Hi, this is just a short note. Be sure that you check out the operation of your spa, heater and features before the company or grand kids arrive and want to use your pool or spa. I don’t know how many times I have been called to do an emergency repair when things just didn’t work the way they were suppose to when they were needed. Not a bad idea to run everything once a month just to be sure it works when you need it.
EL SOL SERVICES is a Florida state licensed business, #RP-0067124 and in addition to pool maintenance, we handle any pool-related problems or situations that might arise. We do all of our own repairs and new equipment installs, and we pride ourselves in going the extra mile with every one of our customers. A long-time customer recently stated that she felt “safe” with EL SOL doing her pool service. That is exactly how we want you to feel.
In order for EL SOL to best provide you with the excellent service you deserve, please take careful note of the following:
-You will be assigned a day of the week that we will be at your home to service your pool/spa. This is based on other accounts in your neighborhood. Your day of the week may be subject to change plus we cannot guaranty the time of day that we arrive. On your service day, please be sure to leave the screen door unlocked, or if it is a keyed lock, that we have access to a key. (If we come to your home and the screen door is locked and no one is home, we will check your equipment but will be unable to clean your pool until the next week.)
-We bill on the 25th of every month and we will be snail-mailing or e-mailing invoices at around that time. We ask that you make your payment within 30 days, as we are a small company and cash flow is very important. Any invoice that goes over 30 days will have a $10 charge added for each month that it is late. We also ask you to please not to give your payments to the service tech; there have been a couple of payments lost. Your billing month is based on four weeks per month. There are four months that have five weeks and that gives us four days a year that can be used for vacations, holidays, and rain days. Generally, we work during the rain as long as it is not raining too hard; however, in the case of a downpour with lightning we will miss that visit. If we are unable to service your pool because of circumstances of our own you will not be billed for that missed visit. The only holidays that we take off without doing a makeup day are Thanksgiving and Christmas all other holidays we will do a makeup day either before or after the holiday. We also try and take one week off a year for vacation, usually in the winter when the pool needs are low. If those days fall on your service day we will make sure that your pool has enough chemicals to carry you through till the following week.
-We will be confirming with you on all repairs and equipment that is needed for your pool or spa to be sure that you understand what needs to be done plus the estimated cost and to obtain permission to complete the work. We charge an hourly labor rate for repairs plus materials with an hour minimum. Into that labor rate are all of our overhead, fuel, insurance & labor costs. Plus there is an extra charge for any needed chemical treatments like Phosphate treatments, Special Stain treatments and etc. and like was said these treatments will have to have approval with an understanding of the costs before application. We do a twice a year maintenance stain treatment for every customer and bill $15 extra at the time of the application.
-Please keep an eye on the water level of your pool, as it is very important that it be kept up to the middle of the border tile that is around the rim. The normal evaporation rate here in Florida is 1.5” a week, so if you are adding more than 1.5” of water per week, please contact us, as it is possible that you may have a leak. Should you plan to be away from home for an extended time, please let us know so that we may install a hose timer that will be set to put in the needed water and then shut off. We will make every attempt to check on this equipment to ensure that it is working properly; however, please ask a neighbor or friend to keep an eye on the water level just in case there is a failure of the timer and the water does not shut off as planned. That way this issue will be covered by multiple sources.
-In an effort to become a Green company we do what we are able like recycling, driving smaller trucks and using e-mail as much as possible. So I would like to request that you forward your e-mail address (if you haven’t already) so that I could set you up with e-mailed invoices. We only have one planet and these steps will help in small way to save it.
Too find out more about EL SOL SERVICES, please visit www.elsolservices.com. If ever a problem arises that causes you to consider changing pool service companies, I would ask you to first contact us with your concerns and allow us to address the issue. We always want you to feel free to contact us with any questions, comments or concerns, as we believe in having an open line of communication with all of our customers. Our goal is to keep your pool/spa beautiful, safe, and enjoyable, and to keep you worry free!
Step 1. Clean deck around the pool or spa of all leaves and debris to keep them from blowing into the pool
Step 2. Check water level. Should be kept at about the halfway point on the skimmer inlet.
