Swimming pool maintenance near Salt Lake City can be a hassle if you try to do it yourself. As a homeowner, you opt for pool installation so that you can enjoy swimming with your family and friends, not so that you can spend extra hours each week cleaning and maintaining the pool. Hiring a pool service company to keep your pool clean will remove these tedious chores from your to-do list. Swimming pool services should include:

Physical Cleaning
Debris such as leaves, twigs, and pebbles can and will get into your pool. No one wants to swim in a pool when the surface is covered with dirt and twigs, and also if too much piles up it can clog the

skimmer baskets and filter, possibly damaging the pump. A swimming pool contractor will skim the surface of the water, vacuum the bottom of the pool, clean out the skimmer baskets, and check the filter to remove all debris and make sure that your pool is clean.

Chemical Balancing
A balanced pool needs to be within a certain range of pH level, total alkalinity, and calcium hardness. If the water is too acidic, it will be corrosive, and if it is too alkaline, it will be scaling. Depending on usage, rainfall, and many other factors, your pool can easily fall out of chemical balance. A pool contractor will test your water as part of routine swimming pool maintenance during each visit, and add chemicals and treatments as necessary to ensure that the water is balanced and safe.

Equipment Inspection
A pool is much more than simply a hole in your yard filled with water. Standing water would quickly become a stagnant breeding ground for algae, bacteria, insects, and other tiny organisms. The chemical treatments in your pool help avoid this, but there is also a pump that circulates the water to help keep it clean. During routine maintenance, a professional like Deep Blue Pools and Spa will do the swimming pool inspection and inspect the pumps to make sure that everything is functioning correctly.

Many homes feature in ground pools near Salt Lake City , and many homeowners decide to install them because summers in Utah offer perfect weather to enjoy a pool. When you meet with your pool contractor, you should be aware of the special design features you can incorporate to make your pool much more attractive than a simple rectangle in the ground.

A simple, elegant water feature such as a tiny waterfall at one edge will add visual interest to your pool and won’t require any extra swimming pool maintenance. Other features such as laminar jets are flashier and more eye-catching, and they add a lot of excitement to the design. Make sure you talk to your contractor about adding these before swimming pool installation begins. Many homeowners install colored lights in the pools, which turn them into sources of soft illumination at night and also increase safety. If you have kids, active features such as pool slides can add a lot of fun to your summer afternoons.

Before you schedule your first meeting with your pool contractor in Salt Lake City to discuss your hot tub or pool installation, you should have a design idea in mind. Then, when you actually sit down to discuss it, the contractor will have an idea of what you want and can give you a more accurate time and cost estimate. There are three basic elements to keep in mind when designing a pool:

Shape and Size

Do you want your pool to be a perfect rectangle, or some other shape? Large enough for laps or small enough to fit on a tiny patio? Many rectangular pools are in fact L-shaped, with a set of steps and a handrail at one end that makes it easier for older and younger swimmers alike to get in and out. For a more organic look, you can choose a kidney shape or even a custom shape designed to mimic a natural lagoon or pond. The shape is the most permanent element of the design, especially when you install a fiberglass pool.

Pump and Filter

To keep the water in your pool from becoming a stagnant breeding ground for mosquitos and algae, you need some type of water treatment system. All pools feature a pump to keep water circulating and fresh. Some use salt treatments to prevent algae and fungus growth, while other use more traditional pool chemicals. You will need to schedule regular swimming pool maintenance to balance the chemicals in your pool unless you pay extra for a fully automated treatment system that continuously monitors the water chemistry.

Deck and Features

What material do you want surrounding the pool? Will you opt for classic pool tile, or do you want something more modern like poured concrete or stone? This is both a safety issue and an aesthetic issue—the surface needs to have enough traction to prevent you and your guests from slipping when it’s wet. Also, you should decide whether you to install colored pool lights, a mini-waterfall, laminar jets, an attached hot tub, or any other decorative features.

If you take a look at homes in the area, you will see that many of the modern fiberglass swimming pools in Salt Lake City are actually quite small. Older homes may still have traditional rectangular lap pools, but modern swimming pool installations are often designed to mimic the shape of natural ponds or lagoons.

Whether you are having a salt water pool or a hot tub installed, consider the size of your lot and the space around the pool. You will need to leave enough room around the edge for lounge chairs, barbecues, fire pits, and any other features you want in your outdoor space. Watch this video for swimming pool design tips that you can discuss with your pool builders.

