Why Using Swimming Pool Water Test Kits Are a Must!

Sure, you could just add pool chlorine, clarifier, algaecides, and other pool maintenance chemicals. But is your algaecide neutralizing the benefit of your chlorine? Are you adding enough bromine, or too much? Is your pH safe for you and your loved ones?

Without a swimming pool water test kit you are swimming blind. Measure well, to be sure. Follow a good maintenance schedule and you are on track to create good pool water. But many things you can't control affect the final result, no matter how careful you are.

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Unless you want to be limited to measurements and calculations - in other words, an educated guess or worse still, your nose and touch - you need a pool water test kit.

Fortunately, many are inexpensive and easy to use.

Some are as simple as the traditional test tube kit that provides an eyedropper, litmus paper, and a few needed chemicals. Those can do a good job of measuring pH, determining chlorine concentration, and so forth. Many will allow you also to measure cyanuric acid, urine and ammonia products, and more including calcium, to test water hardness.

You don't have to have a science degree to get good results or interpret them correctly, even with a simple, old-fashioned kit. But modern technology has vastly improved on the methods your grandfather employed to keep his pool clean and clear.

One slightly more advanced version will include a photometer, even with those small, test tube kits. In this device, a small light (often a laser, but there are other devices that use ultra-violet, or another source) shines through a sample.

That sample causes changes to the source's intensity, wavelength, and other characteristics. A sensor lets the device detect them, which transmits data to a small chip to analyze the desired water attributes. The display then shows pH and other measurements, in a form that's easy for an ordinary mortal to read.

Similarly, more advanced digital water test kits can entirely eliminate the need for litmus paper, vials, and chemicals. Various electronic and photometric sensors use proxies to measure all the things you want to know.

Those more advanced systems can automatically self-calibrate for temperature and other variables that might skew the results of an old-fashioned kit. Instead of measuring, for example, pH by observing the color of litmus paper dipped in a sample of your water, you just dip a little test probe into the pool. Voila! Instant, accurate readings.

An intermediate, and therefore less expensive, device might still use a strip, but let you thread it through the unit, which then reads the pH level for you accurately.

Naturally, all digital kits are waterproof, easy to hold, resistant to corrosion, and provide easy-to-read results on an LCD display. Many feature one-touch activation and automatic shutoff so you don't have to worry about the batteries draining.

Why Using Swimming Pool Water Test Kits Are a Must!

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