How do YOU Test?

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At the beginning of the season or after a party, rain, etc I test every day to get a feel for the FC consumption. This is after the water is balanced. Then I can add the same amount every other day to maintain my target FC level. Test pH once a week. CYA once a month unless there was a lot of water replacement. It really varies based on your pool and situation.
 
I usually test chlorine levels in the early evening after the sun is off the pool & add it then. It gives the chlorine more time to do it's thing and sanitize without the sun burning it off, as it would during the day. About 4 days a week I'm in the pool in the mornings, too, and check chems then as well. If there are changes/additions I tweak then.
 
Hey Semper - I test almost daily, but mostly because I've become a major nerd about it -- just ask my wife. That said, she sure does enjoy swimming in a sparkling clean pool. Although, she might prefer a cabana boy given my age!

Anyway, I have a saltwater, so things are a tad simpler than having to dose each day with bleach, but I test FC and pH a couple times a week to get and keep a "feel" for how my water is behaving. I don't go in and check unless I'm adding something out of the ordinary (e.g., MA to lower pH or after a week or so after adding CYA). I only test TA, salt, and CYA once a month just to make sure they're in line.
 
daily during the summer months and 2-3days during winter. Everyone here seems to recommend to test daily until you get a handle on what your pool needs and how often you need to add anything. Everyone's situation is pretty different
 
I know my pool's habits, so I test and dose twice a week if there is no swimming activity and no debris on the floor.

Before and after having guests over. that tends to consume quite a bit of FC.

I test ph weekly and CYA monthly during swimming season.


After the water hits 50 degrees around november, I stop running the pump daily and
stop adding chlorine and testing until spring.

But I do run the pump on saturdays and keep it clean/open.
 
I test CH, pH every other day. TA once a week. CYA and CH once a month.

If I'm dropping pH to lower TA I'll test after acid has been distributed (30 minutes). Other than that I have a good feeling for my pool, I also know if I'm out of town on my normal test days I have someone drop 20 oz of acid in and we're good, that's my typical usage.
 
Once you get to know the pool, yes at least for me, post addition retesting seems unnecessary.

I do re-test after cya is fully dissolved, about a day or two after addition.

In the rare event I need to raise the ph I do re-test also.

and last night after forgetting to test/dose after having a bunch
of guests in the pool my FC was .5 below the minimum so I did
a double dose of bleach to get it up just above the target
and did retest just to be sure.

But very rarely do I do that.
 
SemperFly said:
So, it seems that the consensus from responders is that post-chemical addition retesting is unnecessary...thanks.
Click to expand...

Have you ever tested after chemical addition?

I did once. I had to prove that pool math was correct. That might even mean that I had to prove that I fed the right volume of water into pool math.

At any rate, I really don't test after additions. But, if you​ never have, don't you want to know that you are getting the right info out of pool math (cr*p in cr*p out -- did you input the right numbers in the first place)?
 

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I do the nose test that my co-worker turned me on to. Walk by the pool and if it smells like chlorine then it's clean and no additions to the pool or further testing is required. LOL

Seriously though, I test FC every other day depending on swimmer load, how hot and sunny it's been and if stuff is blowing in the pool. My pool pretty much stays the same from day to day so I have a good feel for what is going on with it. On days i don't test I'll add 20oz of chlorine and that keeps me in my target range. Have yet to fall below minimum on FC by doing this, not for everyone but has worked for me.
 
stodds said:
Have you ever tested after chemical addition?

I did once. I had to prove that pool math was correct. That might even mean that I had to prove that I fed the right volume of water into pool math.

At any rate, I really don't test after additions. But, if you​ never have, don't you want to know that you are getting the right info out of pool math (cr*p in cr*p out -- did you input the right numbers in the first place)?
Click to expand...

No, I currently do not...that was exactly the point of the question. I've only been my own pool guy for two months, so I was wondering if it was something I should be doing, or if it was pretty much overkill to do so. I s'pose it couldn't hurt for me to do it a few times, as sort of a trust, but verify sorta thing and to help me get to know my pool a bit better. It would only cost me add'l reagent and time. But, like I said, I was mainly curious what the rest of the community was doing.
 
Testing after a chem addition is great to do early on until you've dialed in your pool volume (PBs are not necessarily great at knowing your volume).

And then to be sure you've learned the ins and outs of PoolMath (e.g. TA must be correct to get a proper acid calculation)

And at the beginning of an OCLT, you must test after the chlorinating liquid has mixed (bleach varies from the stated %)

Also after a big chlorine addition at the beginning of a SLAM

Those are a few I can think of, but for routine maintenance, I rely on PoolMath. For example, I added 25 kg of salt yesterday and need to conserve my reagents because of the crazy prices down here. So I'll assume the new calculated level is correct, at least until a major overflow from rain.
 
When I first started testing I would test 30 minutes after application to confirm the effects of what I was adding got me to the right numbers. What I learned was FC is spot on, if Pool Math tells me 48 oz of bleach will move me from 4 to 5 it's as sure as the sun coming-up in the morning. Now pH is a different story, I have to bump my test result number up .1 to get the right dosage, so if I test at 7.5 I enter 7.6 into pool math.

So for me testing after application for the first few tests helped me dial in. Now unless I'm adding a lot of acid to drop my pH/TA I only test before application.
 
One thing I just realized was testing after additions is not a bad idea. But the main reason is because I bought some outdated liquid chlorine from Walmart and never noticed. So my additions were off because my chlorine was weaker than 10%. Someone on this forum mentioned about the Pool Essential bleach at Walmart and I had just started using it. But after I checked the fresh bottles, everything was fine. So sometimes it doesn't hurt. :testkit:

Sherry
 
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