At Deep Blue Pools and Spas, we have earned numerous awards and accolades for our outstanding service. We are committed to your overall satisfaction. Please take a moment to read our latest reviews on Google+ . If you have had a great experience with us, we would love to hear from you. Please leave a review of your own.

“I feel very confident in Deep blue pool and Spas to recommend them to anyone.” – Mark S.

Regular pool cleanings are an important part of any home maintenance routine. Though there are plenty of businesses that offer a complete suite of swimming pool services in Salt Lake City , many homeowners still attempt to perform this chore themselves. But although the tasks may seem simple, you should leave your swimming pool maintenance to a qualified pool contractor. Here are a few reasons why:

To Avoid Chemical Imbalances
Even the smallest lap pools need to be chemically treated. A pool that does not have the proper balance of additives is a breeding ground for algae, fungi, bacteria, and other microorganisms. The correct concentration of chemicals required to keep your pool safe and pleasant to swim in depends on the volume of water it contains. Pool maintenance professionals have the proper equipment to

test your pool and the experience to know when to add water or chemicals.

To Ensure All Equipment Is Working Properly
A swimming pool is much more than a simple reservoir in the ground surrounded by a mosaic of pretty pool tiles. There are many hidden mechanical parts to your pool that help keep it fresh and clean, such as the pump and the filter. You may also have a heater that allows you to enjoy your pool well into the fall and open it early in the spring. During weekly visits, a professional knows how to check and maintain these components. Regular maintenance of all mechanical pool equipment can help you avoid sudden failures and expensive emergency repairs during the summer.

To Keep the Pool Consistently Clean
Like many non-essential home chores, pool maintenance falls to the bottom of the list when you get busy. You may find yourself neglecting your pool week to week, and then when you want to have friends and family over to use it, you might find the skimmers clogged with dead leaves or see clumps of floating algae. Schedule weekly professional pool cleanings and you can always enjoy a quick dip in your pool at a moment’s notice.

There’s nothing quite like having your very own swimming pool at your home. A swimming pool is a great place to get some quick exercise, play with your family, or hang out with your friends. If you have been considering adding a pool to your backyard, you have many different options to choose from. Your pool contractor in Salt Lake City will take you through the steps of designing your pool so that you get exactly what you want. The shape of your pool can be round, rectangular, or a custom shape that works with the flow of your property. Features such as automation and energy-efficient equipment make pool ownership pleasant, rather than a hassle. Take a look at this infographic to learn more about the steps involved in designing your perfect pool. Please share with your friends and neighbors!

Among the many swimming pool companies near Salt Lake City, Deep Blue Pools and Spas stands out because of our commitment to top-notch customer service and excellent work. We are a full-service pool contractor, providing all the services you need, including pool installation, hot tub installation, and swimming pool maintenance .

Like any respectable contractor, we are licensed and insured, but we go above and beyond the standards to deliver excellence to our customers. For more than 15 years, we have served homeowners of Salt Lake City and surrounding areas. Our work has won various awards, including “Best in Show” for the Salt Lake Valley Parade of Homes in 2012 and “Preferred Pool Provider” for the Utah Valley Home Builders Association in 2014. We also have a high rating with the Better Business Bureau.

Whether you are a current pool owner who needs to schedule a weekly maintenance appointment or a homeowner looking to install a brand new pool, Deep Blue Pools and Spas will provide you with the best service in Utah.

Sometimes, homeowners who schedule a new swimming pool installation in Salt Lake City are surprised by the number of steps there are and the amount of time it takes the pool contractors to complete the process. Whether they are classic rectangular lap pools or modern designs that mimic natural ponds and lagoons, residential pools and hot tubs are much more that simple holes in the ground filled with water. Read on to learn more about swimming pools and how they work.

Installation

To begin in-ground pool or hot tub installation, the contractors must first excavate. They must dig a hole wider and deeper than the size of the finished pool without disturbing any plumbing, gas lines, or buried power lines that traverse your property. After this is done, they must put in a liner made of vinyl or fiberglass. Then they install all the plumbing and machinery that will keep the pool fresh and clean, including the drains, pump, filter, returns, and an optional heater.

Day-to-Day Function
Once it is installed and filled, the water does not simply sit in your pool—algae, bacteria, mosquitos, and other unpleasant organisms can breed quickly in stagnant bodies of standing water. The circulation system in your pool helps prevent this. The pump draws water out through the main drains on the basin floor and the skimmer drains around the top edge. The water is pumped through the filter, then the heater (if you have one installed), and then back into the pool through the return pipes.

