Staff Writer
HOULTON — Chemicals, vacuums and daily skimming come part and parcel with the ownership of a swimming pool. For more than 20 years, helping people keep their aquatic play gym clean and clear has been a job that Todd Williams knows all about. 
Pioneer Times photos/Jennifer Ruth
SPRING BORDERS — Swimming pools are the number one attraction for local wildlife such as frogs. This pool has more than 10 batches of frog eggs, as well as about a dozen pairs of mating frogs. Simple shocking of the water can drive the pesky critters out of the water.
Williams grew up in the pool business. His parents owned and operated Williams Pool, which was located on the North Road. Williams Pools has since closed, but Todd Williams hasn’t stopped providing his professional and expert knowledge to local pool owners.
“When people call me and want to start a pool, they want to know what they need to use for chemicals and my recommendation has always been to triple shock,” he said. “So if the manufacturer’s recommendation is one pound to 10,000, than you want three pounds to 10,000 because you can kill that algae. One of the things that they do that is wrong for their pool is they want to vacuum live algae, which doesn’t work.
“So the thing to do is do the triple shock, let your filter work for 24 to 48 hours and then when you can see the bottom of the pool, than you can start vacuuming and cleaning up,” he said.
Williams said it’s far less money to shock the pool with chemicals than it is to go the other route and take the chance of pumping the water out. One of the biggest misconceptions that people have about dirty water is that they feel they need to clean the pool’s liner. Williams says ‘no.’
“The biggest thing I know is they should never pump their pool water out,” he explained. “People figure their pool is really dirty and they should clean the liner. That is something you should never do. Liners tend to shrink as they age and when you remove the water from them, you give them that chance to shrink and it won’t stretch back.
“Vinyl is a plastic product and it gets brittle with age,” he added. “The cost of replacing that can be exceptional.”
Chemicals and weekly maintenance eliminates the chance of costly repairs. And if in doubt, call in a professional to come and assess the pool and check the pH balance. The most common solution is chlorine treatment and time.
For more information on pool maintenance, contact Williams at 538-5777.
