The Deep End Pool Podcast

Ep159 How To Save Money On Chemicals In 2025

• The Deep End • Season 4 • Episode 159

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In this episode of The Deep End Pool Podcast, Frank and Jacque Disher delve into strategies to reduce pool chemical costs and improve pool maintenance efficiency. From the benefits of borates and Blu-ray XL mineral purification to the importance of proper circulation and maintaining good water chemistry, this episode is packed with actionable tips for both pool owners and pool professionals. Frank and Jacque share insights on how to keep pools clear, reduce algae growth, and save money on chemicals, ensuring your pool remains beautiful and efficient. Plus, hear about some of the challenges they’re tackling in the pool industry and personal stories along the way!

Here is the timeline with start times and chapter titles:00:00 - Introduction to The Deep End Pool Podcast
02:28 - Game Time and Convention Talk
05:00 - Managing Pool Chemical Costs in 2025
06:34 - Understanding Borates for Better Pool Maintenance
08:31 - The Benefits of Borates
13:13 - Managing pH and Chlorine Effectiveness
15:31 - The Role of BluRay XL in Pool Maintenance
18:54 - Why BluRay XL Works and Its Application Process
21:46 - Maintaining Consistent Pool Chemistry
24:04 - The Power of Good Circulation in Pool Maintenance
26:10 - Avoiding Dead Spots and Improving Circulation
30:00 - Dealing with Algae and Organic Debris
33:39 - Using Phosphate Removers and Maintaining Clean Filters
35:14 - Reducing Chemical Costs with Chlorine Tabs and CYA Management
38:39 - Final Tips on Pool Maintenance Efficiency
41:00 - Conclusion and Shoutouts

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 The Deep End Pool Podcast focuses on residential pool maintenance and may not cover commercial pool requirements. Please consult the CDC and local authorities and code requirements for commercial pool maintenance. Email us questions and show suggestions at deependfrank@gmail.com. visit our home page thedeependpoolpodcast.com Thank you to all of our sponsors. We only accept sponsors that we know, trust, and use in our own business. http://poolwerx.com, http://culator.com, http://bluerayxl.com, https://cyclonefiltercleaner.com/, Fluidra and Polaris, 

 Frank Disher began his career in the pool industry in 1996 after several years as a licensed electrician. A passionate advocate for product knowledge and ongoing education in the industry, Frank merged his business into the Poolwerx franchise organization after 20 successful years. Alongside his wife, Jacque, Frank co-hosts 'The Deep End Pool Podcast,' one of the most popular swimming pool podcasts in the industry. Their expertise and dedication have earned them the prestigious title of Franchise of the Year twice, and they have grown their business to encompass 5 territories and 3 retail locations, servicing several hundred pools weekly. 

Please give us a 5 star rating and a review, and contact us at deependfrank@gmail.com for questions and show ideas. Thank you 

Russel Ownens:

Welcome to the deep end pool podcast for pool owners and the swimming pool service professional. All of our sponsors are brands that we know, trust and use in our own business. We are brought to you by pool works for healthy pool people. That's pool works.com pool W, E, R x.com, if there isn't a pool works near you, become the pool works near you. Special thanks to blu ray XL, the best pool mineral purification. System in the industry, Blu ray all day. Fluidra and their many brands, including candy pool equipment and Polaris the most advanced automatic pool cleaners in the industry, Cyclone filter tools, save time, save water and save your back all save pool, fence nets and pool covers over 25 years of providing the best equipment to secure pool areas, saving the lives of children and pet clear comfort a patented hydroxyl based water treatment system, the future of water treatment and our friends in IPSA, independent Pool and Spa Service Association, improving the industry through community education and support. The Deep End pool podcast focuses on residential pool maintenance and may not cover commercial pool commercial pool requirements, please consult the CDC and your local authorities and code requirements for commercial pool maintenance. Now let's solve some pool problems with your host, Frank and Jackie Disher,

Frank Disher:

hey everybody. We got winterized, beat up by Jack Frost. How much you're so pretty.

Jacque:

Hey, friends, welcome to boots on ground radio. You're listening to the deep end with Frank and Jackie, his sidekick in life and on the air, and we are definitely not anymore, but living in a winter wonderland this week, it was oh so pretty, absolutely beautiful. We finally got the first night. We finally got all the powdered snow so we could make snow ice cream. I still have some in the freezer. We can get that out. And

Frank Disher:

we got second snow, because the first snow was about 20 hours before that, and they say, Don't ever eat. I don't know if it's got bird pea in it or what, while you're not supposed to eat it, but we didn't eat the first one, but we need second one. It wasn't

Jacque:

fluffy. And then, yeah. And then our little morkey, Lola, our little five pound, four pound morkey, um, she looked up at Frank and was like, no, she will not go outside. I am pooping and peeing in the house. I mean,

