How To Pressure Clean Your Concrete Pool
Growing up, our house was the only one in the neighbourhood with a pool.
One summer, my parents decided to host neighbourhood swimming lessons. In exchange, my bro, sis and I would get free lessons from the instructor.
Swarms of kids would come to our pool 3 times a week for a 1 hour swim lesson. There would be 2 blocks of 1 hour lessons and we would be taught in the second hour.
Of course, this was a bad idea from the get-go… These kids were peeing in it for sure, and the dramatic increase in traffic made the water green and murky in a hurry.
This was one of the first summers in that house with a pool, so my parents weren’t pool experts. At the end of the summer my dad knew he had to empty the pool and give it a fresh clean.
So with our help, we scrubbed it squeaky clean. It took a few days all up. And now, as I sit here writing this, I think how much easier it would have been with a pressure washer.
It really would have made the job quick and easy. Here’s how we would have done it:
Steps To Pressure Washing Your Pool
First up, be sure your pool isn’t made of vinyl or fibreglass because pressure washing could damage it.
If it’s made of plaster, concrete or exposed aggregate you’re good to go.
- Empty all the water from the pool
- Be mindful were all that water is going. Consult the local council with environmental concerns. Dirty waste water with pool chemicals in it should be disposed of properly according to your local area guidelines
- Now that its empty give it a good sweep with a broom
- Get your pressure cleaner ready to go and give the surface a good wet down with a light spray
- Apply the detergent bottom up
- Rinse the pool walls clean top down
- Do the walls first then the floor while moving from the edges towards the drain
- You can use a turbo nozzle for tough algae stains
- If the walls are particular bad with algae, use an algaecide to remove.
Which Pressure Washer?
- One of the best selling power washers should do the trick. Electric or gas should be fine for the job as long as you use the correct detergent.
Sources
- The image of the half pressure cleaned swimming pool above is sourced from reddit user DonSol0. It is not an image of my pool.
