Andrea Unfiltered – Stop Using Test Strips Like They Know What They’re Doing

 This isn’t a calm episode.
 This isn’t a polite episode.

This is Andrea… slightly unhinged… walking straight into the chaos of how people are actually taking care of pools—and calling it out.

From test strips that don’t tell you what you think they do… to calcium myths that refuse to die… to phosphate treatments that turn into unnecessary full-blown disasters—this episode is a reality check for anyone still guessing their way through water chemistry.

And underneath the sarcasm and frustration… there’s something important:

👉 Most bad pool care isn’t complicated
 👉 It’s just built on bad habits, bad info, and shortcuts

This episode strips all of that down and replaces it with something better:

Understanding what actually matters.

⚠️ WHAT ANDREA GOES AFTER

Test Strips
→ They don’t test calcium hardness
→ They test total hardness
→ And that difference matters more than people realize 

Calcium Hardness Myths
→ “It doesn’t matter in fiberglass or vinyl”
→ Wrong
→ It still needs to be in range—even if the consequences look different 

pH Obsession
→ Chasing 7.4 constantly?
→ You’re creating your own problem through aeration and rebound 

Cyanuric Acid Confusion
→ It protects chlorine… until it starts limiting it
→ And yes, there’s actual math behind what your chlorine level should be 

TDS Panic
→ “Drain it, TDS is high!”
→ Based on… what starting point?
→ Because without that, you’re guessing 

Phosphates (the hot take)
→ Not a problem… until they are
→ And overcorrecting them can create more work than the problem itself 

🔥 THE MOMENTS THAT HIT

“Phosphates are not a problem… until they’re a problem.” 

“If you’re testing while algae is present… you’re probably getting a false low.” 

“You don’t even know your TDS limit… unless you know where it started.” 

🧪 WHAT YOU ACTUALLY LEARN

•  Why calcium hardness still matters in every pool 
•  The difference between total hardness vs calcium hardness 
•  Why chasing pH can make your water harder to control 
•  How CYA changes chlorine effectiveness (with real ratios) 
•  Why TDS is often misunderstood—and misused 
•  A smarter, low-impact way to manage phosphates 
•  How bad testing technique leads to bad dosing decisions 
•  Why your test kit might be lying to you (and how to fix it) 

⚠️ REAL TALK

If your testing is wrong…
 your dosing is wrong.

If your dosing is wrong…
 everything that follows is wrong.

And most of the time?
 It started with something as simple as:

👉 Holding the bottle at the wrong angle
 👉 Using the wrong test method
 👉 Or trusting a strip that doesn’t measure what you think it does 

📲 LISTEN NOW

🎧 Apple Podcasts
 🎧 Spotify

👉 Follow the Talking Pools Podcast for more episodes that hit harder than they’re supposed to.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Welcome back to part two of the Rage in a Cage episode with Andrea, where she is unfiltered and a little cranky about the way some people are taking care of swimming pools. We join this part in progress.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Because they are a problem when they're a problem. And they weren't a problem in the 1600s when some of these guys were doing pools because the phosphates weren't added to city water back then, back when Jesus was alive. So yeah, it wasn't an issue. Test strippers, people who use test strips, calm down. The test strips that you are using do not test total, I mean, they do not test calcium hardness, they only test total hardness. Total hardness is the sum of calcium and magnesium. We don't really care so much about magnesium in swimming pools. Not to say that we don't care at all, because we do, but it's usually not a huge deal for us. And so we want to know what the calcium hardness is because we had that's what we want to know. Low calcium causes etching and staining on pool surfaces. If the water lacks calcium, it will dissolve more calcium carbonate. And since many pool finishes use cement or plaster, which contain calcium carbonate as a key ingredient, this process impacts those surfaces. Common misconception, and this is what I said in the beginning, is that this applies to all surfaces. A common misconception is that fiberglass and vinyl pools, the calcium hardness is not needed or it's irrelevant, or you don't gotta worry about it, or they don't know. The truth is that low calcium hardness just it doesn't affect the corrosion of these surfaces. So it's not gonna cause like dust like it does in plaster. If you have the calcium is too low, it causes all the chalking. Does that in fiberglass as well? It doesn't affect the corrosion of vinyl as much, but you still need to maintain calcium hardness within the acceptable range, regardless of pool type. Did you hear me? Calcium needs to be within range. Thank you. High calcium causes scaling, which leads to, we already know because same thing with alkalinity, rough surfaces, cloud filters, heater elements, reduced circulation, cloudy water.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