Frank Disher:

we're almost to the point where we get to put a catheter in or something, because

Jacque:

I put out all the little, you know, they're her little pee pads and all the things, because she was not going well,

Frank Disher:

sure, she'll, she'll, she'll coax me to get take her to the door. And I'm like, Okay, you're finally gonna go out and open the door, and she won't step through the threshold. She just looks at it and just pulls back on the leash. And so I take the leash off of her, and she goes right to her treats and wants a treat. She was like, Yeah, I don't think she gets the whole point of the treat,

Jacque:

but we had a birthday this week. Our youngest turned 30. Was 30. So we have girl, boy, boy, girl. So our youngest boy turned 30. I put on Facebook that I might have to take to the bed and put a rag on my head that I can't even imagine 30 years ago. That's crazy to me, but whatever. But he works for us, and he's doing great. He's, yeah, Brandon

Frank Disher:

turned 30. He's a big help. He's coming along, you know, he's trying to learn a little bit of everything, you know, because eventually he's going to be in charge.

Jacque:

He's trying to be Jack of all trades, like like you. So he's learning a little bit about link detection and putting on covers and fences. He cleans a good pull. He can do, but anyway, he's learning that's awesome. So happy birthday to Brandon this week. Hook 'em Horns. Yeah,

Frank Disher:

that's games tonight. We're recording this before the game, so when you first hear this show, we're either gonna be really happy

Jacque:

or not happy. We're happy right now. I

Frank Disher:

tell you what every game they play, I'm like, I do not know how they got this

Jacque:

far. I know. I know. And they're playing the Ohio State, which makes me wonder. I'm scared. Sorry if you're from Ohio. We love you guys, Ohio State fans. Oh my goodness, anybody

Frank Disher:

that insists that we put the Yeah, it's like, the U from Miami, the Ohio State. It is

Jacque:

what it is. We've had, we have convention. Poor's convention coming up. We're going to Sedona, Arizona. I've never been I've been to Flagstaff, which is where we're flying in. I've been there to the University of or Northern Arizona University. I don't know what

Frank Disher:

that is. I could pretty much sum it up for you, but, yeah, it's a bunch of rocks with plants growing at them that hurt if you touch them.

Jacque:

But this is February, so it is like 28 in the mornings and at night, and like, gets up to 60. So I don't think we've ever had a convention that is winter cold weather. It's cold weather. Well, that. Still turned out to me, Nashville was a little cooler than Yeah, yeah. Well, there's a high storm coming back. I'm having to rearrange some of my wardrobe. And you know, and course, I know you're so concerned about what you're gonna wear to all the things, but anyway, we have that coming up. You're about to go to Atlantic City? Yeah,

Frank Disher:

I'm about to head Atlantic City for the big pool convention up there. That's a good convention. Yeah, that. I mean, it's not a convention, it's a trade show. No, Atlantic City is, I mean, if Satan has a toilet, it is Atlantic City. Oh, my God, what a if you go on the building, it's a great town as casinos and stuff like that. The hotels are nice, you know, the food's good and all that. But holy cow, y'all pull out a wash rag, would you I mean that that that town is dirty, dirty, and a bunch of bums and Bucha homeless never been there. It's no we can call them bums and homeless, because they be bums and homeless. But, yeah, no, you're not supposed to walk with, you know, between buildings or anything like that. You know, you take an Uber if you're only going to block. But there's a

Jacque:

lot of towns like that. Lots of towns I feel like Vegas can be like that, a little bit, Los Angeles can be like that. Listen, you go down multi million dollar, and then you turn to the right, and it's, I don't mean to talk ugly about Los Angeles, because they're in the middle of the fires and all the things, and that makes me sad for you guys were but, yeah,

Frank Disher:

praying for you guys. I mean, that would suck. You know, the East Coast got, you know, walked away by hurricanes out of the west coast is getting burnt up by fire. Yeah? But, yeah, we wish you best gets out anyway. You know, you can replace your stuff. Well,

Jacque:

Texas, we got through this freeze. I don't know if I think everybody else is now just getting it after us. So like Oklahoma,

Frank Disher:

I think the East Coast got it. I think they're doing it right now. Well, I mean, I actually think they beat it. Beat us to it. It wasn't same system. I think they were just kind of simultaneous. But no, they've been having ice and snow out east. But yeah, we're almost past our part of it, and hopefully we'll warm up, because I got to get in some pools, and that's going to suck you

Jacque:

so do. Yeah, we got some leak detection. We got some stuff for you to be out there. And, you know, we got

Frank Disher:

people, plenty of stuff, yeah, and I don't wanna avk. I just talked about AV K, so she's our three year old granddaughter,

Jacque:

and we, and she's the most darling thing ever. We need to post a picture of her. Y'all,

Frank Disher:

well, I don't think you're supposed to post pictures of little girls and stuff, because of birds and stuff.

