Hydrotherapy pool maintenance – what’s needed?

It’s pretty simple; if you keep up with hydrotherapy pool maintenance, it will last longer. But we know that keeping a pool clean and in order can be time-consuming — particularly when it’s a tiled pool.

Cleaning the pool can take hours, and then you need to do the normal checks and services to make sure it’s all up to spec. But what maintenance does a hydrotherapy pool actually need?

And can it be made any simpler? We’ve taken a look.

What different things are covered in hydrotherapy pool maintenance?

Just like standard swimming pools, hydrotherapy pools should undergo regular checks to ensure that the components of the pool are all working okay and that the water in it is healthy to be doing therapy in. Hydrotherapy pools should also be serviced once a year; this includes a more detailed inspection of the components of the pool and the pool itself.

It’s important to remember that hydrotherapy pools should be kept clean. With different people using it that may be more susceptible to picking up bugs from the pool, keeping it hygienic is incredibly important.

With traditional tiled pools, cleaning them can be rather pesky. Bacteria can harbour in the gaps between tiles and in any nooks and crannies that may have formed from wear and tear.

Tiled pools also need to be re-grouted periodically to combat any erosion between the tiles. In SEN schools or rehabilitation facilities where hydrotherapy pools can be installed, infection control is a prominent concern, so tiled pools can cause more harm than good sometimes.

Conversely, stainless steel hydrotherapy pools are designed and built to give as little habitable surface area to bacteria as possible. The stainless steel is sterile, and then the pool itself is all one piece meaning no joins or seams that may be more vulnerable to infectious colonies.

Regular User Checks

At Innova, we always suggest carrying out regular hydrotherapy pool care to ensure that everything is as it should be in your hydrotherapy pool. You should check the water a couple of times every week. This includes looking at the:

• Chlorine levels
  • Free chlorine: 0.5-1.5ppm (mg/l)
  • Combined chlorine: 0.05ppm (mg/l)
  • Total chlorine: 0.5-1.5ppm (mg/l)
• pH levels
  • ATACP Guidance – “pH level ‘recommended value of between 7.0 and 7.4 should be the range when using chlorine-based disinfectants and ideally 7.0 to 7.2 for a better disinfectant effect’.“
• Temperature (32°-36°)
• Water level

You can keep an eye on the water level, but please be aware that an overfilled hydrotherapy pool will affect the function of the pool skimmer and filtration system. The water should come up to about a third or halfway in the skimmer, any higher and the movement of water will begin to slow, and any debris will continue to float around in the pool itself. It’s important to carry out regular pool water maintenance to protect the lifespan and performance of your pool.

Just like swimming pool maintenance, we recommend that you check the filtration system every so often to ensure that it is kept clean to capture any debris.

Annual Hydrotherapy Pool Service

Your hydrotherapy pool will also need servicing once a year. This is a more in-depth check, and the engineer will look at lots of different pieces of equipment in your pool to make sure that it’s working as well as can be and that there are no issues that need addressing.

In our hydrotherapy pool services, we look at everything from the filtration system and the pump, through to the pool itself. We also offer hydrotherapy pool water analysis services to ensure that everything is as it should be. Our services tend to be a bit more straightforward because of the simplicity of our hydrotherapy pools.

The fact that they are stainless steel and installed in just one piece makes them much easier to maintain over a longer period. There are no worries about cracks forming, or gaps opening up between tiles.

We’ll look at the pump, filtration, and any additional features included in your hydrotherapy pool to make sure that it’s working just as well as it did when we first installed it.

Summary

The amount of hydrotherapy pool maintenance required really does vary depending on the setup of your pool. Tiled ones take a bit more effort to upkeep, whereas stainless steel pools are a bit easier to service and less time-consuming.

A combination of cleaning, regular user checks carried out by you, and annual services should keep your hydrotherapy pool in the best shape possible for a long time.