Step 3. Check water chemistry. Acceptable levels are as follows:
The chemistry can be checked by using a good 6-in-1 test kit or by taking a sample to the local pool store or by hiring EL SOL SERVICES to do the chemical analysis for you on a weekly basis.
Make adjustments as needed, remembering to make all adjustments to water chemistry slowly. Pool/Spa water chemistry needs are affected by the number of people that use the pool/spa, the water source that you use to fill the pool/spa, the weather, the surrounding area, if the pool is heated, if a cover is used and by what manner the you treat your pool or spa.
Chlorine levels can be maintained with either liquid chlorine, dry chlorine or chlorine tabs.
Pool water should be shocked once a week if the water temp. is above 75ºor less often if the water temp. is below 75º. You will want to use about a gallon of liquid chorine (this is determined by your pool size) or a packet of either chlorine or non-chlorine oxidizer. The idea is to kill all the organic contaminates that likes to live in warm water.
Water chemistry is very important to the operation and enjoyment of your pool or spa.
Step 4. Skim the surface of the water with the hand skimmer mounted on the tele-pole to remove all floating debris.
Step 5. Clean the tile around the pool edge, using only pool tile soap.
Step 6. Check all equipment. Cleaning the skimmer basket and the pump strainer basket if needed. Check the pressure on the filter while the pump is running. Note the pressure before and after you vacuum the pool. The filter should be cleaned when the pressure is 8-10 lbs over the reading that is taken when the filter is clean. This is usually done monthly but can be affected by the same factors that effect the water chemistry. Be sure that all equipment is operating correctly and there are no visible leaks. Check the time on the pump timer, being sure to set the pump to operate 8-12 hours daily if the water temp is above 75ºand 6-8 hour daily if the water is below 75º.
Step 7. Vacuum the pool using the correct vac-head for your pool surface. Attach the vac-head to the tele-pole and then one end of the vac-hose to the vac-head and the other end to the skimmer port which returns to the pump and filter. Being sure to fill the hose with water before attaching it to the skimmer and then start the vacuuming of the pool floor. Be sure to cover the entire area. If you have an automatic pool vac or in floor system then you can skip this process unless there is unusual amount of debris on the pool floor.
Step 8. Brush the entire pool or spa using the nylon brush attached to the tele-pole. Brushing the walls first and then brushing the floor staring at the shallow end and working toward the bottom drain.
Step 9. Be sure to put all the pool cleaning equipment and chemicals away safely.
Step 10. ENJOY YOUR POOL !!!
Even here in Sarasota, Florida you can tell that winter is not far away. So what does that mean for my pool. For one it is not going to be used near as much as was a couple of months ago. So let’s list a few things that you can do to help see your pool through the winter and have it ready for you in the spring.
1. The days are shorter now and so is the run time for your pool. You can set the timer so that it only runs for 6 hours a day. This will assure that the pool water turns over and will save you some on your electric bill.
2. If you heat your pool pool you should put on the solar blanket, especially over night. Remember that without a blanket on the water you will lose all your heat over night when the night time temp falls below 60 degrees. This will make heating your pool very expensive so if you want to keep a warm pool through the winter then use a solar blanket on the water. Just take it off once a week during the day to let the water breath a little.
3. Be sure to stop using chlorine tabs if that is how you sanitize your pool. If you use tabs through the winter months you will drive up the chlorine level to be way too high plus the stabilizer level will also go through the roof and when your stabilizer is too high your pool will turn a nasty yellow color. You will probably only need to add liquid chlorine every other week or so. You still need to test every week though to keep you water balanced.
This has been a big concern for a lot of our customers. So let’s discuss this a little and maybe give you some insight into this problem and how to make sure your pool is leaking and then what to do about it. Here in Sarasota, Florida the normal evaporation rate is around 1.5" per week. There are factors that will make this evaporation more or less then the average. If your pool has a cage or is it open, if the pool is on the south or north side of your home, if the pool is exposed to a lot of wind, if you use your pool a lot, are the neighbor kids using your pool everyday, is it heated? These all have to taken into consideration when you are trying to determine if the pool is leaking or not. The age of your pool isn’t really a factor, I have seen brand new pools leak from the very first day of operation and have seen 30 year old pools that do not leak a drop.
