test factors at your stops.
And of course, everyone has an opinion of which way which is
the best way to test the pool water.
And I'll cover all the different testers out there on the market.
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There are really only four testing methods that are readily
used out there.
The first one is test strips.
The second method and one of the more popular ones is reagent
testing.
And then the third method is a combination of reagents and
maybe tablets or pills with a photometer.
And then the fourth method is digital testing or digital water
testing.
Which method is best really depends on personal preference.
A lot of people like to use the reagent test or like the Taylor
kits.
The Taylor test kits are probably the best known in the
industry, the K2005, K2006.
A lot of this has to do with the fact that they're really easy to
use, they're fast, and the reagents are affordable.
So if you're looking at a strictly a monetary standpoint,
you want a method that effectively tests the pool
water, but also is affordable.
The reagent test kit is the way to go.
There are a couple drawbacks with the reagent test kit, and
the first and major drawback is that it's really up to the user
to determine the actual color that they're seeing in the vials
where you put the reagents.
Usually you hold them up at eye level on a sunny day or in the
shade, and you can get an idea of you know basically what the
free chlorine level is, what the pH level is, but again, it's not
something that is going to give you a spot-on accurate reading.
Now, if you're going for the most accurate test kit, that
would be the photometer.
And these now use a combination of regents and tablets.
And basically the reason why they are moving towards tablets
more than just strictly regions is because regions have a very
short life shelf lifespan, and a lot of times if you don't use
them up, they go bad, especially the Lamotte region seem to go
bad a lot faster.
They're more specifically designed for the photometer, so
I think they have a shorter shelf life than say the Taylor
region.
You can buy, you know, really large refill bottles of the
Taylor region and you're perfectly fine.
But as far as the photometer reagents, they do have a shorter
shelf life because I think they're more fine-tuned to the
photometer.
Basically, the photometer uses electronics and light rays to
read the color of the reagent and give you the digital reading
of that.
If you've ever used a photometer like the pool lab 2.0, left the
lid off while it was uh zeroing out, you'll see all the
different colors going through the chamber, and basically it's
calibrating to the water sample that's in there.
Once you have that calibrated, you know, usually zero is what
the pool lab 2.0 does.
You can start putting the region tablet in there, crush it up,
and then the color will change in the little tube that it's in,
cover it up, hit start, and then the photometer will use light to
read the color and give you a really accurate, you know,
pretty much spot-on pH reading.
Let's say if you're going for pH, it'll tell you that a pH is
7.45.
And this is the most accurate tester, but it's the most time
consuming except for one of the photometers I'll cover in a
minute.
So the photometer testing, yes, very accurate, but much more
time consuming than the Taylor reagent test kit.
The other benefit of the photometer is that you can
usually send digital logs to yourself or a customer.
This is great for commercial accounts where you want to log
the readings or a customer at a startup.
If there's a new plaster pool and you're starting it up and
you want to keep a log of the chemistry, the photometer is the
way to go.
It also has more range than the reagent test kit.
It'll read pH lower in most cases.
And it may not read chlorine higher than the region test kit,
but the range is a lot higher in other readings.
It's really useful for other things like copper and iron.
If you have a test kit, a photometer that does that, like
the color Q2X Pro 9, you can do copper and iron readings as
well, which is really handy and helpful in a lot of situations
when you're trying to discover if the pool has any kind of
metals, metal ions in the water.
If you want to save time with a photometer, you have to spend a
lot of money in order to do that, because the only
photometer that I know that can read 10 test factors in one
minute is the Lamont spin touch, and this is pretty much all
there is out there that's going to use the technology of a
photometer.
But really the speed of I guess not even a region test kit,
maybe like a test trip, because it is really fast.
You fill up the chamber, the disc with water, put it in to
the spin touch, it spins the disc, and then it gives you the
readings in about a minute of over 10 test factors, roughly.
And these test factors can be phosphates or it could be the
salinity, could be copper and iron, could be borates, it could
be free chlorine, total chlorine, pH alkalinity, and
it's really fast, but it's a thousand dollar test kit.
