How Long Does it Take to Clean a Pool?

It’s all fun and games to have a nice pool as a personal haven back home until it’s time for a clean-up. You may be left wondering whether this could be a tedious work of hours. We can’t tell you exactly how long it may take to bring your pool back to life; it depends on the pool itself! Several factors will determine the amount of time you will need.

However, for an estimate, if you already subject your pool to regular maintenance, it should hardly take 30 minutes. But if the pool we’re talking about is poorly maintained, this may take up to an hour. For a green pool, expect no less than 3 to 4 days. 

  • The size of the pool, the type of filter you’ve used, the season and the accumulation of all that dirt and debris, chemical imbalance, and algae growth govern the required time.
  • For the swimming season, you may need to exert more effort and do it often, while it can be the opposite for the offseason. Cleaning up leaves takes up most of the time, in winters, while in summers, it is the pumps and the filters.
  • Summer favors algae growth due to heat, and you get some more unwelcome guests left to take care of. The equipment you use for the cleaning will help you speed or slow the process too.

Consider a pool leaf cover, such as In The Swim’s pool leaf net cover, which does a great job collecting the leaves for you. All that is required is spreading the net, and voila! You just saved yourself time.

How Long Does it Take to Clean a Green Pool?

As mentioned above, it usually takes up to three to five days. The minimum time would be 24 hours, but this won’t be enough to do a thorough clean-up. For this, you will need to increase the chlorine level of the pool, shock it, and keep the conditions the same till you put your unwelcome guests to sleep. The total cost may range from $400 to $600.

You can check out our article on the Cheapest Way to Chlorinate a Pool and save up some on the cost’s front.

If you hit the fifth day, yet the algae remain stubborn, there may be some problem with the pump or filter. You should best get it checked by pool repair professionals or a company. If any problem exists, they will help you resolve it, lest the issue develops.

A Green Pool

How Long Does it Take to Clean a Pool Filter?

Pool filters are crucial to your pool, and maintenance is crucial to them. Care should be taken once every month, more or less depending upon the type of filter you’ve installed. The frequency can gradually decrease when it’s the off-season, though.

The time required, similar to the maintenance, would vary depending on your installed filter. There are three types of filters; sand, cartridge or diatomaceous earth (D.E.). The sand filter is undoubtedly the easiest and quickest to clean. It merely needs to be back-washed, which is generally easy and might take 30 minutes at most.

Recommended Sand Filter:

The cartridge filter needs to be left overnight. Similar to the sand filter, D.E. needs to be back-washed too; however, maintenance isn’t as simple even if they are more effective (and expensive!) than the other two. Deep cleaning of the filters is recommended once every year.

Recommended D.E. Filter:

What is The Fastest Way to Clean a Pool?

You can use two different methods to clean a pool; manual vacuuming or automatic vacuuming, which is a much more efficient way to get things done. Considering this; if you go with manual vacuuming to shimmer things up for an average-sized and well-maintained pool, it may take up to 30 minutes.

However, if the pool is poorly looked after, the time may rise to 45 minutes to an hour! Keep in mind that this is all active labor we are talking about. 

Contrary to that, the automatic vacuum cleaner may take a bit more time, but you won’t need to hassle as much. You end up saving your own time by letting it do the job instead. I have long considered the Polaris 9550 as the best automatic pool cleaner for the task. And it turns out great too. All you would be required to do is clear out the trash from the filter bag. The process can take from one hour to 6 hours, depending upon the pool and its overall health.
In conclusion, cleaning an average, well-maintained pool would take between 30 minutes and 1 hour. The time would increase as the level of maintenance degrades. You can always cut back on it with the help of appropriate devices. Sand filters can knock out some of your time which may get otherwise spent on cleaning filters, and so can pool leaf covers!

You can also read our helpful pool care guides for pool owners: