This episode is brought to you by HASA. Liquid is clearly better. Liquid chlorine is the highest purity, works immediately, has no added cyaneric acid or calcium, and it will leave your pool safe, clean, and clear. And by the bottom feeder, professionalgrade batterypowered vacuum system. It sucks to clean pools, so cleaning pools sucks less. Get $100 off with code DVB 100. This episode is brought to you by Skimmer, the number one pool service software in North America. With Skimmer, you can streamline your schedule, grow your revenue, and keep your customers coming back with five-star service. Whether you're a oneperson operation or an established team, Skimmer is your partner in success. Visit getskimmer.com/poolguy to try Skimmer for free for 30 days. The pool guy show. The pool guy show the pool guy show. Yeah. Hi, welcome to the pool guy podcast show. In this episode, I'm going to go over some different testing methods when you test your pool water. There are a variety of different test methods you can use to test the water. I'll go over some of the popular choices out there in the pool industry today. Are you a pool service pro looking to take your business to the next level? Join the pool guy coaching program. Get expert advice, business tips, exclusive content, and get direct support from me. I'm a 35-y year veteran in the industry. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, I've got the tools to help you succeed. Learn more at swimming poolarning.com. The first thing you have to know about different water testing methods is that you really don't need to choose one method over another method. What I'm saying here is that you can use a variety of methods based on time of year kind of how your day is going basically and also you know what time of month it is what test factors you're testing for at a particular time. Each test each different test method has their pros and cons. And I'll start with probably the simplest way you can test the water. That's with test strips. Now, test strips have had a bad kind of I don't know if it's a reputation, but they've been looked down on for many years in the industry. Mainly because a lot of times, well, actually, they started out kind of bad cuz they weren't super accurate when they first came out and then of course they've gotten better. But like with anything, your bad reputation kind of sticks with you. And really in reality, test strips are not a bad way to test the pool water. You just have to know some of the built-in cons to using test strips versus using say reagent test kit or a photometer. And before I get too deep into the test strips, let me just go over some of the readings that you should be testing for. I've covered these in other podcasts, but I think it's worth reiterating here what you're actually testing for. free chlorine FC, combined chlorine CC. These are the abbreviations that you're going to find for these if you're if you're reading literature, searching online or anywhere, they'll abbreviate these cuz of course you don't really need to spell them out. PH with a lowercase P, uppercase H, and that's kind of it for PH. Total alkalinity TA calcium hardness CHic acid CYA salt and then that's just salinity basically is another way of saying salt level and TDS or total dissolve solids. These are things you test for in a pool on sometimes a weekly basis, other times a monthly or quarterly. And I'll go into that near the end. I'll go over what you should test for, when you should test for it. So test strips, again, there's one of these things where you have to kind of understand the limitations of your test kit or your testing method. The nice thing about test strips is they're fast. They're fairly affordable, although the price has increased pretty dramatically over the last 2 or 3 years. They used to be really inexpensive, so they're okay as far as affordability, I should say, and they're good for quick checks of the pool. Now, some of the cons are that they're very subjective. What I mean by this is that it doesn't really matter which test strip you're using. The color that you see on the test strip, you have to kind of turn the container to the side or or turn it to the back. And then you match that test strip with the colors indicated on the back. And they have ranges of pH, alkalinity, free chlorine, and so on. There's different, of course, test strips that test for more things. Some are seven-way test strips. Some are three-way test strips. Basically, you're matching that color that you're seeing on the test strip pads with the back of the container. And this leads to a lot of interpretation of what that color actually is. There's a pretty cool game. It's called Hues and Q's. And it's a board game where you give one word and then everyone has to guess what color on the board you're actually thinking of. And in this game, Hues and Q's, you kind of try to get in the range of the colors by a one-word clue. And then the second round, you can do two words. So if you're on a purple square, you would say like Barney or the Lakers and people would try to kind of guess what color the Laker uniform is or what color Barney is. Barney the dinosaur if everyone has probably seen that show when they were younger. And the problem is everyone has a different idea of what color that is in their head. And so the game is actually pretty fun. But back to the test strips, it's kind of the same concept. You may see an indicator for pH and you think that that's 7.6, but someone else may say, "Well, that's 7.8." So, there in lies the drawback with test strips is that it's open to a broad range of interpretation. Another drawback is that the test for the calcium hardness is not really on the test strip. It's total total hardness and that's a little bit different than calcium hardness. So calcium hardness is the measure of basically how hard the water is. Calcium and magnesium. Calcium hardness is specifically the measure of calcium content. So the test strip will report total hardness, not calcium. So it's one of those things where it does kind of matter if you're using the LSI to calculate it. And you really need the calcium hardness to get the water in balance. So again, test strips can't directly test for just pure calcium hardness. It has magnesium in there. Also, not a big deal in a lot of cases cuz you're not going to use that reading anyway. You're going to probably use a reagent or photometer to get the calcium hardness in the pool. So test strips are great if you're on your pool route. If it's the winter time and you're just trying to get a quick