Staying afloat during loadshedding

Let’s face it, loadshedding has overstayed its welcome and whether we like it or not, it’s going to be in our lives for a while.

Whether we experience it over long periods or at random intervals, as pool owners we can wise up now and avoid costly headaches in the long run.

How does loadshedding affect my pool?

If the water has changed colour, this could be a strong indicator of issues related to power cuts. When pools are frequently affected by outages there is an increased likelihood of cloudy water or algae blooms. Bacteria levels may increase as well. Also, remember that pool equipment needs to be adequately protected from surges, or else it could get damaged.

How can I protect my pool to ensure minimal or no damage during loadshedding?

During a power cut it’s recommended you turn your pool equipment off at the mains in order to protect it from power surges. The aim is to prevent any surges on the line during power restoration. As a preventative measure, you can hook up surge protectors to safeguard your equipment.

What should I do when the power comes back on?

• Firstly, check all your pool equipment to make sure there are no issues.
• You can switch them back on and pay attention to your timers as you probably need to reset them.
• Do the same for the pump, lights, the heater, filter, and any other automation systems that keep your pool on schedule.
• If you’ve endured a long period of power cuts, go ahead and prime your pool pump next. Click here for a step-by-step process on how to do this: Priming a pool pump

Stay one step ahead of load shedding Eskom has released a list of useful tips to optimise your pool’s energy consumption. It’s important to make regular pool maintenance a priority, as this will contribute to optimising how much electricity your pool pump uses.

• Clean areas in your pool with the least circulation by brushing the floor and walls of your pool to remove debris that the filter misses, at least once a week.
• Clean your pool filter and do so at regular intervals throughout the year – a clean filter is key to better water flow.
• Set the controller/time switches on your pool pump to operate for limited periods at the most appropriate times. Eskom encourages you to set your pool pump to run outside of 5pm to 9pm, the period of peak demand for electricity in South Africa, whilst still allowing your pool pump to filter the water twice in a 24-hour period when the pool is in use.
• If an average household reduces their pool pump operating time by just one hour per day, the annual demand reduction will be around 274kWh or approximately R680.00 saving.