The Talking Pools Podcast is now accepting nominations for its 2026 Mentor of the Year Award, honoring those who don't just have the answers, but teach others how to find them. If someone helped shape your path in this industry, now is the time to return the favor. Visit cpoclass.com. Click on the Talking Pools Podcast Mentor Award tab, and submit your mentor's name up until May 15th, 2026. Because behind every Great Pool professional, there's someone who showed them how to think.

SPEAKER_03 4:51

You can also go directly to mentoraward.com. Again, that's mentoraward.com.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

And as I said before, it's not necessarily because the pH is high. It's more about the pH spiking. So if you're trying to constantly lower a 7.8 to a 7.4, it's gonna be worse for you because you are adding a you're making it low, and then it's just gonna raise back up because it's you're aerating it, it's the turbulence, it's like a losing battle. So you could just like let it ride at 7.6, 7.7, you know what I'm saying? Again, I'm not telling you to not lower pH. Please do not come sequestering agent, as I was saying, is very helpful with these scaling salt cells because it keeps it in solution, and it makes it easier to deal with. Now a lot of people will be like, oh, the calcium's too high, it's too high, it's too high. Unless your calcium is like a thousand, you know, up there, you're probably not having all these issues. You also just want to make sure that your saturation index is in balance. This will help you achieve not corrosive and not scaling water conditions. Therefore, we add calcium chloride to increase calcium hardness. Please be careful when doing this because calcium chloride can get very hot to the point of boiling. I've seen people posting pictures of it melting buckets, melting plastic buckets, burning, you know, whatever surface they have on their patio. I heard of somebody having to go to the hospital to treat like a chemical burn because they stuck their hand in the water to mix it. So this is why it's important to never add water to chemicals. Always add chemicals to water. My process for adding calcium chloride is two buckets. One I bring the dry chemical from the truck to the pool. The empty bucket I fill with water and add the calcium chloride incrementally. Is that a word? Mix it, dump it in the pool, more water, more chemical until it's all incorporated. I feel like I'm baking sometimes, right? Which I guess you kind of are. It's all chemicals. Yeah, so never add water to chemicals, no matter which type of chemical it is. Even if you don't think it's gonna cause a fire, it's still as dangerous to do that. Cyaneric acid, stabilizer, conditioner. I think that's it. I think that's all the only three names that there are for it. This acts as an umbrella or a sunscreen for chlorine. It helps prevent degradation from UV light, if you want to be scientific, actually, about it. Half of the chlorine in water can be destroyed by sunlight in less than one hour. With bromine, it's even less than that. So as a result, free chlorine concentrations can drop below the recommended minimum, risking disease transmission between people because people are what? So there is a mathematical formula. You want to have your chlorine, your free chlorine level be there's two percentages between five and seven and a half percent. I go with seven and a half percent just because I've already trained myself how to do that math and trying to learn a new mathematical formula will literally send me into chaos. We cannot have that. So, for example, if your stabilizer is a hundred, you want your chlorine to be seven and a half, seven point five. I mean, five parts per million is also easy in that equation, but everything's easy using a hundred as an example. Full dissolved solids, three ones favorite. The totals of all soluble matter in the water is the definition of total dissolved solids. Fun thing about this is that electrical conductivity measurements can be used to determine the TDS concentration in water. However, contaminants that are electrically neutral will not be detected by this method. So if you're using a meter, uh you're missing out on some TDS. They have strips, they have TDS strippers. So everything that we put into a pool contributes to TDS from every single chemical, including acid, which is weird when I found that out. I was like, what? Doesn't acid dissolve solids? Why are there solids dissolved in the acid? Chemicals, everything from chemicals to people. So when the water evaporates, only the pure water leaves while the while the dissolved solids remain behind. Replacement source water also contains total dissolved solids. Usually TDS is an indicator of how old the water is. The total dissolved solids rise, the level of partially oxidized and unoxidized organic contaminants goes up, including nitrogen-based pollution from waste. Many of these substances are neutral and charged, so they don't affect the measured TDS values, which I said. There is no minimum. Okay, so here's the important thing that I just want to get across to everybody because I see comments, you know, the TDS, you need to drain