reading, they're perfectly fine. If you're going through your day and you're running out of time, you can get a reading with a test strip. You can do your whole route with a test strip if you wanted to, but I don't think that's the most accurate way to balance the pool. It's a good way to get a quick reading. They're great for hot tubs, I think, in spas. I like them, and I like just dipping them in there if I need to get a quick reading to see if there's any chlorine in there at all or what the pH and alkalinity are at. In my opinion, they're pretty effective for that. If you're a pool owner, it's great for checking or double-checking some other readings. And same with pool pros. I think test strips are great to have. If you're getting a weird reading with your region test kit or the photoometer gives you something odd, it's always good to dip a test strip in and then verify that yeah, I guess that is the right reading from the region test kit or the photoometer. So, they're great for that also. And they're also great when you're in a rush and again you're behind schedule, you don't have time or you don't need to do the full reading sometimes on certain pools. Sometimes the pools never get used. You know which customers never go in their pool. And so using a test strip is not a bad thing. It's not we're not going to take away your pool pro card for using test strips on your route. I think they're they come in handy. There's a place for them. Another thing about test strips that's great is that there's such a variety of test strips out there. They do more tests than most reagent or photometers can do as well. You can get a phosphate test strip, a salinity test strip, which by the way, I'm not a big fan of those. I rather would use a digital salinity meter over a test strip. For some reason, I just don't think they're as accurate and they're as good as a digital salinity or salt meter. You can also do test strips for copper, iron. So, there's a a large variety of test strips out there. Nitrates is another good one. So, don't discount test strips based on maybe something you've heard or maybe someone overuses them. That's something that you can't really base your judgment on. They do have their place in the industry. The next test kit, and everyone should be familiar with this, is the region test kit. Now, the region test kit has a lot of pluses and they do have some of the minuses that kind of are associated with test strips as well because again, you're holding up the you're holding up the tester with the color reagent in there. It reacts to whatever you're testing and there'll be a color displayed and you have to match that color. Now, I think matching the color on a region test strip can be a lot easier than a test strip cuz you have a lot more of a sample to look at. Test strip has a really small little pad. You know, some people say it's microscopic. It is kind of small compared to a tailor test kit where you're holding it up and you have a vial of the region in there. And if you hold it at eye level on a sunny day, you're probably going to get the best reading. Indoors is a little bit different. every where you get the reading from in the shade indoors is going to be a little bit different. But with the white background, you can get a pretty good idea because there's a big sample in there. And even if you have trouble matching colors, with such a large sample, I think it's going to be easier than a test strip. But again, it is also based on what you perceive that color to be is the reading of what you're testing for. Alkalinity, pH, free chlorine. Now, one of the nice things about the region test kit is that they some of them like the tailor test kits in particular uses DPD, which is a great way to test free chlorine accurately and combine chlorine. And sometimes you can get a liquid region of that. I kind of like the liquid one better than the powder, but the powder one can test for a higher free chlorine level in the pool. So, it's really nice to have the ability to know that you have, and by the way, the tailor test kits are NSF certified, which means they've been independently tested and the readings are accurate based on an independent company that certifies NSF, and they're also certified for commercial pool use. So, I really like the Taylor test kits. If you're going to get a test kit, the Fast DPT K206 is a go-to test kit in the industry, but I also like the K205 even though the chlorine free chlorine is a die base reagent. I find that it's faster in a lot of cases and it it will record up to 10 parts per million. So, it's good in most applications, but you can choose between the K206 and K205 test kit. For a homeowner, I wouldn't recommend a Taylor homeowner test kit. Just get yourself a K206 or 2005 test kit because they do a variety of test factors that maybe the home test kit won't do. So, I definitely would recommend getting the full pro test kit. Now, the Reagent test kits will take longer than a test strip. The test strip takes a few seconds, 20 seconds for it to dry a little bit so you get the reading. Region test kits take longer cuz you have to use the reagents and sometimes you have to do drop tests and it does take longer than a test strip test, but it is much more accurate. Again, I mentioned that the tailor kits are certified by an independent company. Even though it takes longer, it's the better way to test pool water if you're a pool pro. And I think that if you do do pool service, having a region test kit is a must. And they go well with test strips and they really will enhance your water testing. Now, for the ultimate level of water testing, you would want to get a photometer. Now, I'm partial towards Lamont. I like their color Q series. I have a Spin Touch as well. You don't really have to go to the Ferrari test kit, which is a spin touch. It's $1,000 and you can do 10 test factors in one minute. That may not be necessary for a lot of people. If you're doing commercial accounts, I definitely would recommend the spin touch because more than likely the health department is using something very similar to get the readings and you want to match the health department. In the least, you want to get the Lamont Color Q 2X Pro 9, which is a great photometer because it does copper and iron. It also can do byides if you have one of those pools on your route. That's something that's a totally different subject, but it does have a lot more test factors than a lot of other photoometers. Now, it won't do salinity. I mentioned that if you want to test salt level, you would want to get a digital salinity