5 Bicarbonate Tips To Maintain Your Pool (And Save Money).

Provided you maintain it well to always have clean, pure and clear water.

Baking soda is an economical and super effective natural product for maintaining swimming pools.

Here is 5 bicarbonate tips for cleaning and maintaining your swimming pool that my pool specialist told me.

Not only will you save time, but you’ll also save a bunch of money. Look :

1. Cleaning after wintering

When the good weather returns and the temperature rises, algae quickly take over your pool.

As a result, they become encrusted and cover the bottom and form a green deposit on the walls of the swimming pool. yuck! Not very nice !

Baking soda is the miracle product you need. And unlike chlorine, it is 100% natural.

To eliminate algae, disperse 1 kg of baking soda for 30 m3 of water (i.e. 35 g of baking soda per m3 of pool water).

Be sure to spread it evenly all over the pool, throwing it loosely in the water.

Leave to act until the next day. Attention ! During all this time, forbidden to jump into the pool!

The next day, pass the robot or scrub the bottom of the pool with a push broom. Then do a “counter-wash”.

To make it even more effective, choose a coarse-grained baking soda.

This way, the grains fall more quickly to the ground where they will gently dissolve.

2. Set water TAC

Ah the full alkalimetric title (or TAC)… anyone who has a swimming pool knows how difficult it can be to balance it properly!

The TAC measures the amount of bicarbonate, carbonates and hydroxides in the water.

If the TAC is too low, the pH of the pool water may be unstable.

It can then vary at the slightest disturbance: addition of water, atmospheric pressure, rain, swimming, treatment and even a slight addition of acid.

Do not panic ! No need to spend too much on pool products. Just use baking soda.

To raise the TAC by one point (1 point = 1 degree = 10 ppm = 10 mg/litre), you must add 16.26 mg of bicarbonate per liter of water in your pool, i.e. 16.3 g per m3 .

For example, if you have a 40 m3 pool and you want your TAC to increase from 8 to 13 (i.e. 5 points), you have to do a little simple calculation:

5 x 40 x 16.3 = 3260g.

It is therefore sufficient to pour approximately 3.3 kg of bicarbonate into the swimming pool to eliminate the algae.

When you know that some products sold overpriced are in fact only made of baking soda… Better to use our good old baking soda directly!

Know that the ideal TAC in a swimming pool is 15 points (or 15 degrees) or 150 mg/l or ppm of mineral salts.

For this use, it is better to take a baking soda with fine or even extra-fine grains, which dissolves quickly in water.

On the other hand, be careful not to confuse the TAC and the hardness of the water, which is also called TH (Hydrotimetric Title).

TH refers to the concentration of calcium and magnesium salts in the water. It is measured in French degrees (°f). 1°f is equal to 10 mg/l (or ppm) of dissolved minerals in the water.

In France, most of the time, the water is hard and exceeds 40°f (400 mg/l), as opposed to soft water.

When the waters are hard, they are said to be calcareous. In this case, the TH must be lowered and the only solution is to use a water softener.

Another possibility: dilute the pool water with rainwater which is softer and often acidic.

Don’t forget to measure the pH and the TAC to be sure that the values are not too low.

5 uses of baking soda in the pool

3. Clean a polyester cartridge filter

It is customary to throw away the used polyester cartridge filter.

But why not give it a second life? With bicarbonate, it is possible!

This will regenerate the filter by eliminating organic impurities.

To do this, dilute 1 tablespoon of baking soda per liter of warm water.

The filter is immersed in bicarbonated water for 8 hours.

Rinse well and put the filter back.

And that is all ! The filter is like new and you can still use it. As a result, you saved a lot of money!

4. Eliminate green water

Green water in a swimming pool is a real nightmare. It can have 2 origins:

– The first is that the water may be too acidic (pH too low). In this case, it is then necessary to raise the TAC, as we saw above. It should be between 80 and 150 ppm: don’t forget to measure it with a tester like this one.

An algaecide may be necessary to completely eliminate the algae present in the pool.

But don’t worry too much, because green algae pose no health hazard.

Even if there are green algae, the water is not unhealthy.

It’s just not pretty! On the other hand, it is more annoying if there are yellow, black, brown or filamentous algae.

– Another origin of green algae, too low a pH combined with bromine treatment. In this case, it’s very simple. Just dilute baking soda in water.

No need to put a lot! A few hundred grams (or a few kilos if your pool is large) is enough.

You’ll see, it’s magic! The color of the water changes almost instantly.

You don’t even need to vacuum!

Note that you can replace baking soda with soda crystals.

5. Maintain small pools

Maintaining above-ground pools with baking soda is even easier!

If your pool is less than 3 m3 in capacity, it’s worth putting baking soda as soon as you put it in the water.

In this case, allow 500 g to 1 kg per m3 of water. The pH will be immediately stabilized and the TAC will reach a sufficient level.

And don’t worry: children are absolutely safe with this treatment.

These concentrations remain very low: for information, Vichy water is 4 to 8 times more concentrated!

Your turn…

Have you tried these economical tips for maintaining the pool with baking soda? Let us know in the comments if it worked for you. We can’t wait to read you!