Pool Maintenance near you

HSE's detailed guidance on spa-pool systems makes the point in one sentence that applies just as well to a domestic pool store: COSHH covers substances hazardous to health, and the risks associated with working with the chemicals used, overdosing, disinfection by-products and the inadvertent mixing of incompatible chemicals must be managed. Acids and chlorine donors are the pair that matters. Bring the two together, whether by a spill on a shelf or by pouring one on top of the other in a dosing pot, and you can generate chlorine gas in a small space with no warning.

The storage arrangement HSE describes for spa pools is the model worth copying at home. Acids, alkalis and disinfectants should be stored in a secure, well-ventilated, dry storage area, preferably separate from the plant room, with provision for heat and frost protection and marked with an appropriate warning sign. They should be bunded, with the bund able to contain at least 110 per cent of the maximum volume of liquid stored, and separated so that any spillage is contained and any subsequent mixing of acids and alkalis, where highly toxic chlorine gas may be produced, is prevented. The safety data sheet for each product tells you how it should be stored.

Two habits do most of the work at domestic scale. Never pre-mix products, and never use the same measuring jug or scoop for two different chemicals without washing and drying it. Always add chemical to water rather than water to chemical, dose into a circulating pool rather than a still one, and keep the store locked, because pool chemicals in a garden shed are one of the more dangerous things in an ordinary British garden.

Nothing on a plant skid fails randomly. Pumps fail because they run dry, run against a blocked basket, run in a flooded pit or run continuously when they were specified for part-time duty. Filters fail because the media is never changed and the internals eventually collapse, or because the vessel is opened and closed carelessly. Heaters and heat exchangers fail because water that was slightly aggressive or slightly scaling passed through them for two seasons.

That makes the economics of maintenance easy to describe without inventing figures. The cost of testing weekly and dosing correctly is small and predictable; the cost of a replacement heat exchanger or a re-media and rebuild is neither. A pool run on correct water with clean baskets and a filter backwashed on pressure will simply last longer than the same pool run on guesswork.

The one genuinely age-related item is control gear. Controllers, dosing systems and variable-speed drives reach a point where parts are no longer available, and at that point a working unit becomes an unrepairable one overnight. Knowing whether your controller is still supported is worth asking your engineer once a year rather than finding out during a breakdown.

A maintenance agreement is priced on the round rather than on the pool. What moves it is how often someone attends, how far the pool is from the engineer's other work, the volume of water and therefore the dosing, whether the pool is indoors or outdoors and how much debris it takes in, how automated the dosing and cleaning already are, whether chemicals are supplied within the price or billed separately, and how much of the plant the visit is expected to cover. A pool with automated dosing, a robotic cleaner and a good cover needs a different visit from an open outdoor pool under trees.

LokalMatch's role starts and ends with the introduction. Describe the pool, the plant and how often you want someone there, once, with your postcode, and maintenance firms covering your area get in touch themselves. Homeowners pay nothing; the pros pay for the enquiries that reach them. LokalMatch does not maintain pools, does not set the prices quoted and does not vet, rank or recommend the firms that respond, so it is worth asking each of them what is included, what is extra and who supplies the chemicals.