So what is the first thing that you should do if you suspect a leak? While the pool is running, after it has been on for a couple of hours. Check the equipment pad and look for any tell tale signs of water leaking around the plumping, the pump, the filter, the heater and the valves. I have seen people get very concerned that their pool was leaking, thinking that they needed a new surface or plumbing dug up under their deck and all it ended up being was a bad o-ring on the filter.
The next step should be a bucket test. Shut the pump off and don’t let it run for a couple of days. Take a bucket and fill it up with water and set it on the top step that goes into your pool. Put a mark with a pencil where the water line is in the bucket and inside the skimmer of the pool. The point is that you want the water in the bucket to be exposed to the same conditions that the water in the pool is. After a few days compare the two water levels. If the water in the bucket goes down at the same rate the water in the pool does then your don’t have a leak. But if the water in the pool drops faster then the water in the bucket then you have a leak and more then likely it is in the shell of the pool. Now do the same test with the pool running and this will help you determine if you have a leak in the plumbing. If your test didn’t show any signs of leaking while the pool was not running but when you did the test with it operating and the water in the pool went down faster then the water in the bucket then you might have a plumbing leak.
So after you have done the above and you think your pool is indeed losing water here is what needs to be done next. Shut the pool pump off and let the water become still. You will need get some type of dye or food coloring. We use a small syringe and special dye that is available at most pools stores. You can use the red reagent that is used for your PH test if need be. You will also need to have a mask and snorkel plus some type of weight belt so you can stay down in the water. You start by taking the light fixture out and the main drain cover off. Then you go around the pool and check every suspicious area with the dye and slowly inject a little dye around any area that looks like it might be a hole or crack and observe if the dye is sucked in. If you find a leak you will know by seeing the dye being drawn into the hole of crack. Be sure to check every tiny suspicious area. Remember that a hole the size of a pencil point can lose up to an inch of water in 24 hours. Spend a lot of time at the skimmer, the light niche and around the returns these areas have proven to be problem areas for us. Be sure to check everywhere though because we have found leaks in the most obscure places.
Once you have done the testing and hopefully found spots that are drawing in dye you need to make some repairs. We use Pool Epoxy. This is a two part epoxy that can be bought at any pool store. You slice off two equal parts and mix together by hand until it is a uniform color. This putty can be used under water so you go to the places that the dye was being sucked in and fill the hole or crack with the epoxy and smooth off with your finger. We also always use rubber butyl tape to fill in around the electric cord where it comes out of the conduit for the light in the niche. Once you have done this do not run the pool for a day to allow the epoxy to set hard and then you can start normal operation. You should see a stark improvement at how much water your pool is losing.
What if after you have done all the above and you are still losing water? Then more than likely the leak is in the plumbing and it time to call in the big guns. That is what we do in our business. I have a company in Venice, FL, M & D Pool Leak Seekers that I use all the time. They have all the current electronics that can be used to pin point the spot of the leak. They also will perform the repair even if it means cutting through the deck to get at it. It is not cheap to have this done but the alternative is not cheap either, to put in an inch or two of water into your pool every day.
Stains, in all the years that I have been in business this has been one of the top concerns that customers have. In-ground pools here in Sarasota, Florida and I am sure everywhere are very prone to staining. Even if you doing everything right, right water balance, brushing the entire pool at least once a week and the right way, keeping the right plants around the pool and getting rid of the wrong ones, doing all the right things you still might get staining. Some stains are what is called "bleed through stains" ,they are very difficult to remove permanently. Some stains come from outside sources like metal objects dropped into the pool or fertilizer, again very hard to remove. Some stains come from a high metal content in the make up water, the water that you use to fill the pool. A lot of stains come from having a bad algae problem and the surface gets stained from the algae that was allowed to grow on the surface. So in order to keep your pool looking like it did when it was brand new takes a lot of diligence. Sometimes there is no solution but to have the pool re-surfaced. Most surfaces have a life of around 10 years after that it will start to show it’s age.