Jacque:

I post picture of her grandkids all time. Yeah, but whatever. Um, but anyway, we were all supposed to. All the girls were supposed to go see wicked when it came out, and then life happened, and then we didn't go see wicked So Frank and I rented it. It's now on. What is it? Hulu, Netflix, whatever it's on. I don't know. We watched it last week. We've seen it on stage five times. You've slept through four of them, but it's okay. But anyway, we've taken our kids like three times two. Um, so McKay, avy, Kate's mom couldn't wait any longer, so she they rented it and they watched it, and so she sent me a video, and it's three year old AV K running through the house puppy. And she's like, she's, she's not Woo, she's, she's doing the gallinda, yeah, and she's singing the whole thing, and it's just the cutest thing. I just can't

Frank Disher:

she's just, she's the cutest thing. Watched

Jacque:

it once, and can sing the song. She's freakishly smart. She's freakishly smart musically, especially, I think, you know, she can latch on to different things, yeah. But anyway, darling, yep.

Frank Disher:

So let's move on with what the show's gonna be. What are we gonna talk about today? I don't want to talk about y'all. I'm gonna do some of this in our business and everything. We're gonna be tightening the belts coming off a, you know, pretty, pretty bad year, difficult. Yeah, pretty difficult year, just because the economy and everything else and election brewing, we just got to make up some ground from what was lost due to that. So, you know, we're looking at ways to tighten the belt. And one thing I'm going to do, and I highly recommend, if you have your own business and you're treating pools out there and you're paying for chemicals, or if you have your own pool and you're paying for chemicals, y'all, it is time that we all get smart and save money with pool chemicals. I mean, there's a lot of ways to save money on a soil pool. You know the variable speed pumps will save you a lot of money on electricity, right? Now you gotta spend a lot of money, you know, to buy the pump, yeah, but it's gonna pay for itself. But with pool chemicals, y'all, it's not a whole lot of money up front. It's just, you know, there's just certain things we can do. Some of it will cost a little bit. Since the cost aren't so great, you can recoup these costs really quick, and then they'll continue to pay you back year after year after year, some of its habits, some of its product. Now, everything I'm going to be talking about also applies to salt pools. Salt pulls are chlorine pulls. They just produce their own chlorine. So all the rules and everything that apply to traditional chlorine through tabs or liquid chlorine, or however you're chlorinating your pool. Apply to salt pools, the chemistry is just a little bit different. Most products, almost 99% of the products that will help a traditional chlorine pool will help a salt pool. So if you got a salt pull, don't just go turning this off, because what I'm going to be talking about will also apply to you. So I want to start this because I feel kind of guilty looking back at the shows at 2024 that we did. I did not talk enough about bull rates, all right. So, so that's you did it? No, I didn't. I really didn't. We didn't have that many shows on board. But, I mean, we did a ton of them the year the previous season, but we just haven't done that many in 2024 so 2025 Yes, I'm going to kick off this year with shoving this down your throats. Oops, sorry, friend, but y'all swallow it. Just swallow, because this is good stuff. It can save you money. And even above that, make sure pull look better. Make sure pool feel better,

Jacque:

as I'd say when you get in the water, yes,

Frank Disher:

I mean, if you have a spouse, whether you're the husband or the wife that's taking care of the pool, and you have a spouse that does not like it when the pool looks green or gets a little bit of algae, or does it just isn't right, y'all bore rates is the answer. Now it's not all by itself. The answer, you can't just throw borates in it and walk away, and we're going to talk about some of this other stuff later, but Bohr rates with good water chemistry, borates will save you 30 to I believe. Now we it may be pushing 50% Wow, of your chemical cost.

Jacque:

And who doesn't want that seriously?

Frank Disher:

Come on now, and it's easier. It's the water is easier to manage. So the things you know, let's just go back and rehash all these things that borates does for you, all right. Number one, it makes the water feel softer. Okay, everybody loves

Jacque:

that, y'all and it does. It feels so

Frank Disher:

good. It's like, it's like a salt water pool without the salt water issues, but the water is smoother. It's hard to explain. Yeah, it feels better when you get out of a bore pool. It's like, when you get out of a salt pool, it's not too salty in the pH and everything's right? You know, instead of your skin drying up real quick and looking kind of ashy, yeah, as some people call it, you don't get that, it's a much better feel on the skin and the eyes and everything else. They use borates in Visine, okay? I'm not an eyeball person, you know, I'm not a hop the optometrist, ophthalmologist. You know those other options.