I call it the Ferrari of test kits because it's really useful,
but it's really expensive, and just like an expensive luxury
car, it's cost a lot to maintain it, in the fact that the discs
are expensive.
The unit itself doesn't need any maintenance, but the discs that
it uses do cost a lot more than say a reagent refill, and the
discs are not reusable.
So it is something that comes in handy for commercial accounts
and startups.
New bids, of course, you go out to get a bid on a pool, you have
the spin touch in its case, it looks really professional, and
you can give the customer their readings right there in one
minute.
So it is accurate, it's fast, and it may be worth the money
depending on when you're going to use it.
I wouldn't use it for everyday testing of 80 pools a week on
your pool route.
That would get really expensive.
And to be honest with you, all those test factors aren't
necessary week in and week out when you are doing pool service.
You don't really need the test of cyaneric acid or the salinity
every week, or for phosphate unless you have a problem, or
copper and iron.
So it really becomes not really useful in that respect.
Although they do have three disc series where it does the free
chlorine, pH, and alkalinity.
So they have different discs available for three test factors
as well, and it's something that you may want to consider for
your pool route, but also understand that it's not
something you're gonna use at every single stop, it's
something that's gonna be useful, maybe for once-a-month
readings on your pool route, commercial pools every time you
visit, of course, because that's really important, startups or
bidding new customers.
I'm going to kind of switch gears and talk about test
strips.
This is on the other end of the spectrum.
I wouldn't say it's the cheapest way to test pool water now
because test strip prices have really dramatically increased
over the years.
It used to be the cheapest way to test pool water, but the test
strips aren't dirt cheap, but they are affordable and they are
fast.
Now, what do you get with a test strip?
You get kind of a guesstimate of the water.
They are much more accurate than they used to be when I first
started the industry, that's for sure.
But again, it's a lot like the reagent test kit where you take
the test strip, take the bottle, match up the strip to the back
of it, and kind of get an idea of where the pool is as far as
the water chemistry, you know, where the alkalinity and pH are
based on the color of the strip.
I like them because they're fast and I feel like they're really
accurate within range.
I mean, if you use the test strip to get the alkalinity, you
don't know if it's 80, 90, 100, or 70.
There's really no way to know because it's kind of a
guesstimate, but it really doesn't make a huge difference
sometimes if the alkalinity is 70 and you think it's at 80, or
the alkalinity is at 100, it's actually at 90.
It's not gonna break the pool in any way.
Same with the pH.
Is the pH at 7.6 or 7.5 or 7.8?
You know, there's really something to be said with
accuracy when you need it.
Commercial pools, of course, pools that have a problem.
If you're trying to balance the LSI in the pool and the pool's
kind of out of alignment, you definitely want to use something
like a tailored test kit or a photometer to get some more
accurate readings so you can kind of get the LSI dialed in to
where you want it.
But if you're doing everyday testing and you're in a rush,
like a lot of times when it's windy out or you're doing filter
cleanings or it's raining, dipping a test strip in the pool
is quick and easy.
And to me, it's accurate enough for what they're designed for.
They're not designed for week in and week out use, of course,
because you would want to get some kind of accurate reading,
you know, maybe spot on.
So I would say a combination approach is typically the best
for your pool route, you know, Taylor, reagent test kit, maybe
some test trips every so often, and then also maybe if you
wanted to get a photometer to use once a month on your pool
route or for startups or for commercial pools or for problem
pools, I'm all for it.
Now, with the tablets and some reagents, the photometers are a
pretty good investment because you don't have to use up the
reagents right away, or you don't have to use the tablets
right away.
They have a shelf life of like two or three years, some of them
do, and it's a great way to do monthly testing, it's a great
way to verify tests.
Now, with test strips, I like them also when I'm doing a
reagent test and the numbers come out kind of weird, you
know, showing that the you know pH is really low in the pool, or
it shows alkalinity is really high in the pool.