To continue this discussion we need to talk about how to get rid of stains. Like anything else, everyone has their own methods of doing things, their own little tricks. What I am going to tell you is what has been working for us in our business. We have dealt with a lot of stains and have seen a lot of successes and a lot of failures. So let’s deal with a few things that don’t work. What I mean by not working is that it doesn’t have long term effects. One is acid washing. Acid washing has been used for years to remove stubborn stains from pools, especially Marcite. In essence a small amount of the surface is removed when it is acid washed. It has been my experience that acid washing will make the pool look like new but in a few months time even with proper maintenance it will start look as bad if not worse then it did before the acid wash. An acid wash can cost up to near $800 dollars so I would save your money and try a few other treatments that we will discuss.
So the first step that should be done is good preventive maintenance. All the years that I have been doing maintenance work I have seen it proven over and over that it is far better to keep a fire from burning then to have to run around and put it out. You should be using a good Stain & Scale treatment for your pool on a regular basis as part of your maintenance routine. That along with vigorous weekly brushing will go a long way to keep the stains away. There are a lot of products out there but we seem to have settled on using Stain & Scale which is manufactured by All-Clear. You can’t beat the price and for regular applications it does the job. It is what is called a sequestion agent which actually makes the metals that are in your water big enough so that they can be filtered out. Metals in pool water are what causes most of your staining. You should follow the application advise that is on the bottle. This is true for any chemicals that you apply to your pool.
Let say that you have stains and you want to get rid of them. There are so many manufactures, selling so many products, each claiming to be best. How do you know what to use? We have tried just about everything on the market. Here is what we do and it works most of the time. Before you begin remember that there are some stains that just will not come out and the only option is to have a new surface applied to your pool. Also remember that if you have a vinyl liner or a painted surface do not follow this advise, these chemicals and procedures are for plastered pools only.
The first thing that we do is use two products. We put in 2 lbs of Multi-Stain Remover which is manufactured by Lo-Chlor. This is a very strong citric acid. If your pool has a yellowish look, the plastic parts like the main drain or the returns are yellow this will make your pool look bright white again. Sometimes we just drop a little over top of the returns or the light fixture and it will become white again almost instantly. Be sure that the pool has been turned off and the water calm. We also put in a quart of Metal Gone also by Lo-Chlor. This is probably one of the strongest sequestion agents on the market and the price is better then a lot of the other ones available. One thing that does happen when you use these products is that the residual chlorine is depleted so be sure to test often and add a little extra chlorine if needed during this treatment. Plus be sure to test your water a little more often to be sure that your PH, Total Alkalinity, Calcium hardness and Stabilizer are in balance. In fact if your stabilizer level is too high, like near or over 100ppm that could be the reason that your pool is staining. If the stabilizer level is too high then you should lower it to below 50ppm before your do any stain treatment. You need to drain water out about a third of the pool and then put in fresh make up water, it is the only way to lower the stabilizer. You should see a stark improvement at how your pool looks. Sometimes you might have to do another treatment and be sure that you brush the pool very vigorously during this process and sometimes we even use what is called a combo brush which a brush that has both vinyl and stainless bristles.
Another type of stain that is very common is dark areas on the bottom and on the side walls. These are hard to get rid of. Some are caused by high iron or magnesium levels some are bleed through stains We have tried almost everything and now use a very unorthodox method. We tun the the pool off and make sure that it will stay off for at least 12 hours. Once the water is calm we sprinkle granular Tri-Chlor over the dark areas. We use a product that is sold by All-clear called Algae Kill. In essence you are bleaching out the stains. Be very careful when handling tri-Chlor. A lot of the time this is only a temporary solution but for a while your pool will be nice looking. Don’t do this treatment too often because it can cause damage to the surface. If the dark areas are on the side walls then it is very hard to get the tri-Chlor to sit there.