Jacque:

You're an eye person. Well, yeah,

Frank Disher:

eyes are what attract me. The eyes would first attract me to Jackie. She got some eyes on And anyways, but borates, they put it in byzing. They use it in a lot of things. Borates has many, many, many uses on this planet. And I believe a lot of it comes out of area called boron, California. And I believe they actually got some up on up in the Northeast where

Jacque:

they boron, moron, no,

Frank Disher:

no, that that would be the rest of California.

Jacque:

Boron, okay, I may have

Frank Disher:

crossed the line. Yeah, you

Jacque:

already have that.

Frank Disher:

I'm sorry if I judge everybody by just the loudest. So they shouldn't be done, or else I'd have a bad name just because I'm from Texas, but anyway, so it comes out border on California. It's a mineral. It's mined. It makes the water softer. The second thing is does is it's a natural clarifier, and the way it works is things that are typically suspended at different levels in the pool. If you turn your pool light on, it. Night, you'll see all these little speckle things floating around at different levels in the pool, all right. Well, when you put borates in the pool, lot of that stuff, not all of it, because some of it still buoyant enough, but a lot of it sinks out and is able to get filtered out, it hits the ground, gets pulled up and cleaned up, and it leaves the water. One of the things a lot of people comment on is how clear their pool is. And it was clear before, but now it's like, super clear. It's like, you know, the air just continued into the bottom of the pool, and you just see a little shimmy on the top. All right, shimmy, shimmy, shimmy, or shimmering, I guess is what I should say. But it makes the water much more clear, all right, so that's, that's a huge plus. You know, who doesn't like that? And by the way, a lot of that stuff that's dropping out is stuff algae eats. A lot of that stuff is floating organics. So that stuff drops out, so that's less food for algae, all right. The next thing it does is it helps keep your pH from climbing up. It resists pH climb, and that's huge because we did talk a lot about in 2024 we did talk a lot about how critical pH is into managing your pull. I tried following some of these philosophies that you can use the higher pH, but it's a no no. Don't do it. Don't try it. It. Don't work, all right, but don't work it. Do not work. So don't, don't try it. I cost me money. There's no no sense. It should cost you money, because I've warned you All right, so pH climb in is not good. Your chlorine is a little less effective. But the worst thing about high pH that we found because I was willing to deal with the chlorine being a little less effective, because I got the borates, my chlorine could go further. But what I found out is the kicker on top of that is, the higher your pH is, the less your stabilizer protects your chlorine from UV rays. So your chlorine, not only does it take a little more because your pH is a little higher and it's only like 15% from 7.5 to 8.0 it's only like 15% more chlorine you need, but your chlorine breaks down due to UV degradation much quicker at the higher pH. So I was going through more chlorine, and chlorine is expensive. Y'all, I have no idea what it's gonna do this year. It looks like it may have leveled off. It may have even dipped a little,

Jacque:

but the level is still a high. Yeah, so expensive. It's

Frank Disher:

expensive. So the pH being more controllable works greatly to our advantage. And then the last thing that I think is the most important thing to many with borates in the water, we keep it around 50 parts per million, algae multiplies much slower. So it takes less chlorine to kill the algae faster than it multiplies. I keep preaching that the amount of chlorine you need on a consistent basis to kill algae faster than it multiplies. The amount of chlorine you need is seven and a half percent of your cya. So for round number sake, and we're going to say 100 if your cya is 100 that means seven and a half parts per million of chlorine on a consistent basis with warm water and a good pH that's how much chlorine you need to kill algae faster than it multiplies with borates, that's 5% it's 5% of your cya. So if your cya was 100 you only need five parts per man. Now I don't want your Cy at 100 I want it down there closer to 50. It's half of that. So you need your your chlorine to be kept at about two and a half parts per man with borates, where it needs to be 3.75 parts per man, all right, so with borates to not borates, that's a 50% increase in chlorine required to kill algae faster than it multiplies at a good pH in warm water. So that right there is just rock solid. Why you need to use borates. Now, the borates is probably going to cost you a couple three and big old pull, maybe $400 to get your pull up to 50 parts per million of borates in the water. But it's worth it. It stays in the water. You don't have to keep dosing that. You have to check it. Hopefully, you have a store close by where you can take your water in and check it, or you can go online and purchase test kits that test borates. And if you ever get down below 50, you know, add enough to get back above 50. And typically we have to dose pools twice if it's been a rain. Year, maybe three times a year. But instead of that big old dose, it's, you know, just smaller doses, just to take it up 510, parts per million, to keep it where we want it. So borates is the number one thing you can do to save money on your pool chemistry this year, and your pool actually be much, much better off. So all right, we need to go to break here's a message from our sponsors, so when we get back, I got a few more things I want to talk about, about how to save money with your pool chemistry this year,

Unknown:

and the water is green, how much acid, how much chlorine you blu ray XL is the power of minerals working for you reduce your overall chemical costs and labor up to 50% guaranteed, whether you have 20 accounts or 20,000 blu ray XL direct pricing and free shipping to the pool trade. Have you covered improving pool professionals profit and work life balance is what they do. Blu ray XL, the real mineral purifier. Visit them at blu ray xl.com,

Jacque:

Blu ray all day.