it, it's too high. So there is no minimum or maximum for TDS. It is recommended to replace water when the total dissolved solids have exceeded 1500 parts per million over the starting TDS level. So you have to know what the TDS level was when the pool was filled. Otherwise, you have no clue. You just have to guess. The startup level includes both the source waters TDS and any inorganic salt used in chlorine generation systems. So if you're a if you have a salt pool and you have and you want to check TDS, you immediately have to subtract your salt level from however you got the TDS level. And again, you have to know the startup TDS before you can determine whether or not your current level is 1500 parts per million over that. So fun fact with spas, it's a lot easier. So they develop high TDS because of everything that I just mentioned, and it's a smaller body of water, so it happens much quicker. It is much easier to replace spa water than it is to replace pool water, as we all know. Phosphate, everybody's favorite. I spelled favorite with the pH. For me, here's my take on phosphates. Maybe it's a hot take, maybe it's not. Tell me what you think. Let me know. Phosphates are not a problem until they're a problem. I did not know about phosphates. I said I didn't know nothing. So I got a job cleaning pools, my first official pool company I worked for. And then I learned about phosphates, and I was like, oh my god, I cannot have a single phosphate in my pools. So I need to do phosphate removal treatments for even the most insignificant amount of phosphates. And then I got real tired of doing full ass back to waste piles of phosphate fallout, clogged filter. I got so tired of that. So now I actually don't even really test for phosphates because I feel like I don't need to because I already know. I've tested not to say that I haven't, I have tested many a pool for phosphates, trust me. And I have also tested many a hose spigot water source for phosphates. And generally in my area, phosphates are 1500 parts per billion coming out of the tap. Sometimes it's a little lower, but it's generally generally around that area. So that's my that's my take is that phosphates aren't a problem until they're a problem. You can add tons of chlorine, you can add a shocking amount of chlorine, and you can kill the algae that is probably being fed by the phosphates, but you can't you can't really test for phosphates until you have the algae gone, right? Because the algae is eating the phosphates, so there's probably phosphates inside the algae. And so if you're testing while there's algae present, you're probably getting a false low reading. It's probably a lot higher. And so you're you could be underdosing the chemical. That's the that's one thing. So what I like to do for that, and just in general, is to add a few ounces of phosphate remover weekly. So that way you are not getting the fallout, you're not clogging the filter. The pool does get cloudy, but it usually only lasts for maybe like half an hour. You can't re you have to do like four ounces, you know, maybe six. And then it'll it'll clear up fairly quickly, and then you just warn the customer, hey, it's fine, it's not, you know, don't worry about it. You can, you know, you can still swim if you really want to. The thing about the other thing about phosphates is that you'll hear a lot of pool guys going, oh, it's I've been doing pools since, you know, the 1600s and we didn't have phosphates. I never even heard of a phosphate. What's a phosphate? That's stupid. Well, like I said, I believe for me, I'm I'm on both sides because they are a problem when they're a problem, and they weren't a problem in the 1600s when some of these guys were doing pools because the phosphates weren't added to city water back then, back when Jesus was alive. So yeah, it wasn't an issue. It's an issue now because it's added to water now. So you do have to address it at some point. And if you're having a problem where everything you're doing, you know it's not leaking, you're adding chlorine weekly, daily, hourly, whatever it is. Sometimes it feels like hourly. Swear. Throw in some phosphate remover, you know, it'll probably do the trick. Planthanum chloride doesn't just remove phosphates, it removes other things too. So it can be real helpful. Same thing with alum, which I'm not I actually don't have alum mentioned in here, but alum is gonna remove everything from the water. And you can do smaller doses of it, you don't have to do big giant treatments. You can sprinkle some on top of a stain and then just like brush it away. But that's a whole other episode too, and that's also like a rootie question. Phosphates, real quick, back to phosphates, they can degrade salt cells, anything that ends with an eight phosphate, sulfate, nitrate. I was trying to think of something witty that ended with eights, but I can't. That's all bad for salt cells. It just is. You can check the manufacturer's recommendations or whatever. So you always want to test your source water to see what it has before you fill the pool, which is why I mentioned testing the source water for phosphates. Because if you do a big ass phosphate treatment and you dump in like, you know, a whole bottle, a quart, a gallon or whatever, and then you spend two hours vacuuming to waste, and then you gotta refill the pool because you just vacuumed out 4,500 gallons, and now you got to replace that, and you've got 1,500 parts per billion coming out of the tap. