We just bought a very small Intex pool (10×30). Because we want to leave it up for the next several weeks I know we need to treat it as a regular above ground pool and shock it and maintain it throughout the season. My significant other disagrees and says it will be fine left untreated as long as we keep it covered because it is so small. I absolutely know this is wrong and will not let the kids in it. I have been trying to find what could happen if you swim in a pool like that to show him, but I can’t find any details online. Could you explain why this would be a bad thing.

Question:

We just bought a very small Intex pool (10×30). Because we want to leave it up for the next several weeks I know we need to treat it as a regular above ground pool and shock it and maintain it throughout the season. My significant other disagrees and says it will be fine left untreated as long as we keep it covered because it is so small. I absolutely know this is wrong and will not let the kids in it. I have been trying to find what could happen if you swim in a pool like that to show him, but I can’t find any details online. Could you explain why this would be a bad thing.

Answer:

At the very least, you will probably get an algae outbreak which will cost you more time and money to clean up than the small investment in chlorine to make sure that you do not have issues. The worst case scenario is that you have some bacteria or parasite present that grows in your untreated water and gets everyone sick. There are many examples of pools that are chlorinated that just happen to run low and people get sick (sometimes very sick) from the contaminants in untreated water. Having the cover on only helps many of the conataminants to grow as the water stays warm and protected.