The key to a having a sparking, beautiful pool is keeping up daily and weekly maintenance. Fortunately, the chores are pretty easy. Here's the breakdown:

Daily chores

Check the water level. Keep the water level between one-third and one-half the height of your skimmer opening. If it’s higher, debris won't go in, and if it's lower, air can enter and burn out your pump.

If you have to add water every day, you have a leak. Contact your pool service company.

Clean. Remove debris with your pool leaf rake or skimmer net, and vacuum if necessary to remove dirt on the bottom or sides. Clean out the skimmer baskets.

Sanitize. Add chlorine or another sanitizer according to your pool supplier's recommendations. Chlorine floaters with slow dissolving tablets, automatic chlorinators and slow-dissolve chlorine tablets for your skimmer all make this chore a little easier.

Test water quality. Test the pH and chlorine levels and adjust as needed. Chlorine levels should be 1.0 to 2.0 parts per million (ppm), and pH should be slightly alkaline, around 7.2 to 7.6 (a reading below 7.0 indicates acidic water). Adjust your chlorine and alkalinity as needed.

Filter. Run the pool filter long enough that all the water in your pool cycles through it at least once, usually 8 to 10 hours. If possible, run your filter all the time to keep your water extra clean. At the very least, run the filter when the pool is most in use.

Weekly chores

Clean the filter. Backwash your sand or diatomaceous earth (DE) filter. Backwashing, running water backwards through the filter, removes debris and improves the filter's effectiveness. If you have a cartridge filter, take it out and hose it down once a month.

Refill the pool. Backwashing uses up a lot of water. Refill your pool immediately after backwashing and before adding chemicals. Otherwise, the chemicals are diluted and your pool pump can be damaged.

Test the water. Test for total alkalinity (TA) and calcium hardness, in addition to doing your daily test for pH and chlorine.

TA differs from pH. While pH measures how alkaline or acidic the water is, TA measures the level of alkaline substances, such as sodium bicarbonate. Keeping your TA within the right range makes it easier to maintain a steady pH. The range for painted, vinyl and fiberglass pools is between 125 and 170 ppm and for concrete and Gunite pools is between 80 and 120 ppm.

Calcium hardness tests tell how hard the water is. Too much calcium can cause scale on your pool, and too little corrodes the pool. The recommended range is 200 to 400 ppm.

Treat the water. Shock your pool, hyperchlorinate the water to kill any algae and clear it, and add algaecide. No one can swim in the pool until the chlorine levels are normal, so Friday night is a good time to shock the pool to prepare it for the weekend