Frank Disher:

Hey, Jackie, Hey, Frank. Have you ever wondered how you can clean between all those pesky filter pleats on a cartridge filter.

Jacque:

Yeah, I lose sleep over it. I mean, it's so tedious and it takes forever, I could never seem to get them all clean.

Frank Disher:

Well, here's a pro tip. Try the cyclone filter cleaner. It uses water pressure from your garden hose to spin the filter as you clean it. This allows all the filter pleats to get thoroughly cleaned out. And the best part is it is fast and doesn't hurt

Jacque:

your back. Wow. The cyclone filter cleaner.

Frank Disher:

You got it. The cyclone filter cleaner, you can thank me later. Thank and what I love about their filter cleaner is they have this wand. It's the best filter cleaning spray device I've ever used. We've tried many, many different ones. They got a short version now and they got a long version. But I love using those things. Even on our de filters, we use their wands. And do we have a code? We have a special discount code. If you go to cyclone filter tools.com and use code deep end, we'll save 10% on your order, so you can buy direct from them. Great stuff. I'm glad I found it. We got one on every truck. My guys love it. Guys don't miss out on this. This is the best filter cleaning system out there. Why

Jacque:

should you skim? Hey, friends, welcome back to the deep end. We are talking about how to be lean in 2025 how to save some money on your pool, chemicals, chemistry, all the things that can help you this year to go into the season and to,

Frank Disher:

yeah, and not only just save money, but have a better looking pool, sure, and less problems.

Jacque:

Yeah, saving money is one thing, but you want your political Yeah,

Frank Disher:

yeah. I mean, that's a huge investment back there. Y'all so you want it looking good. You always want to usable, yeah? And nobody, nobody wants your pull to turn green.

Jacque:

No, no, but not about the green pool. Nope.

Frank Disher:

