How much time is spent on your pool care?

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ka8yiu

ka8yiu

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Aug 11, 2016
180
SW FL
Numbers don't lie, and a recent post here got me thinking of how much time do I actually spend on my pool care.

Well, I started writing a note on my phone, and it just kept getting more involved!

I thought I would share the note here for fun. I hope my math is correct:

How Much Time Caring For My Pool


A recent discussion on a pool care forum got me interested in figuring out how much time I spend caring for my pool and just how easy and inexpensive it is. I had always guesstimated that I spend about 20 - 30 minutes each week on my pool. So, one day while sitting around the pool (between periods of floating in it) I started playing with some numbers.

So, here it is:

I estimate that I spend about 5 –- 10 minutes twice per week testing my water chemistry.

I have timed myself adding my daily dose of liquid chlorine, and that takes me about 1 minute and 40 seconds to complete.

On average, I vacuum the pool and clean the filter once per week, taking about 15 minutes to complete. (I can go longer without cleaning the filter, especially in the winter months.)

Therefore, I have calculated that I spend about 34 hours annually on actual pool care at home. This equals just under 40 minutes/week.

Further, I have to make an average of 8 trips to the pool store per year to buy liquid chlorine. At $3.99 per 2-1/2 gallon jug, I should spend about $63.84 on liquid chlorine annually.

Here is the breakdown:

Time Spent Testing Water Chemistry


I test the water on average twice per week, taking about 5-10 minutes

  • 15 minutes x 52 weeks = 780 minutes
  • 780 / 60 = 13 hours annually

Time Spent Adding Chlorine


The daily dosing of liquid chlorine takes me about 1 minute 40 seconds

  • 1 minute 40 seconds = 1.66 minutes

If I add chlorine daily from April through October, and every other day November through March, that’s 214 days of daily additions, 151 days of every other day additions

  • 214 + (.5 x 151) = 289 days that chlorine is added

289 days I add chlorine in 1.66 minutes means I spend about eight hours/year adding chlorine

  • 289 x 1.66 = 479.74 minutes
  • 479.74 / 60 = 7.99 hours annually

Time Spent Vacuuming The Pool


I vacuum the pool on average once a week, taking about 15 minutes each time

  • 52 x 15 = 780 minutes
  • 780 / 60 = 13 hours annually

How much chlorine


I was also curious about how much liquid chlorine I need:

8,000 gallon pool, 15 oz of 10% liquid chlorine raises FC 1.5 ppm

  • My average daily FC loss in the summer @ CYA of 40 ppm is 1.5 ppm
  • Winter average daily FC loss is ~ 1 ppm

Two, 2-1/2 gallon jugs = 640 oz

  • One gallon = 128 oz

15 oz/day means I get 42 daily doses of chlorine out of my two jugs.

365 days / 42 = 8.69 average trips to store for chlorine/year.

Chlorine additions are skipped on occasion in the summer, and are only required a couple of times per week in the winter.

Bottom line: My chlorine jugs last me on average about 1-1/2 months, meaning I have to go for chlorine an average of 8 times per year, or every month and a half.
 
Without as much detail as you have provided I would say I spend about an hour a week. 1x52=52 hours a year. Good news is thats only 8.54 min a day :)

Im going to start tracking actual pool costs for supplies with next purchase and run that out for a year to see what I get. Since my pool is now a year old and water is fairly balanced things should be stable thus I expect cost will be minimal.
 
Nice...I bought a robot about a month ago so Im not going to include that as it was a luxury item. Im projecting less than $200 for the year but we shall see.
 
I spend about 15-20 minutes testing. When I open up from winter I do it daily then down to once a week after a week or so. The only think I add is a little salt when I open and maybe some cya. That's it unless there is a problem. But I have not had any major problems (chemistry) in years. I did and still do have a ph/alkalinity balance (ph 7.5, alk 150) but that is they way it is and I'm not worrying about it.
So my maintenance cost is very low now. In fact I spend more for testing than I do in chemicals.
As for equipment I added a new heater last year and an intelliph. Change cartridges every other year as I get lazy and don't want to clean.
 
I spend maybe 30-40 min a week testing. 5 min changing skimmer hairnet. 10 min cleaning out Intex Auto Cleaner.

Rarely add bleach or MA, so not even going to count those. Once I get CYA where I want it, in steps so I don’t go over, don’t deal with that anymore.

Expenses are more for things I want than things I need. I go for weeks without spending anything but pump electricity, which isn’t much. Hairnets were $7 for 100. CYA was maybe $12? I didn’t look when I bought it! LOL
 
This is my first year taking care of a pool, so I've certainly been spending a lot of time learning and planning my next fixes/replacements/upgrades/etc.

Actual work on the pool is also perhaps elevated from what it will eventually be. I added CYA (from zero) and was playing with the sock for awhile. I had to lower TA so I've been dumping in muriatic and aerating... so that means lots of testing. Now I'm getting ready for boric acid, so really trying to dial-in the PH/TA first. I don't have a robot yet... so I'm vacuuming as well.. and brushing on occasion.

Aside from all that.... at least its nice to just dump in the chlorine and know within 1ppm of where I'll be.. so if I wished I could like go a two or three days without testing if I wanted. So I'm probably at 3 hours/week of actually doing stuff right now, but anticipate that going way down... to 5/10 min a day (sometimes less).
 
Right now I spend about 10 minutes every 3 days testing, perhaps adding some MA in there too. Another 5 to clean the skimmers and possibly toss the robot in or take it out and clean it/put it away.

Removing/putting on the solar cover takes probably 5 minutes each way, plus skimming for 10 minutes or so to get the pool clean right before swimming after the cover comes off and dumps some stuff in.

If we're not swimming it's probably about an hour a week, if not less. When we go swimming though it adds a bit to get it super clean and deal with the cover.
 

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