Green pool cleanup in Los Angeles

Balance the pH first, brush the walls and floor, shock heavily at dusk so the sun does not destroy the chlorine, then run the filter continuously and clean it as often as it loads up. The order is what makes it fast. Done properly, most pools are swimmable in about two days.

It can almost always be cleaned with the water still in it, and we do not drain pools for algae. Draining risks the shell, dries out the plaster, leaves the spores in the surface anyway, and means paying to refill and rebalance thousands of gallons.

No. Water green enough to see has no effective sanitiser, so bacteria are unchecked, and skin, ear and stomach infections are the usual result. The bigger risk is simpler: if you cannot see the bottom, you cannot see the steps or a person in trouble.

No. Baking soda raises total alkalinity, which is a useful supporting step, but it kills nothing. It is often confused with soda ash, which raises pH, and with chlorine shock, which is what actually destroys algae. Balance first, then shock.

Test free chlorine, correct the pH, brush the walls, shock in the evening and run the filter overnight. If the tinge comes back within days, something is causing it: a short pump schedule, an empty chlorinator, a salt cell that has stopped producing, or stabilizer high enough to lock the chlorine up.

From $349, with a typical private pool between $349 and $749. The band is wide because a week of green and a year of green are different jobs: different numbers of shocks and filter cleans, sometimes new cartridges, sometimes a return visit. Weekly maintenance customers take 20% off.

Balancing and shocking the water until the algae is dead, cleaning or replacing the filter — a badly green pool usually needs more than one filter clean — vacuuming out what settles, and a return visit where one shock is not enough. A week of green and a year of green are different jobs, which is why the price is a range and not a number. Weekly maintenance customers take 20% off.

The same order, just more of it. A pool you cannot see the bottom of almost always has leaves and silt under the algae, so the debris comes out first, and it takes two or three shock cycles instead of one with a filter clean between each. Expect three to five days rather than two, and expect an honest conversation about the floor once the water clears.

Yes, and it is a second job rather than a failed first one. Algae roots in the pores of the plaster and leaves a shadow behind after the water itself is dead clear. Brushing and a week of steady chlorine lift some of it. What is left is an acid wash, which takes a very thin layer off the plaster and starts at $749.