All right. So next thing I want to talk about is blu ray Excel. Blu Ray, Blue Ray XL. They're actually a sponsor of the show. They are. I love blu ray Excel. It's, it's a great product. I've always used it in the past for pulls that were harder to manage, yeah, but now that we are, you know, really focusing on, you know, getting lean, I'm going to be using blu ray excel in a whole lot more pools this year, really. All right, so what blu ray Excel is, is it's a mineral purification system. All right. It also helps remove organics from the water, and it really helps you stay on top of your algae. And blu ray Excel touts that, and I thought they were stretching a little bit. I mean, I love them, but, you know, I mean, you're a manufacturer, you're going to get best case scenario. They always said you can use up to 50% less chlorine in your pool if using blu ray XL. And, you know, I know it helps, but, you know, I thought that was a little bit of a stretch. But man, boy, I think they may be on some actually true. It's actually true. It does a really good job keeping algae at bay. So if it's helping you keep algae away, and our whole goal here is to kill algae faster than it multiplies. So adding blu ray Excel is going to greatly help you manage that. That makes sense. So you can probably even back off the 5% of your cya level. And so if you got a pretty decent pool, it would not surprise me if you can keep your cya control. Controllable, you know, you know, keep it down where it doesn't take so much chlorine. But boy, you might get away with one two parts per million of chlorine in the water, even in the heat of the summer, wow. And control the algae. So a Blu Ray, Excel. I love the product. It's a once a year application. They have a bag, I believe it's copper sulfate that you add to the water and then you put this tube. It's not just a copper tube. It is not the same thing as copper piping that you buy at Home Depot or wherever. It's different. It has other alloys in it. You put this tube in your skimmer basket, you add the copper sulfate, and that goes throughout the pool. And if you, if you use the pool year round, you after six months, you need to do a booster. But if you're just pretty much a swim spring through the end of summer, then you pretty much don't need to do the booster. It's not going to hurt to do the booster. But the only thing I do want to say about blu ray XL is you have to manage your water, y'all, and that's going to be something I talk about here in a little bit. You have to stay on top of your LSI, because that does put minerals in the water that can stain if you don't manage your water. And it's not blu ray excels fault. If your pool stains right, they're doing their job. But if you let it get out of whack to where the minerals are able to stain your pool, you didn't do your job by keeping the water balance. So stay, if you'll stay on top of your chemistry, then blu ray, Excel is a fantastic way to cut your chemical cost. Blue XL the once a year dose. It's just probably going to pay for itself in just a couple months. And then you're saving over that. And with the with the amount of chlorine and algaecides and everything else y'all and if you can get off using algaecides altogether, and get off having to shock all the time because you got algae, or super chlorinate all the time because you got algae in just keeping a good, consistent pull from week to week to week, y'all, it takes so many headaches away. Your pull is cleaner. Your filter stays better. You could probably go longer in between filter cleans if you want. I wouldn't, but you probably could. But, I mean, it's really a huge step in the right direction. And as long as you're managing your pull again, like borates, it's not a silver bullet, it's not put this in your pool, and you can do whatever, whatever you want to your pool. You can let cow swim in it, stock it with catfish, and it's still going to be no, no, no. You have to manage the pool. But if, if you're managing your pool well, you're testing your water regularly, you're taking your water in somewhere, you're staying on top of your LSI, you're staying sticking you're keeping your oxidizer levels or sanitizer levels that are at a level that's working for you, then blue ray XL is the bomb, right? All right. Blue Ray XL and borates. Oh no, it's a double whammy. That is a double whammy. Y'all I'm gonna play with it. I'm gonna play with it. This year, I played with with borates all by themselves, right? And went a couple months in the middle of the summer with no chlorine, and it was by accident, y'all, but I ran around my pool couple months no chlorine in it, but it had borates and did not have any visible algae in the pool. The pool smelled like road kill. It smelled like it's just nasty, but it was crystal, freaking clear. It was about three summers ago, and from the like middle of June to the end of July, I had no chlorine in the pool. And my pool, like I said, Look crystal clear, but it stunk. Well, so I know borates works, but, yeah, but, but we weren't swimming in the pool hardly at all that year. Yeah. I mean, we were busy. Nobody was in the pool. And when I finally got in it, it was the weekend before August. 1 I've got in the pool in the water stank, and so I took it up, tested had no chlorine. That's why I figured out what was going on. So borates and blu ray Excel together again. It's not the it's not this silver bullet, but boy, it's really getting close. All right. Next thing I want to talk about is just good chemistry. Y'all May, we kind of covered this in the other two but managing your pH and your alkalinity, keeping everything balanced properly, is going to greatly help you use less chlorine. Remember, we talked about, if your pH keeps going high, it takes more chlorine, and the sun burns out the chlorine. Growing much faster at a higher pH. Well, if you'll manage your water well, all these other things work together much, much better. So this makes us want to be more conscious about art. Are we running waterfalls when we don't need to? Because that makes your pH go up. If you look, listen back to some of our other shows whenever you're disturbing the surface of the water with waterfalls and stuff like that, that causes carbon dioxide to release from the water much, much quicker, which makes your pH go up much, much quicker. That higher pH is hurting us, and that gives out algae likes high pH, so it gives algae a good leg up to get started in the pool. So we want to manage our water chemistry, not just this much chlorine, you know is going to take care of it. No, we got to stay on top of our pH, keep it in a smaller window. If you're only testing and dosing your water once a week, and every week, is taking you three cups of acid. Well, why not split that into two doses? Do your three cups this week, but next week, after three days, you're going to add a cup and a half and then test it again, and another cup and a half. So you're that pH isn't going all the way up. You're catching it before it gets way up there, and it starts hurting you, and you're catching it and moving it back down just as it's starting to get out of where it's in a good window. So if you keep it in that smaller window, if you aim small and keep these swings much tighter, your water is going to be much more easier to maintain, much more easier is that you're not supposed to, supposed to say much easier. But so so we want to stay on top of our chemistry. We don't want to do things that are causing our pH to climb and giving us issues and things like that. We want to do everything we can to make keep our sanitizer, our chlorine, more in an optimum position to kill algae faster than it multiplies. And there's many things we can do. So all right, we're going to do one more break when we come back. We just got a few more minutes when we come back, but we will. I got something else I want to talk about, alkido.

Jacque:

You. The

Unknown:

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Russel Ownens:

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Unknown:

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Jacque:

Hey, friends, you're listening to the deep end. We're talking about how to keep your pool beautiful, but cheap, cheaper on you. Yeah,