I'll use a test strip to kind of verify that reading to make sure
that it's accurate.
Or if you're having problems reading the chlorine in the
pool, if it's showing you know one part per million and you
think there's more in there, test strip's a great way to kind
of make an accurate assessment because you'll dip it in there,
and if the color there's no color on the chlorine part of
it, you know that it really has no chlorine in the pool.
So they come in handy for that purpose.
They also have a lot of test factors they can do that a
reagent and photometer can't do.
For instance, you can get a phosphate test strip, you can
get copper and iron, you can get borates.
So the test strips have more ranges or more test factors that
you can utilize than, say, the Taylor reagent test kit.
And I did do an analysis a while back of like I meant what I
mentioned in the beginning with the most affordable way to test
the pool, and it does fall into the tailor test kit reagent
test.
There's still the lowest cost for your pool route.
So if you have employees out there and you're looking for a
way to test the pools without spending a lot of money, the
tailor test kit is the way to go because it is the most
affordable with the reagent refills.
Test trips are a little more expensive, but they're still
fairly cheap to use and they're easy to use.
If you have employees that you want to give test trips to and
they can test the pools every so often with them, that's fine as
well.
Photometer, there's a learning curve, and there is something to
be said with accuracy when you're putting the tablet and
crushing it, or when you're adding the reads and drops to
the photometer.
Because it's such an accurate tester, all the user error
happens when you are actually putting the read and tablet in
there.
If you don't crush it all the way, you're not going to get an
accurate reading.
And if you're putting the region in there and you put too many
drops, you're not gonna get an accurate reading as well.
So they're really fine machines basically, that if you want an
accurate reading, you have to actually do the testing very you
know accurately and skillfully.
Same with the spin touch disc, you have to fill them up to a
certain point.
There's like a little line on there that you have to you can
barely see, and if you fill it too little, it's not gonna get
an accurate reading.
You can overfill it.
I think it's better to overfill it than underfill it, but again,
these take a little fine, a little finesse when you're using
the photometer testers to get the accuracy that you're looking
for, and they are very accurate.
I've tested the pool lab 2.0 across the color cube 2x Pro 7
and then the Spin Touch, and I'm getting very similar readings
across the board.
Now I'll end with the digital testers.
Now these are something that you can invest in.
They have a pH tester, you dip it in there.
The one that I use the most is the TDS and salinity tester.
I like the digital tester for this because you can't really
use a test strip or reagent to get the total dissolved solids,
and I find that if you get a TDS salinity, and you also have
conductivity, which I really never use that, and temperature,
if you get a probe that does that, you know, either Lamont or
Hawk, those are really good brands, you'll find that they're
pretty essential on your pool route because you'll be able to
get the salinity reading or salt level of the pool pretty
accurately with it.
Also, you'll get the total dissolved solids in the pool,
and this is really handy to have.
So out of all the digital testers, I think the TDS
salinity tester, salt level tester, is the one to get.
You should have that on your truck for sure.
Now, should you have a pH digital tester?
I find that the probes are really sensitive, they dry out,
they don't you have to calibrate it a lot.
So for me, the pH digital tester is more trouble than it's
actually worth in most cases because you have to realize that
if that probe is inaccurate because it has a little bit of
calcium buildup, or it's not calibrated properly, you're not
going to get an accurate digital pH reading out of that probe.
Now there's a lot of smart water monitors out there that do pH
and do it pretty well.
I've used all of them, you know, the crystal water, and also I
have the finwheel in my pool right now.
I feel like the pH probes are pretty accurate and they're
really good in those kind of environments where it's in one
pool all the time, not drying out, and calibrated to that
pool.
I find those to be very accurate.
But the ones you take with you and dip into different pools, I
find that the maintenance and the longevity of those just
aren't worth the investment.
So for a digital tester, definitely TDS and salt, and
then everything else I would probably not bother with.
I would just rely on test trips, the region testers, the
photometers, and then that one digital meter on your truck
would be handy.
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Thanks for listening to this podcast.
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