Keeping the pool up to scratch.

Most of the houses we have house-sat have had swimming pools. They are becoming much more common these days, especially in the hotter areas of Australia. But they do take quite a lot of work, and this is something that has always been Peters department. He’s the mechanical one, and if the pump plays up, he knows what to do. He is also the general pool cleaner. In this house sit it is more important than ever for us to keep the pool up to scratch, because the house is for sale, and no one is going to be impressed when they come to look at a property and are faced with a ghastly green pool. Did you ever read the Just So stories written by Rudyard Kipling? When I see horrible green pools I think of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees.

So a nice clean pool is important. Today we went down to the shops quite early and the shadows on the pool were really pretty. I took a couple of pictures.

The pattern of the sunlight shining through the palm branches made a pretty picture.

This home sit is close to a large pond with lots of ducks. For a while we were getting ducks visiting us. They make a mess by poo-ing on the lawns and driveway, but most of all by getting into the pool. The owner always kept some beach balls floating on top to discourage the ducks so we have done the same thing. You can see them at the top of the pool. We had a lovely big red one but some recent wind took it and blew it away, somewhere, we never did find it again.

This pool is a salt pool, not chlorine. There are always things to learn, and over the past couple of days Peter has educated me on pool salt. You would think that salt was salt, but apparently not. There are different brands and different grades.

Peter gets the pool water checked at a local shop from time to time and buys the salt and other chemicals needed to keep the PH balance right. The local shop is very helpful and a good source of relevant information.

For a while we were using a pool salt that took longer to dissolve into the water. Peter had to brush it around for quite a while with the pool brush to get it to dissolve. He brought in a stone too, that he found in the old pool salt I  guess it’s not good for the filter to have these things going through them.  I think different salts come from different sources, hence are different qualities. 

This is the Sunray salt, the one Peter was using. I think the owner used this brand too, but we have found the other one to be better quality.

 

But the pool man suggested Peter try a new one. This is ultrapure. It is more expensive, but Peter says it seems much better and dissolves with just a few brushes with the big pool brush he has. It’s all a bit of a learning curve when you  are caring for these things.