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If you just do it a little bit at a time, you don't have to refill, you don't have to vacuum to waste because it's not gonna fall out, it's all gonna get caught by the filter. Okay, so there's phosphates covered. Nitrates, nitrites, these are less, less common problems. I've never actually had to deal with it before. I've not had a level high enough that caused a high enough chlorine demand for me to deal with it. But you can take your water into say Leslie's or a Pinchapenny or any anybody that has one of, or if you have your own spin disc or whatever, you can see if you're curious. The only way to remove that is to replace water and and it does cause chlorine demand. Okay, so as I said earlier with pH, there are acceptable ranges and there are ideal ranges, and so each chemical has both of these. The ideal range falls within the acceptable range, and I already used pH as an example. 7.8 to or I'm sorry, 7.2 to 7.8 is the acceptable range, and the ideal range is 7.4, 7.6 human eyeballs being at 7.5. That's why it's a range and not like a hard specific number that everything is supposed to be. Hold on, break, break time. Let me not okay. So just because you have a pH that is 7.8, it doesn't mean you have to lower that visit because that's the acceptable range. As long as everything else is good. You know what I'm saying? It's okay. It's not that it's not that deep. And don't come at me because I know that 8.0 is bad for plaster and all that stuff. I know that. Okay. Chemical testing. Chemical testing. Local laws set minimum testing standards, and most commercial pools use automatic systems to monitor and adjust the water chemistry, but manual testing is still required to verify and to calibrate. Always follow the label directions. Small changes in the test procedure can cause inaccurate results. I don't see, I want to know how many people have actually read the instruction manual in their Taylor test kit or any of their test kits, test strips. You guys reading these instructions or what? It says on the uh, there's a little asterisk on the test strip bottle. I wonder if any of y'all have seen that. So testing methods. There are four basic methods to test pool water. We have colorimetric, which is your disinfection and pH test. This is your color matching, color matching, like I said. This also includes photometric tests and test strips. So strippers, your colorimetric tests. Sorry, strippers, but you're not approved for commercial pools in all states. So sorry. Also, test strips cannot be used to calculate LSI, as I mentioned, and they may not provide the accuracy necessary to make uh very sensitive chemical adjustments. I'm just giving you the facts. These are the facts. Please do not come for me. Please continue to use your test strips. I am not trying to stop you. I promise. Next is everyone's favorite word, titrametric. Titrametric? Titrametric. You titrate a titrametric test, right? Wayne's probably gonna message me about. Okay, so the titrametric tests are your FASDPD, your total alkalinity, and your calcium hardness. Titration is a method for determining the unknown concentration of a chemical by allowing it to react with the reagent of known concentration known as the titrant. An indicator is used during the process, which changes color at the end point, signaling that the unknown substance has completely reacted. So in total alkalinity, you go from green to red, in calcium, you go from pink to blue, and FASDPD, you go from pink to no color, or no color to pink, actually. Sorry, no color to pink. The titrant is the okay, turbidimetric, that is your cyanuric acid test. Turbidity refers, excuse me, turbidity refers to the quantity of solid particles suspended in water that scatter light, making the water appear cloudy. To measure turbidity, a standard reagent is added to a water sample with an unknown concentration. This reagent reacts with the sample, causing it to become cloudy based on how concentrated it is. The level of cloudiness or turbidity is then determined using a calibrated cell. I have a fun fact for you that I discovered while using, well not using, but while doing my magic eraser experiments. So reagent number 13 that we use to test cyaneric acid is melamine. That is the same ingredient as a magic eraser. One of my test jars, which I have out back on my patio still from 2018, used some of the water that was soaking in well, the magic eraser was soaking in the water. I used that to test cyaneric acid as a reagent. It was quite a fun science experiment. If you have children and you're listening to try it, try it and let me know if it works. I didn't have to soak it that long, maybe like a couple weeks. It's just been sitting there now because I don't know what to do with it. Jars. I don't want to open them. Seems weird. Okay, so Rudy has jars of algae and I have jars