chemistry for the worse, so make sure to be thorough.

If the rain has filled your pool past its normal fill level, backwash your filter or use the “waste” setting, if available, to pump some of it out. If your filtration system does not have this option, you can use a submersible pump or siphon hose.

At this point, you may be asking yourself “how does rain affect pool chemistry” or similarly “how does rain affect pool pH levels“?  Heavy rains dilute pool water, causing your delicate chemistry balance to get thrown off. You will need to restore this chemical balance to prevent common water quality issues that can occur after a storm, like green or cloudy water.

Start by testing pH and alkalinity levels. You need a good pH balance before you add other chemicals, and your alkalinity helps buffer pH changes. Since alkalinity acts like a buffer, you are more likely to see substantial changes in it compared to pH, which means it is doing its job well.

Chlorine will also be diluted, so add some chlorine to get the level back up to the normal ppm. You may want to shock your pool since organic debris like leaves can create chlorinates, which cause cloudiness and make your chlorine work poorly. Adding chlorine and shock will also help kill algae blooms, the culprit behind green water.

If your find yourself in need of substantial pool maintenance after heavy rain, do not risk injury to yourself or further damage to your system. Contact a professional Atlanta pool service company as soon as you can so that your pool can be restored back to ship shape and ready for the next beautiful day.