Hear from Our Customers
You’re not looking for another opinion. You want to know if your pool is safe to swim in, what chemicals you actually need, and whether you’re about to damage your liner or equipment because something’s off.
That’s what this test does. We check pH, chlorine levels, alkalinity, calcium hardness, and stabilizer—the stuff that test strips either miss or get wrong. You bring us a water sample, we run it through professional equipment, and you walk out knowing exactly what your pool needs.
No upselling. No pressure. Just accurate results and a straightforward explanation of what to do next. If your water’s balanced, we’ll tell you. If it’s not, we’ll explain what’s happening and why it matters—for your family’s safety, your equipment, and your wallet.
We’ve been serving Jacksonville and the surrounding South Georgia area since 2014, but the experience behind Deep Waters Pools goes back three decades. We started in concrete and plumbing, moved into custom pool builds, and eventually opened our own shop because we got tired of seeing homeowners get bad advice about their water.
We’re local. We know how the water behaves here—what happens after a heavy rain, how the heat affects chlorine, and what Jacksonville pool owners deal with that someone in another state wouldn’t understand. That’s why we offer this test for free. You shouldn’t have to guess, and you shouldn’t have to pay just to find out what’s wrong.
Here’s how it works. You bring us a water sample from your pool—about 16 ounces in a clean container, taken from elbow-deep in the water, not right at the surface. We run it through our testing equipment, which measures the levels that matter: pH, free chlorine, total alkalinity, calcium hardness, and cyanuric acid.
The whole process takes a few minutes. Once we have the results, we walk you through what they mean. If your pH is too low, we’ll explain how that’s affecting your chlorine and potentially damaging your liner. If your alkalinity is off, we’ll tell you why your pH keeps bouncing around no matter what you add.
Then we give you a printout with the exact products and amounts you need to bring everything back into range. You’re not buying anything from us unless you want to. The test is free either way. You leave with a clear plan, and if you have questions later, you can call.
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This isn’t a basic dip-and-read test strip. We’re checking the full chemistry profile—pH, free chlorine, total chlorine, alkalinity, calcium hardness, and stabilizer levels. That’s important because these factors influence each other. High pH makes your chlorine less effective. Low alkalinity makes your pH unstable. High calcium can cause scaling. You can’t fix one without understanding the others.
In South Georgia, we also deal with specific water conditions that affect pools differently than they would up north. Our heat burns through chlorine faster. Summer storms dump phosphates and organic matter into your water. Well water in the Jacksonville area often comes in with high iron or calcium. We account for all of that when we read your results.
You’ll get a printed report that shows where your levels are, where they should be, and what to add to correct them. We’ll also explain why those corrections matter—not just for water clarity, but for protecting your liner, your pump, your heater, and anyone who swims in your pool.
At least once a week during swim season, and more often if you’re using the pool heavily or if you’ve had a storm. Rain dilutes your chemicals and brings in contaminants. Heavy use burns through chlorine faster and throws off your pH.
If your pool looks cloudy, feels slimy, or smells like chlorine (which actually means you don’t have enough free chlorine), bring in a sample right away. Waiting just makes the problem harder to fix. A quick test tells you what’s actually wrong instead of you dumping in chemicals and hoping it clears up.
Even in the off-season, test your water at least once a month. Chemistry doesn’t stop just because you’re not swimming. Keeping your water balanced year-round protects your equipment and makes opening your pool in the spring a lot easier.
You can, but they’re not accurate enough to catch problems before they get expensive. Test strips give you a rough range, and they’re especially bad at measuring total alkalinity and calcium hardness. They also degrade if they’re exposed to moisture or heat, which happens the second you open the bottle in a humid South Georgia summer.
Our equipment tests for more parameters and gives you exact numbers, not color ranges you have to squint at in the sunlight. That precision matters when you’re trying to balance your water. Adding too much of one chemical because your strip was off can create a chain reaction that takes days to fix.
The other issue is that test strips don’t tell you why your levels are off or what’s influencing what. We do. You get context, not just numbers. That’s the difference between fixing the problem and just treating symptoms.
We’ll tell you exactly what to do to fix it, step by step. If your pH is below 7.0, you’re risking liner damage and your chlorine isn’t working right. If it’s above 7.8, your water’s going to cloud up and scale will start forming on your tile and equipment. Both are fixable, but you need to know how much of what to add and in what order.
Sometimes the fix is simple—add some pH increaser or decreaser and retest in a day. Other times, especially if alkalinity or calcium is also out of range, you’ll need to make adjustments over a few days to avoid overshooting. We’ll map that out for you so you’re not guessing.
If your water’s in really bad shape—green, black algae, or chemically locked up—we’ll be honest about whether it’s worth trying to save it or if you’re better off draining and starting fresh. Either way, you’ll know what you’re dealing with and what it’s going to take.
No. The test is free whether you buy anything or not. We’re not using it as a sales tactic. We offer it because accurate water testing prevents bigger problems, and most pool owners don’t have access to professional equipment at home.
If you want to pick up what you need from us after the test, great. If you’d rather buy it somewhere else, that’s fine too. We’ll still give you the full report and explain what to do. The goal is to help you keep your pool in good shape, not to pressure you into a purchase.
That said, we do carry the chemicals and products we recommend, and they’re the same quality we’d use on our own pools. If you’re already here and you trust the results, it’s convenient. But it’s your call.
Grab a clean plastic container—a water bottle works fine—and take your sample from about elbow-deep in the pool, away from the return jets and skimmer. Don’t skim it off the surface. You want a sample that represents the bulk of your water, not just what’s sitting on top.
Bring it in as soon as you can, ideally within a few hours. The longer it sits, especially in heat, the less accurate the results will be. If you can’t make it the same day, keep it in a cool, dark place and get it to us within 24 hours.
Don’t add any chemicals right before you take the sample. If you shocked your pool last night, wait until the next day to test. We need to see what your water actually looks like under normal conditions, not right after you’ve dosed it.
Yes. If you’re filling a new pool or you’re on well water in the Jacksonville area, it’s smart to test before you start adding chemicals. Well water around here often has high iron, calcium, or manganese, and if you don’t know that upfront, you’ll be chasing problems for weeks.
We’ll test your source water and tell you what you’re starting with. That way, you know if you need to treat for metals, adjust calcium right away, or plan for higher alkalinity. It saves you time and money, and it keeps you from staining your brand-new liner because you didn’t know your water had iron in it.
If you’re filling from a hose connected to city water, it’s still worth testing once the pool is full. Chlorine levels in municipal water can vary, and you’ll want a baseline before you start your maintenance routine.
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