A key factor in determining how much chlorine your pool will use over the course of a swimming season: Cyanuric Acid level.
If you have too little cyanuric acid in the pool, sunlight and warmer temperatures will make keeping a decent free chlorine residual difficult. On the other hand, too much chlorine stabilizer in pool water may reduce the effectiveness of free chlorine and mean having to keep a higher free chlorine residual to achieve the desired level of sanitation in the pool.
As a general rule residential pool owners will test the cyanuric acid level in their pools once or twice a year… at the beginning of the swimming season and again, perhaps, in the middle of the swimming season.
Tho have their cyanuric acid levels checked most people will take a sample of their pool water to their local pool supply store for analysis. Others will use at-home pool water testing products such as Aquachek 7 Way Test Strips, liquid reagent cyanuric acid test kits, or an electronic pool testing meter such as the eXact Micro 7+ Pool Testing Meter.