There are times that we use a pumice on the dark areas. Pumice will not hurt the surface and will take out some stains. In fact you can use pumice on the calcium deposits that sometimes form around the tile and the glass block and it will not scratch the tile or glass but will take off the calcium. It takes quite a bit of elbow grease but it does work. You might want to use a little muratic acid first but be be sure to rinse it off after 30 seconds or else it will start to attack the grout. Plus be very careful when handling muratic acid, don’t breath the fumes and don’t get any on your self or the pool deck. If you do rinse it off immediately and there should be no problems.
I wanted to take a little time to address a common problem that can come up with a swimming pool, Algae…. Just the word makes you shutter. Here in the Sarasota/Venice area of Florida a pool that has not been maintained properly can become very full of algae in very short period of time, just few weeks. The picture above is a pool that we had to do a clean up on and it was not maintained for just a few weeks.
So the first aspect of dealing with algae is preventive maintenance, proper weekly service. If you were to go to my web site, www.elsolservices.com and check out the pool cleaning page you will see a short lesson on how to maintain your pool properly. Just a half hour a week and some elbow grease and you will never have a pool that looks like the one above, never. Or if you don’t want to or cannot do it your self then hire a good company like El Sol and rest assured that your pool will never be as bad as the one pictured. If you have a pool that looks like this one and you want to know how to clean it up, write me a comment and I will take you step by step to a pool that you can have fun it again.
There are times though that you will get algae and I would like to address just a couple of the most common algae and how to handle them. The first one is;
Mustard Algae
Mustard algae is a greenish/yellowish algae that can can grow very fast in water were the the sanitizer level has dropped a little too much. It likes to grow in areas of a pool that have little circulation and sun. The best way to tell if it is yellow mustard is to take your pool brush and brush the suspicious area. If it brushes off and you see a yellowish cloud where you brushed then it is mustard algae. The way that we treat mustard algae is when we see just the first signs of its growth we add a capful of a good mustard knock out along with an extra gallon of liquid chlorine and then brush the pool very vigorously. Normally after that treatment the algae is gone and the pool is back to sparkling within 24 hours. Recently we have been facing a new problem and that is phosphates Phosphate is the food that algae eats and if the phosphate level gets too high then it becomes very hard to get rid of the algae. If you suspect this then test you water for phosphates and if it is high then get a good phosphate remover, follow the instructions on the bottle and that should take care of the problem. Once again if you need more info write me a comment and will address them.
The second common algae is;
Black Algae
Just the name sounds bad. Black algae starts as very small black spots on the pool surface that will not brush away. The algae is actually sending tiny roots down through the finish of the pool and if left untreated can cause some very serious problems with your pool. The main reason that it is so hard to remove is that this algae forms a hard crust on its surface that chemicals or regular brushing cannot penetrate. The best way to treat black algae is to first brush the spots with a stainless steel wire brush. This will open up the algae so that the chemicals can get in and do their job. Once you wire brush be sure the pool pump is set not to run over night and broadcast granular trichlor chlorine right over the areas and allow it it settle on the surface. The water has to be calm in order to accomplish this. The next day the algae will be gone. You might have to do this a few times if you have a very bad problem like the picture above. Once again you can go to my web site and I have have a page that explains in detail how this done.
I am not a big fan of Algaecides. They are very harmful to the environment and expensive. You can keep your pool looking great with just good weekly maintenance which just makes you want to jump in………
HI again, You wouldn’t think that here in Sarasota, FL there would be any need to heat a pool but that is very far from the truth. It is true that in the summer months the pool water can get very warm just on it’s own, I’ve seen it as high as 90 degrees and last year we even installed a chiller for one of our customers that couldn’t swim in their pool because it was just too warm. But in the winter months the pool water can get down to 55 degrees and if you want to swim then you are going to need some type of heater. Here in Sarasota there are three main types of heaters, gas, electric heat pump and solar. They all have advantages and disadvantages. So lets list them.
