Pool cleaning in Palmetto Bay, FL
Canals to the bay, iguanas on the seawall, and screen cages that take the brunt of every storm.
Canal pools and what comes with them
East of Old Cutler, most of Palmetto Bay drains toward Biscayne Bay through canals, and iguanas own those seawalls. Homeowners here deal with more of them than almost anywhere else we run. They bask on the coping, they get spooked, and they end up in the water.
We handle those pools on a set routine. Physical removal of anything solid, then chlorine held at shock level long enough to sanitise, then a hand brush of the steps, the tanning ledge and the swim out, since those are the low flow spots where droppings settle. We test free chlorine at the start of the visit, not the end, so we know what the week did to it.
The other canal habit worth knowing: keep the pool level a couple of inches below the tile after heavy rain. Overflow washes deck runoff straight in, and deck runoff on this side of Old Cutler brings salt spray residue with it.
Storm season on the bay side
You are close enough to open water that named storms mean something different here than they do in West Kendall. The one thing we tell every Palmetto Bay customer: do not drain your pool before a hurricane. An empty or half empty shell can float out of the ground when the water table comes up, and that turns a storm into a structural repair.
What to actually do is simpler. Leave the water in, drop it two or three inches below the skimmer mouth if heavy rain is forecast, shut the breaker to the pump at the panel, and put the loose deck furniture in the pool rather than in the yard. Furniture in the water will scuff plaster a little. Furniture in the air goes through a window.
After the storm, do not switch the pump back on until you have looked at the equipment pad for standing water. Then run the filter continuously for a day or two, and expect the chlorine demand to be high. Rainwater dilutes chlorine and drops phosphates in at the same time, so a storm pool needs both shock and time.
Cages take a beating down here
A lot of Palmetto Bay pools sit under screen enclosures, which is a real advantage most of the year. The cages closest to the bay corrode faster though, because salt in the air works on the fasteners and the base plates. We look at your cage screws and your enclosure track while we are there and mention it when they start going, since a screen panel is cheap and a rebuilt cage is not.
Get a price for your Palmetto Bay pool
Cross streets and rough pool size is enough. We will tell you the weekly number and which day of the week that area gets serviced.