Frank Disher:

all the tricks, yep. And, you know, we talked about borates, which is king. We talked about blu ray XL, which is a huge help queen, yeah, that'd be the queen. But so we got borates, we got blu ray XL, and we talked about, you know, staying on top of your water chemistry. All right, let's talk about a few other things that will help many, many of you and one y'all, this is just slightly less important than good water chemistry. It's circulation. You need to make sure you're circulating water well in your pool, you got water going into every little nook and cranny as much as possible, because it doesn't matter how good your chemistry is if you have dead spots, yeah, because if you have a dead spot where, if you tested the water there in the sun, that water hasn't been moved. Moving, and the sun has been allowed to burn the chlorine out of that little area in the pool, and one little algae spore gets rooted up in there, and they don't root, by the way, the algae does not have roots, but it gets established up in that little dead spot. Then it can start multiplying and start releasing spores, which is putting and that make it out into the rest of the pool, which is putting a large load on your sanitizers. So you want to make sure you're accomplishing this good circulation and eliminating dead spots as much as you possibly can. This is huge. And with this turning the pool. Y'all, stops, stop stirring the surface if your jets, okay, yeah, you got them going in the right direction, but they're all coming up and they're hitting the surface, and you're boiling the surface. So it looks all Ripley. I know a lot of people judge your filter by if it needs to be cleaned, by how many ripples they see on the surface. Y'all, we don't want to do ripples. We want to go slightly down and move the bottom. The top will follow. If you get this done right, if a leaf falls in the pool, you'll see this leaf on this calm surface. Just slowly go around the pool until finally it gets close enough to a skimmer where the skimmer can pull it out off the surface and into the skimmer, so you can empty the skimmer later. So we want to go slightly down, because that disturbing the surface goes back to the last thing we talked about. It raises your pH. It causes carbon dioxide to release from the water faster, which means your pH climbs faster, which is hurting our sanitizer. So we want to go slightly down, get the pull moving, whatever kind of returns you have in the pool, if the type of return that's in your pool, if it's those flush ones that just have two little tits on the edges where you can unscrew them, you need to replace those with the kind that comes out more like a comedian's eyeball. It's a little round thing that sticks out past the plaster. So if you need to screw those out and put this other style in, so you can get more direction, because that other style that comes out, it's like a comedian's eyeball. They have those that have a side slot on them, and you can move water directly, straight down a wall, as opposed to just cutting across at an angle across the pole. So depending on your where your returns sit, you may want to use, we call them side slots. Side slotted returns on the long walls and stuff like that, or in areas where you need to go more sideways to get water up into these areas that are dead on tanning ledges. If the designer of this pool did not or it really doesn't matter how they design them, it's what the plumber puts in. But when they built your pool, if they didn't make sure that they gave you a good way to move water across a tanning ledge to keep that water moving well, because tanning ledges are a huge problem with starting algae colonies, even though you got a bubbler up there, if that bubbler is just coming straight up, you know, four or five inches and just kind of rolls over, well, it's just rolling off into the pool. You're not pushing water back up into the corners of the tanning ledge. So the those corners become dead spots, and algae can get going there. So what I like to do, if you can live without your bubbler, I know I'm y'all. I understand the value of a bubbler and the sound. It makes that soft water sound. I love that sound. It's very soothing. But if you have a waterfall coming off a hot tub, or, like in our pool, we have it hot tub, and then baby pool, and baby pool pours into the pool. But if you can live without the Bubbler sound, well then I recommend you get a side slotted jet, put it in there and blow it back to against the wall on the tanning ledge to keep that water moving around the back edges. Or if you can aim other returns when you're turning the pool clockwise or counterclockwise, if you can get water directed to where it will go up and over that tanning ledge and move around the backside, and we're not trying to blast algae away, we're just trying to keep water exchanged in these areas so we have good water Chemistry everywhere. So as long as the water is trading out, then we're okay. Another big problem spot I find is the foot wells of hot tubs. People like to put these fountains in their hot tub that in where a pipe comes up, comes all the way up to the surface, and you get a little spray action on the top of your hot tub. All right, that creates a huge problem if you don't have another return in that hot tub, circulating water in that foot well, because if that water is just passing through that foot well and only really staying up there in the seating area, then that foot well becomes a dead spot, and that becomes a. Huge algae colony spot for many, many pools. So what I like to do again is take a side slotted jet, those kinds of chameleon, eyeball looking things that have a side slot on them, and I like to put those in the floor of the hot tub so they are circulating water around in the foot well, and that water is moving its way up and out. So we always have good water chemistry coming into the hot tub and into the foot well and on onto the seats, and then over into the pool, where we also have, now we've eliminated our dead spots in the pool, so we don't have any places in the pool where algae can start colonizing easily, making us use more sanitizer to kill the algae, because if it can get going, algae can double every three to four hours in warm water. So it's fee, if it's got a little safe spot, and it's doubling every three to four hours. It's constantly releasing this out into the water, and your sanitizer that's in your water