- High alkalinity can cause damaging scale to form
inside your pool's circulation system like your pool filter
and your pool pump and your pool heater,
and high alkalinity can also mean high pH.
They tend to go hand in hand, but adding muriatic acid
to your pool can help tame the wild alkalinity,
the high alkalinity, the high pH.
All you need is a bucket, some safety precautions,
and a step-by-step guide on how to do it, so let's dive in.
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All right, quick disclaimer.
When it comes to pool care, I have to say this,
everyone has a different way of doing it.
The following information is based on my personal experience
in the pool industry plus the research we've done here
at Swim University, and if I missed anything, I apologize,
but just leave a comment.
Also, we're talking about pool chemicals here,
and when it comes to pool chemicals,
safety first, people, safety first.
We're talking about chemical resistant gloves and goggles.
Not just having them, we want you to wear them,
and you can also use a chemical-resistant apron.
An apron, am I saying that right?
Apron, apron, and that'll help protect your clothes
and your skin.
You know, also, it wouldn't be such a bad idea to get,
you know, one of those bane masks.
You know, like those gas masks because the vapors,
inhaling those vapors, can also be damaging too,
so if you're gonna be messing with pool chemicals,
a mask would be super helpful, Batman.
It's my impression, I'm not very good at them.
All right, before we talk about adding muriatic acid
to your pool to lower your alkalinity and pH,
what is muriatic acid?
What's that sound?
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Nerd alert.
Believe it or not, muriatic acid can actually be found
in the human stomach and it goes by a different name as well
which is hydrochloric acid.
For this video, we're just gonna call it muriatic acid.
Now, muriatic acid comes in many different forms.
When you are buying muriatic acid you want to make sure
that you get it at your local pool store because it is
a different formula, and before we actually use it,
just remember that alkalinity and pH, with enough time,
will come down on their own, but you just don't want them
high for too long 'cause high for too long can
cause scaling, it can make your pump run harder,
your heater work harder, your filter system work harder,
and that can cause long term damage, so we just want
to make sure that the pH and alkalinity are always
in the correct range, but again if you are just on the brink
of getting into the right area, if you just give it
enough time, it'll come down on its own,
and you won't need to go messing with any acids.
So when you're lowering alkalinity in your water,
you're also going to be lowering pH, so if you have high pH,
but normal alkalinity, you can add an alkalinity decreaser
or a pH decreaser, which is sodium bisulfate,
but if you add those things, they're gonna bring both down,
so it's a good idea to get them both in the correct range
and then bring them up or down together.
We are about to add muriatic acid to our pool
to lower the alkalinity, however, before you go
and add any chemicals to any pools, you want to test
the water first to make sure that you even have
to add any chemicals to the pool.
If you're adding just chemicals because you think the pH
might be high, that's not a good enough reason.
No, you're gonna have to test it, and you can test it
in one of three ways.
You can either use test strips which are fairly inexpensive,
you can get them at your local pool store and you can just
pull a sample, pool a sample, I get it, I know I did.
When you pull the sample from your pool, then you can use
the test strip and dip it in, wait about 15 seconds,
measure up to the colors on the back of the bottle,
and you will know if you have high pH, low pH,
high alkalinity, low alkalinity.
The other way you can do it is you can use a liquid test kit
which tends to be a little bit more accurate,
but there's a lot more involved when it comes to testing
or instead, you can take a sample of your pool water
and bring it into your local pool store and have them
test it for you, and at that point, you're already
at the store so you can pick up muriatic acid
or sodium bisulfate, which again is pH decrease.
Now we just want to know how much muriatic acid
are we gonna need to bring it down?
In order to do that, we have an online calculator.
Just go to this link at the bottom.
You could type in the readings that you get from your test
and it'll tell you exactly how much to add.
You can also refer to our pool care handbook
which has dosage charts.
(upbeat music)
Okay, this video is technically sponsored by our very own
product called the pool care handbook and video course.
You can get it by going to
swimuniversity.com/pool-care-handbook
or you could just, here's the URL here.
This is our fully illustrated eBook and video course
teaching everything you need to know about taking care
of your swimming pool, whether you're new to owning a pool
or you've been doing this for a while.
It's a great resource you can always check back in
and you can watch the entire course and get a huge
crash course on taking care of your swimming pool.
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We know we need to add muriatic acid to the pool,
so we know how much muriatic acid we need to add to the pool
so how do we add muriatic acid to the pool?
Do we just poor it in?
Do we just get the jug and just poor all willy nilly,
splashing it around?
Of course not, we're smarter than that, we're intelligent.
What we're gonna do to add muriatic acid is we're gonna
add 10 parts of water to one part muriatic acid
and that is how we're gonna dilute it,
and what we're gonna do is we're gonna add these 10 parts
of water to a bucket first, just a bucket of water, 10 parts
and then we're gonna add one part of muriatic acid
to that bucket of water and we're not gonna do it
the other way around because the other way around
can cause splashing into our, hopefully, protected face
with the goggles and the mask and the gloves,
and then we're gonna take a paint stirrer and we're gonna
slowly mix the muriatic acid and the water together
and then we are gonna slowly poor that muriatic acid
dilution solution into our pool and then finally,
you've added the chemical, you've done it,
did your pH come down?
I will wait about an hour, maybe even more,
maybe the next day, and retest your water the same way
you tested it the first time, whether it's with test strips
or liquid test kits or you brought it into your local
pool store, whichever that way was, that's your base,
get it retested the exact same way so that you know your pH
and alkalinity actually came down.
If I missed anything, again leave a message
in the comments letting me know.
I could do an update for sure, and if you have any more
questions, please go to swimuniversity.com.
That's it, happy swimming.
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