Roadrunner Pool Services › Guides › Weekly service
Why a cleanup is quoted separately from weekly service, and why the filter matters more than the shock.
A green pool is not a dirty pool, it is a pool that lost its sanitizer long enough for algae to establish. Bringing it back is a project with a beginning and an end, which is why it gets its own quote rather than being folded into a regular visit.
A recovery needs more chemical, more brushing, and more filter attention than a normal visit has hours for. Trying to absorb it into a routine stop is how pools stay half green for a month while everyone gets frustrated. We would rather quote it honestly after seeing it.
Test and correct the water first, because shocking a pool with wrong pH or sky-high stabilizer wastes the chemical. Then a heavy dose, then brushing every surface, particularly steps, corners and behind ladders where algae anchors. Then the filter does the actual work of clearing the dead algae out of the water, and that is where most of the time goes.
Dead algae loads a filter fast. On a bad pool the filter needs cleaning partway through the recovery, sometimes more than once, or the water simply stops clearing. This is the step homeowners skip and the reason a DIY attempt often stalls at cloudy gray. Most valley pools come back in one or two visits with the filter cleaned in between.
If the plaster underneath is badly stained or the water has been standing for a long season, the honest answer is sometimes a drain and acid wash rather than a chemical recovery, or a replaster if the surface is finished anyway. We will tell you which one you are looking at before you spend money on the wrong one.
A pool that went green once will go green again on the same schedule that let it happen. That is usually the point where a twice-a-week routine makes sense, at least through the summer.