of magic erasers in water. Like I'm a Frankenstein, like I'm like wait, Dr. Frankenstein, and I have parts of well, you get the idea. Anyway, you have electronic tests. I got way off track on that one. Sorry. Turbinometric electronic electronics, you can test TDH, PH, ORP. These electronic meters require regular calibration and cleaning of probes, which may be necessary daily. My commercial pool is tiny and nice, and it's not it's not required daily, which is nice for me. Okay, test procedures. I'm going a little fast, I apologize. Inaccurate testing procedures may result in unsafe pool water conditions and potential damage to facility operating system components. If you're not testing accurately, you are not adding accurate chemical doses. Common errors include using diluted chemical reagents, adding the wrong reagent, like using reagent number seven in a pH test, which you're really not supposed to do, measuring incorrect sample volumes, testing under poor lighting, or misinterpreting colors. So sorry if you are colorblind. I know a lot of people that are colorblind that still use the test, so that wasn't shade. It was just to reduce mistakes, always carefully follow the test kit instructions. So to care for your test kit, because they are very expensive and you should keep them cared for. You need to keep them away from heat, from light, away from chemical fumes, and away from any airborne debris. You want to make sure all your caps are properly replaced and securely tightened each use. When I first started, the lady that taught me how to clean pools was like, Yeah, you don't need to put the caps on. You're just gonna be using them every five minutes, anyways. And so probably until like 2015, I did that. I just let them all sit raw dog in the in the kit. And now I know the error of my ways. And so this is why I wanted to just this is an example of why, okay? Just because sometimes you need to be told the correct way to do things instead of being told the way that the person who'd been doing it for 45 because she was an old lady before the 40 before you, never having, you know, learned a single actual rule or proper procedure. It's not to throw shade, it's just like I said, let's improve, you know? So you always want to keep the test kits away from direct sunlight. Test kits should not be stored alongside chemicals, which I said the best place, honestly, is in the cab of your truck, so they well, so they don't get stolen. I know somebody's somebody who got hers stolen. Well, there's that. So in Florida they sit and bake in the sun in the heat. And some people it's freezing, so you want to keep them warm. Just keep them balanced, you know? It's like milk. There's my milk, there's milk. I don't even like milk that much. Oh my god. Okay, so if you do get your re if your reagents do end up freezing, it's okay. You don't necessarily have to throw them away. You want to check to make sure that there are no cracks in the bottle, no leaks, you know, nothing like that. You want to make sure that they are free of suspended particles. You don't want to see floaties in there. And it's important that you let them thaw at room temperature. You never want to put them in like a microwave or in hot water, nothing like that. Just put them, just let them thaw naturally. Never use expired or recalled reagents, they have expiration dates. The reagents that are stored in the brown bottles are oxidizers, and so they are especially sensitive to improper storage conditions, so you want to make sure you take extra good care of those, especially if you're using uh number two and it starts coming out pink, just toss that. I actually had an instance where I didn't know there was something wrong with it until one of my customers was like, I use my test kit, and she had OTO and they didn't match. And I was like, Alright, I threw it away just to appease her and I got a new one. OTO doesn't bleach, it just gets darker. And then storage conditions. Oh, okay. So if there's any change in the color or appearance, discard it. Ensure that all test kit vials, caps, cells, and blocks are thoroughly rinsed with fresh tap water after each use. Residual sample material in the cells may interfere with or contaminate subsequent tests. You can do a little bit of a tiny little bit of a diluted acid solution to like clean out the test block, or if you have that long drop one, which I haven't seen in for in forever. Collecting the sample. So you want to make sure that you collect the sample from a location that accurately represents the overall quality of the water. So in some places, in some pools, you it might be you might need to take samples from multiple places in the pool and then like average it together. I've never had a pool big enough or used enough to where I needed to do that. I would imagine maybe like a water park or like a 500 million gallon pool to do that with. So you want to collect the sample from at least 18 inches below the surface. I think like 16 to 18 inches, depending on how long your arms are. Make sure you keep it away from any return inlets. Do not use glass or metal containers. No glass by the pool area. If you must use a glass container, use a