Regular and Seasonal Maintenance
During pool season, you should have a professional visit about once a week to perform routine maintenance on your pool. He should clean the surface of the pool, the skimmer baskets, the drains, and the filter; he should inspect the pump to ensure that it is working properly; and he should test water and add chemicals as needed to maintain proper balance. During the winter off-season, you may need to fully drain your pool, or at the very least put a pool cover over it.

In Utah water and food storage are quite commonplace. We live in a state with some amazingly beautiful picturesque mountains. While majestic and beautiful they were formed from a violent earthquake. This creates a minor threat to our livelihoods and we like the comfort of feeling prepared. Not only that but I’ve personally been in a situation where the city’s main water pipe burst due to freezing and I was out of water for 3 days. This is just one simple scenario. Many homes in Utah are very susceptible to the bitter cold winter temperatures and broken wirer lines are very common. This can create a rather scary situation when it comes to having drinking water on hand. For these reasons and countless others we typically keep a few gallons of bleach lying around to resolve this situation. After doing some research on the best ways to disinfect water this actually worries me. Come to find out household bleach actually has a very short shelf life. Household bleach kills most (but not all) disease causing organisms. This is why I worry. So many people in Utah are storing bleach for a disaster when unknowingly it won’t do any good.

The Old Way Was To Use Bleach To Disinfect Water

Most people store a few gallons of bleach to disinfect water because it is so readily available at most stores for purchase. What most people do not understand is that household bleach has a pretty rapid shelf life rendering it useless after a short time. People do not typically know this and will use it to disinfect their water anyways making themselves susceptible to illness from waterborne pathogens. Here’s how you should treat water using bleach (as long as the bleach has not expired)

• Add two drops of bleach per liter of water.
• Stir the mixture well.
• Let mixture stand for 30 minutes before ingesting.

If the water you are treating is cloudy

• Filter the water as best as you can.
• double the amount of bleach used to treat each liter of water.

While doing research on bleach to disinfect water I came across this statement made by a Clorox Bleach representative that was actually pretty difficult to find.

“We recommend storing our bleach at room temperatures. It can be stored for about 6 months at temperatures between 50 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit. After this time, bleach will be begin to degrade at a rate of 20% each year until totally degraded to salt and water. Storing at temperatures much higher than 70 degrees Fahrenheit could cause the bleach to lose its effectiveness and degrade more rapidly. However, if you require 6% sodium hypochlorite, you should change your supply every 3 months.” – Chlorox Bleach Representative

This was rather alarming to read, mainly because I had no idea about the shelf life of bleach either. Because of this I started researching better alternatives to consider when it comes to disinfecting water. I found that the very common swimming pool chemical Calcium Hypochlorite is more feasible, convenient, efficient and longer lasting than household bleach.

Use Calcium Hypochlorite To Disinfect Water

One of the main benefits of Calcium Hypochlorite (also known as pool shock) is the shelf life and the volume needed to disinfect water . First of all (in granular form) Calcium Chlorite has an indefinite shelf life. The second reason is that Calcium Hypochlorite will disinfect water no matter how dirty from all the waterborne pathogens that bleach does as well as some more rare forms. A 1 lb. bag of Calcium Hypochlorite will disinfect 10,000 gallons of water! Thats a lot. In fact a 1 pound bag will treat enough water to provide a family of four with one gallon each person per day for 6-7 years. The shelf life is key here, especially for a disaster situation.

Heres how to disinfect water using Calcium Hypochlorite

• You must first make a chlorine solution (DO NOT DRINK THIS) by mixing 1 healthy tablespoon of high test (78%) granular calcium hypochlorite for 2 gallons of water. About 8 liters.
• Add one part of this chlorine solution to 100 parts water.
• Wait at least 30 minutes before ingesting the newly disinfected water.

While nothing will ever compare to boiling water when it comes to disinfecting water but this is the best home remedy. Far better than common bleach and cheaper as well. Calcium Hypochlorite is only a few bucks and you can find it at swimming pool supply stores such as Deep Blue Pools and Spas . This is also referred to as pool shock. Keep in mind that when the granular calcium hypochlorite is made into the liquid chlorine solution it does have a shelf life of about 24 months. So in summary it is much easier to store a small package of Calcium hypochlorite with an indefinite shelf life rather than gallons and gallons of bleach that will go bad very quickly in order to disinfect water .