Now that summer is upon us in sunny Orlando, your pool serves as a great heat-free retreat, providing a cool, comforting environment. With temperatures rising into the high eighties to low nineties, and humidity levels creeping up, making the air soupy, the last thing you want is for your swimming pleasure to become paltry, even unpleasant. As the mercury in the thermometer rises steady and sticks to nearly unbearable day time levels, escaping the heat with a cool dip is a must, but, your pool might well become a warm bathtub.
Fortunately, there are ways you can beat back the heat and return your pool water to comfortable conditions. It starts with being proactive, and, utilizing some basics that will do the trick nicely. Your goal is to thwart the elements, bringing the water temperature down to the mid to low eighties, where it’s most refreshing. If your pool is in the nineties, it won’t be comfortable and feel more like a sauna.
Essential Pool Care Basics
Preventative maintenance is key to keeping your pool in good condition and avoiding costly repairs and replacements. It beings with five basic maintenance measures, which include circulation, filtration, cleaning, testing, and chemistry. While this might seem like a lot of work, it’s actually a periodic routine that can be broken-up into small tasks. One of the most helpful, and, first on the list, is circulation. For about ten hours a day, the water ought to be circulating, which greatly reduces algae, bacteria, and, allows more debris to be captured in the filter.
How can you cool down hot swimming pool water during extreme heat conditions? Not enjoying your swimming pool when it is as warm as a bathtub? How can you get your hot swimming pool water back to a cool and refreshing temperature? While dumping large blocks of ice into the pool may seem like a great idea, the cost is prohibitive and the effect is only temporary. —ThoughtCo.com
The filter is quite important because it’s primary function is just that–filtration. When your filter reaches 8 to 10 PSI above normal, it’s time for a backwash. This, along with a chemical cleaning, will do much to help keep the water clean. That leads to the next on the list, cleaning, which should be done weekly with brushing and vacuuming where the water circulates the least. At least twice a week, you should test your pool water, and balance it when needed.
Effective Ways to Keep Your Pool Cool
All of the above will help to keep the pool sanitary, but, it won’t necessarily keep the water cool. To lower the water temperature in your pool, you can do the following:
- Add a fountain. By installing a fountain, connected to your pool’s return line, some water will spray out into the air, evaporating. This phenomenon allows the water returning to your pool to cool. It’s the same principle behind water towers atop tall buildings. Run it at night for maximum effect, when the air is cooler and less evaporation is needed.
- Run the pump at night. The relative coolness of the overnight hours can have a tremendous impact on how refreshing the water stays during the day. Run the pump at night to circulate the water, thereby reducing heat intake.
- Install a mechanical evaporative cooler. These devices mechanically lower water temperatures and provide the most cooling when run during the evening and overnight. While these work very well to cool the water, they unfortunately cause your pump to run more often.
- Put in a reverse-cycle swimming pool heat pump. These devices use refrigerants to cool the water running through them. The upside to these is being able to cool the water on-demand, while the downside is the operating costs. However, reverse-cycle heat pumps will significantly reduce the water temperature.
- Install an aerator. Much like a swimming pool fountain, an aerator works the same way. These will lower the water temperature, on average, about three to four degrees, as water is recycled into the pool.
Another option is to install a pool cooler, which is quite similar to a heat pump. Water is cycled through the machine, cooled by a fan as it flows, and then, goes back into the pool. The constant motion and cooling help to consistently lower the water temperature.