Pool and Spa Water Testing
Bring in a sample or post one to us. We run it on the WaterLink Spin Touch and email you a full report with the exact products and doses to fix whatever is out, worked to your pool volume. $20 a test, and it is free if you buy the chemicals from us.
Test strips tell you roughly. A photometer tells you exactly. The difference matters because most pool problems are not the thing the owner thinks they are: cloudy water is usually a balance problem rather than a sanitiser problem, and chucking more chlorine at it makes it worse and costs you money.
The short version
- $20 per test, report emailed to you.
- Free if you buy the chemicals to fix it from us.
- Post a sample or bring it in to Waihi or Kopu.
- You get dose amounts for your pool, in grams and litres, not general advice.
- No appointment needed in store.
What the report tells you
The analyser reads the water properly rather than matching a colour by eye. Every report covers free, combined and total chlorine, pH, total alkalinity, total hardness, stabiliser (the cyanuric acid level), phosphates and total copper.
Each one is shown against its desired range, with your previous reading beside it so you can see which way it is heading, and then a numbered list of treatments in the order they should be done. Each treatment names the product and the dose in kilograms for your pool, not a general rule of thumb. A recent one read: Treatment 2, reduce pH level, AquaPure pH Down, 0.19 kg, along with how to add it without dumping it all in at once.
More useful than the numbers is what sits underneath them: which one is actually causing your problem, and what order to fix them in. Alkalinity before pH, always. Stabiliser before you blame the chlorine. Get that order wrong and you can dose a pool three times and end up back where you started.
How to take a sample that is worth testing
A bad sample gives a confident wrong answer, which is worse than no test. It takes a minute to do properly.
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Run the pump first
At least an hour of circulation before you sample. Water that has been sitting is stratified and the top 300 mm is not what is in your pool.
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Elbow deep, away from the returns
Push a clean bottle upside down to elbow depth, then turn it over and let it fill. Do not skim off the surface, and stay away from the return jets and the skimmer.
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Clean bottle, rinsed in pool water
Rinse it two or three times in the pool before you take the sample. Do not use a bottle that had anything else in it, especially not a drink bottle. Residue skews the result.
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Fill it right up and cap it
No air gap. Air in the bottle changes the pH reading on the way to us.
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Keep it cool and dark, and get it to us quickly
Out of the sun, in a bag. Chlorine readings start dropping within hours in daylight, so a sample that has sat on a dashboard is already wrong. Post it the same day.
Posting a sample
Send at least 250 ml in a sealed bottle, double bagged so a leak cannot ruin anything, to Pump Stuff, 65 Kenny Street, Waihi 3610.
Put a note in with it: your name, phone number, email for the report, and the size of your pool in litres. Without the volume we cannot give you dose amounts, only readings, and the doses are the useful half. If you do not know your volume, tell us the length, width and average depth and we will work it out.
Also worth telling us: whether it is chlorine or salt, whether it is fibreglass, concrete or a liner, and what has been going on. "Went green after the storm" tells us more than a number ever will.
What it costs
$20 per test. If you buy the chemicals to correct it from us, the test is free, and we take the $20 off at the counter or off your order.
We are not doing it to sell you the most chemicals. If the answer is that your pool is fine and you should stop adding things to it, the report will say that.
Get your water tested
Bring a sample to Waihi (65 Kenny Street) or Kopu (74 Kopu Road), or post it in. Questions first? Call 07 863 8064 or email contact@pumpstuff.co.nz.