Gas, Gas heating is very reliable. Gas heaters are the least expensive to install but the most to operate. The biggest advantage to using gas is that you can heat up your pool very fast. Sometimes in just a few hours your pool will be warm and ready for the kids to jump in. A lot of pool owners will have a gas heater just for that reason, they can heat up the pool for the weekend or holiday. Like mentioned before they can be very expensive to operate on a regular basis. I have seen gas bills approaching a $1000 a month when someone wanted to keep the pool heated all the time. One thing I will mention here is the use of a solar blanket on your pool. They really work at cutting your costs. They are very hard to handle and they just don’t look good on your pool, like having a bunch of blue bubble wrap on the water but when on the water they will keep heat from escaping especially at night.
Electric heat pumps, There has been a very big increase in using heat pumps to heat the pool water. Heat pumps extract the heat that is available in the ambient air and through the use of a heat exchanger that will in turn heat the pool water. The biggest advantage is the cost of operation. Heat pumps if used all the time will cost you up to a couple of hundred dollars a month to operate as long as you use a solar blanket every night. They are however very expensive to install, the cost of the unit can be up to $6000 plus you might have to upgrade your electric in order to be able to use a heat pump. Another disadvantage is that they can take a couple of days to get your water warm so for someone that is looking for quick heat heat pumps are not the way to go.
Solar heat, Solar heat is becoming one of the fastest growing methods of heating a swimming pool. In this age of going "Green" solar is the smart choice. The cost of installing a system can be high, around an average of $4500 but the system will pay for itself in a couple of years and after that you are getting free heat. A solar blanket has to be used in order for solar to work properly. A solar system can take up to 4 or 5 days to heat the water so you want to be sure to keep a cover on while you are heating the pool.
Through the years a lot of questions have come up as "How long should I run my pool every day?". So I thought I would address this concern. Here in Venice Florida we recommend that there are two different time settings depending on the time of year and that is determined by the pool water temperature. If the water in your pool is above 75 degrees then it is considered summertime and the pool should run at least 8 hours a day and below 75 degrees it is winter time and it should run a minimum of 6 hours. Now these are very basic recommendations and there are other things that need to be considered. One is the turn over rate. Turn over rate is the amount of time that it takes for all the water in the pool to run through the filter, be sanitized an returned to the pool. Most pools are designed to have a 6 hour turn over rate. Another factor that has to be considered is water temperature, the warmer the water the longer it should run. Plus swimmer load, a pool should run longer if it is being used often. Example; if you have a lot of kids in the pool every day then you might want to run your pool for 12 hours a day. This will assure that the water is being cleaned and sanitized enough. I do know that a lot of electric companies are recommending that you should only run your pool for 4 hours a day to save on energy which it would do. But only running your pool for that short of a time would eventually lead to other problems that could cost you time and expense. So if you follow the 6-8 rule then you should not have any problems especially if you live in an area like ours in Sarasota Florida.
There are new pumps that are variable speed. It won’t be long that they will mandated for new pools. These pumps can save enormous amounts of energy plus they can be run 24 hours a day. In fact the studies show that when these pumps are run continuously they actually use less energy then a standard pump that runs 10 hours a day. Plus you are overturning your water multiple times every day. There are pumps that have been running for 4 years now, 24 hours a day and have never had one problem. The motors are completely sealed. In fact they are not sure as too how long these motors will run until they need service. The only down side is that they are expensive to install, around $1200 but when you factor in the cost savings and the long life it is worth the investment plus when is running a low speed you cannot hardly hear the pump running which is a plus.
So right now is the time to turn your clocks back and decrease the run time for your pools to about 6 hours a day.
The past 15 years has seen an incredible advance when it comes to the technology that is available for pool and spa operation. It seems that just a few years ago if you had a pool/spa combination and you wanted to use the spa you had to go outside to the equipment pad and manually turn a couple of valves and turn on the heater. Now all that is needed to be done is touch one button inside your house and the spa turns, the heater turns on to the temperature that you want and in a few minutes you jump into a warm inviting spa. You can also turn on water features like fountains or waterfalls all from the confront of your home or from the inside of your spa. You can also turn on the lighting and adjust the colors that you like. The list is endless as too what you can control now with the current automation. So if yours is a Sarasota swimming pool or an Alaskan hot tub there are controls and features available that will make your life a little more easier and in this world we need a lot more easy.
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