plastic container to get the water from the pool and then transfer it to your weirdo glass container. Just kidding, that sounds amazing. I wish I had a specialty glass test kit. Place the collector container into the water at the appropriate depth with the bottom facing up. Then flip it so the top is facing up. This will let out any air and allow the container to fill with water. And here's a tip for commercial pools, especially if they are heavily used and there's a lot of people all the time. Take the water sample away from the pool area to test it. Because you don't want people asking you questions. It's super annoying. Trust me, because then they're going, what's that? Huh? Is the water good? Is it okay? Do you have to add chlorine? Drag it out. There's like a hundred questions comes as soon as you take that test kit out. So just get a bottle, get a plastic bottle, and get a water sample, and then like test it in your truck or something, or in the in the pump room, or whatever. When the la la la la. Oh, don't dump your test sample back into the pool. When you are performing the test, it is very important to make sure that you have the correct volume. So you want to make sure there's a thing called a meniscus. You want to make sure that it's like a it's a curve, right? My finger, I'm trying to make a visual, oh, like this. Okay, so you have like a curve, right? You want to make sure that the sample, right? The line where it says like 25 millimeters, milliliters, my bad. You want the meniscus to be at the line, not the part where the water is stuck to the side. You want the curve touching the line. That's your measurement, that's the volume. So, lighting, you want to make sure you have proper lighting. You never want to have it in fluorescent lights that can cause inaccurate readings. You want to look in the light to the north, outside in the sun. Drop size. I made a video about this. It's very important. You want to hold the bottle straight up and down. You do not want to have any type of angle whatsoever. The drop size, so a drop is actually a specific measurement. It's not just a word to describe a shape. The bottle tips of the tailor kit specifically, this probably applies to other drop tests, read the directions. Okay. The drop size, the bottle tips are designed so that the drop size is specific, so that you have that specific drop measurement. If you hold the bottle at an angle, the drop size is not going to be that specific drop. It's going to be a different size, a different measurement of chemical. This will cause you to have inconsistent test results, and then you could possibly dose the pool incorrectly or go through more chemical than you should, or not enough, something like that. Okay. So just make sure that you always hold that bottle straight up and down. And sometimes like is like because I use the salt, I test the salt with the drops, and sometimes the drops come out faster or slower. So you have to just like kind of be really careful and make sure each one comes out the same size. Another thing that I read is that sometimes, so like for example, the green one and the blue one, the alkalinity and the calcium indicators, especially the calcium, if it gets hard, if it gets really hard to squeeze the drops out, because again, it's like from static. So you want to wipe that off with a paper towel, and apparently that will fix that problem. Uh, and then mixing is important. You never want to shake, you never want to shake anything. Shaking causes aeration, that's gonna change the pH. You don't want air bubbles in the test. It's just gonna, it's just gonna make it inaccurate. Okay, so just never shake it. You can swirl, you can do like an inversion, but slowly, not like this, but slowly, where you just like like you're playing with that toy that goes with right, that guy. Swirling, mixing, and that's pretty much it. Because I feel like I've been talking for a while and I don't want to go on for too long. So I I just decided I'm gonna make this a part two. Come back next week and I will talk all about testing frequency. I will tell you about all the interferences that can happen and all the uh false readings that you can get. We'll talk about balancing chemistry, a couple other things. So I feel like I feel like this is good. So I'm gonna say goodnight for now. Thank you to everybody so much for listening to me. I hope this was very helpful. Part of my goal is to, I think I've said this, but part of my goal is to have you walk away with something that you like didn't know before or like that you forgot and you were like, oh shit, right? So that's if I could do that, then I am happy with this episode. So thanks again for listening, and I really appreciate it. You guys know how to reach out to me if you want to help me out with a guest host once in a while spot. If you have like something interesting to add, a cool story or like a fun idea, email me at Andrea. No, not at listen, email me. The email address is Andrea.talkingpools at gmail. If you follow me, you probably already know me on Facebook, so you can message me and then like you know, the other platforms. And I think that's it. So I'll see you next Tuesday. Bye.