Read a pool's chemistry trends
Open a customer and scroll past their properties. PoolHelm draws a chart per pool for every reading it has history for: free chlorine, pH, total alkalinity, cyanuric acid, calcium hardness, total dissolved solids, and salinity.
It needs three readings
Until then, each chart says “Need 3+ readings to show a trend.” Two points is a line, not a trend — and a line between two points will happily tell you a story that isn’t there.
What to look for
- A drift, not a spike. One high chlorine reading is a bad test strip or a shock the day before. Chlorine falling a little further every week is a stabilizer problem, a leak, or a pump running fewer hours than you think.
- pH climbing steadily is normal in a plaster pool and after a fresh fill. pH climbing fast usually means aeration — a water feature, a spa jet left on, or a leak drawing air.
- Cyanuric acid only goes up unless water leaves the pool. Rising quickly means you’re using stabilized chlorine faster than the pool can carry. The fix is a product change, not more chlorine.
- Salinity dropping at a saltwater pool through the season is usually rain and splash-out. It’s the cheapest problem on this list to fix.
Why it beats one report
A report tells you what one visit found. A trend tells you whether your treatment is working. It’s also the best argument for a customer who thinks they don’t need weekly service: six months of a flat, in-range chart.
Every number is a reading your tech took during the Test phase, exactly as recorded. Nothing is smoothed, averaged, or estimated.
See also: “Set per-pool chemistry ranges” and “What’s in your service report” in the For Homeowners collection.