is having to kill that extra algae being introduced. So keep that in mind. One last thing wanted to talk about is, if you got rock in the water line, I know it's it's gotten it's boy, I'm afraid it may be getting popular again here, but if you got rock in your water line where it's got all these jagged edges and all that stuff, and it's underwater, y'all, you gotta stay on top of that, because algae is growing up in there, releasing its spores into the water, putting a huge load on your sanitizers. So you know, once in a while, if it's really bad, maybe every other week, jump in there with the pressure washer and just spray up in all those little nooks and crannies because they're hard to brush. Depend, well, I guess, depending on how jagged they are. But it's really hard to brush. You need dang sure it came brushing from outside the pool, on the wall, because they they tuck up under and everything and the brush, the bristles on brushes aren't that long. So using a pressure washer to blast up in all these little, deep nooks and crannies to keep those areas clear, as best you can, keep the algae colony you you want to all these places that are right now may be good algae havens in your pool. Let's eliminate them the best we can. So you know, borates, Blu Ray, XL, good water chemistry, and maintaining your water well and consistently, and then good circulation, and then removing all these dead spots, all right, so the last two things we got is, one is keeping organic debris out of the pool, because that feeds algae, and then keeping your filter clean, because if your filter gets dirty, you're moving less water, which is worse for your pool, your chemistry is not getting mixed as well. You're not moving water well across these places that need more water flow. So we so we can prevent algae colonies from getting established, and then the organic debris. You know, we've talked about it several times. Y'all, algae is not a plant. It's kind of in the plant family, but it's not really a plant. But like a plant, it eats dead organic material. So when leaves and dirt and stuff like that and mulch fall into your pool, they start breaking down, and they start releasing nutrients into the water that is food for algae. So it becomes much harder to control algae if it has a huge food source, and that kind of leads me in the phosphates, but if we're doing all these other things, I'm not real worried about phosphates, because we're keeping the algae, we're killing it faster they can multiply, and we're never giving it a really good chance. But if you have extenuating circumstances where you know there's a couple of these things that you cannot accomplish within you know, a good phosphate remover is always a good thing to use in the pool, because it removes the phosphates, which is algae food, which is a lot of what these dead organics are releasing into the water that your algae eats. So using phosphate removers is not a bad thing, but if we're doing all these other things, we don't have to worry about that thing. Biggest thing I don't like about phosphate removers, is it? They clog up the filter real bad, and make the pressure go up so we lose flow, which gives us other issues. And we got to do a lot more filter cleans, and a lot of our clients have us cleaning their filters, and they don't like paying that money to have to filter clean. So if I can get away from using a lot of phosphate removers, I'll do everything I can to not have to use them, but I mean, but if it's necessary, it's necessary, you know, because we have pools that they're just hard to control because of all the extenuating circumstances with that pool. But anyway, so that is about all the tips I'm going to give you guys on saving money on your chlorine. This year. You know, there is one last thing that I want to talk about, and that cya. You know, the higher the CYA, the more chlorine it takes. You know, because that seven and a half or 5% of your CYA, well, y'all, if you're, if you're a tadpole, and you're using less tabs, you're adding less cya. So you're really killing two birds with one stone here, the less chlorine you use, the less cya you're adding. So the less chlorine you can use. So use it using chlorine tabs. Yes, we you know, many pools, I don't have problem with using chlorine tabs, as long as you manage it. People get in trouble. There are ones that are just tab, tab, tab, tab, their cya gets really higher, and it takes more and more of the tabs to keep up, because the cya has gotten higher. So it takes more and more tabs, and it just keeps feeding itself. So if we can use less tabs, keep our cya is lower that requires less chlorine so we can continue to use less tabs and really save ourselves a bunch of money by the end of the year, it may take a little while, you know, several weeks, to get this down, or it may even, it may even take a couple seasons for you to get this down. But if you can get this rhythm working, where you get all this stuff working together for you, then it's going to pay off huge in the long run. And and we can get to the point where we don't care if there's a chlorine shortage, we don't use a we don't use enough chlorine to make it worth our you know, to make us worry about it. Let's just be more efficient, more effective, more purposeful in all the stuff we do. And it's going to save us a ton of money. So, babe, that is it. That is all I got for today. So I want to thank everybody for listening. Thank you to all our sponsors. We have pull works, Blu ray Excel, see you later. Fluidra and players cleaners, and we always want to give a shout out to IPSA, independent Pool and Spa Service Association in poll works, y'all, If there ain't a pork near you, become the porks near you. Yes, we need more porks. We

Jacque:

do. We're all getting together in a couple

Frank Disher:

weeks. Yes. Sedona, Arizona, yep. So all right, but y'all take care, and we'll see y'all next week keeps

Unknown:

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Russel Ownens:

Be sure to give us a five star rating and review on your favorite podcast platform and send us questions and topic suggestions to deepend frank@gmail.com that's deep end frank@gmail.com and also check out our home page at the deep endpool podcast.com for all of our podcasts and video content and links to our blogs and our sponsors and the products we know and trust. Also find us on Facebook, Tiktok and YouTube by searching at deep and Frank. You.