meter, but it does really do a great job of taking the guesswork out of your testing. A lot of the photometers now use tablets. The reason why they're they're moving towards tablets, there's a couple reasons why they're moving towards tablet. One, the tablet is a specific pre-measured region that's in tablet form. So, a lot of times a photometer will use a region just like the tailor test kit where you put drops in, but the tablet is more accurate because it's the exact reagent in a tablet form. Plus, they have a longer shelf life than the reagents. I didn't mention this, but the tailor regions do expire. And so, every year or two, you want to replace your regions if you don't use them all up. And this is in the case of homeowners that are using the tailor test kits. They may not use all of the alkalinity or pH reagent in one year. Just replace that every year and you're going to have fresh reagents and an accurate reading. So, photometer works by using a sensor that reads the actual color of the reagent in the test tube. And it's extremely accurate because of course it's not your eye doing it. It's a kind of a computer I guess you can say in a way. It's a method of testing that's accurate because you get a digital readout and it'll tell you exactly what the level is in the pool. So, if the free chlorine is at 3.4, it'll tell you 3.4. You can't get quite that accurate with a tailor test kit. It's certainly not that accurate with a test strip. If the pH is 7.89, it'll tell you 7.89 where where a region test kit doesn't give you the exact pH in the pool. So, they're great for commercial applications. They're great for doing the monthly test factors. And here's where I'm going to tell you what you should test for on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis. Every week, you should be testing the free chlorine and total chlorine, alkalinity, and pH. I think every 3 months you should be testing, and some people may argue with this, for calcium hardness. It doesn't change too much in my area and you can definitely test monthly for calcium hardness if you want to, but I don't think it changes very often in the pool. At least in my area is pretty a pretty stable test factor. Cyaneric acid, I would test for it every 1 to 3 months depending on your area. Every three months is fine in most cases, but if you're using triclor tablets, testing every month is probably better because that means that the cyanic acid level will be rising in the pool at a more rapid rate. If you have a saltwater pool, testing the cyanic acid every 3 months is perfectly fine. Testing for salt, and again, I recommend a digital tester for this. I would test for salt usually in April before the season starts here to make sure there's enough salt in the pool. also tests maybe once or twice during the season. So that could be a you know every two month type test or every three month type test in the season and in the winter you don't test for salt really at all because the saltwater generator is not really working in the winter time. So that's kind of the the test factors. TDS, this is also done with a digital meter. And you should test your TDS I think at the beginning of the season in my opinion. Maybe one time during the season is good as as well because that doesn't change a whole lot either. It's pretty stable, but it does build up over the course of the season. So, taking a reading in the middle of the season is a great way to get your TDS level. And just for a reference, I go off of Bob Lowry's target ranges. So, your pH should be at 7.5 in most cases. Alkalinity should be at 90 parts per million. TDS. The maximum should be 1500 over the tap water. You want to test the tap water as well as the pool water. Calcium hardness in a plaster pool should be about 350 parts per million, which is likely impossible in my area in California. We're usually higher than that. In a fiberglass and vinyl pool, around 250 parts per million. And then your cyaneric acid should be about 50 parts per million. For a saltwater pool, you want that at 80 parts per million. Those are some target ranges that you're looking for when you're doing these test factors in a pool. And back to the photoometer briefly here. Now, the photoometer is going to be slower in most cases than a regent test kit and slower than a test strip. Of course, it's going to take more time. I think I did a video two or three years ago on the Color Q2X Pro 7 testing all those seven test factors in real time. And I think the video came in a little under 5 minutes. So kind of figure that if you're doing everything free chlorine, combined chlorine, total chlorine, pH, alkalinity, cyaneric acid, and calcium hardness. You're going to take about five minutes with a photometer to do those test factors. You're breaking up the tablets. You're you're checking the readings. Although it gives you the readings very rapidly, it does take time to do the test itself. So, it's a much slower way to test and the photoometers are much more expensive. The tablets and reagents are more expensive than a tailor test kit. And so, it's going to cost you more for it for the color Q testers. It's going to cost you more for the tablets and for any refill reagents that you're using for the photoometer. So, it is a much more expensive way to test, but in my opinion, it's the most accurate way to get the test factors in the pool. Ultimately, again, like I mentioned at the beginning, a combination of all three would be great. If you have a pool route, I recommend having test strips and having variety of test strips as well for testing other factors like nitrates and phosphates. Having a tailor region test kit is great for the weekly readings. And then a photoometer is great for commercial pools or monthly readings. If you want to do a monthly test factor reading at all your pools, cyaneric acid, calcium hardness, and all the other factors, you can do that as well with the photoometer. And they all work really well. And I wouldn't recommend one over the other, but I will say that having all of them will give you the best chance of having a well- balanced pool and well balanced pools on your pool route. If you're looking for more podcasts that I have, you can go to my website, swimmingpolelearning.com on the banner, click on the podcast icon, and there'll be 1,600 podcasts there for you. And if you're interested in the coaching program that I offer, you can learn more at poolgucoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have a great rest of your week. God bless. 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