Should You Test Your Pool With Strips Or a Liquid Kit?

Swim University makes pool and hot tub care easy for millions of homeowners. Each year, we continue to help more people with water chemistry, cleaning, and troubleshooting. We know taking care of a swimming pool or spa can be difficult. And it’s hard to find a trusted source of information. This is the reason we created Swim University.

[steveh]

... I use test strips frequently and dial it in and then occasionally take a sample to the pool store for a free water test for a more accurate check and to test for things like calcium levels the strip don't show... Works for me

[hubbabubba]

You did literally everything wrong with the liquid drops. You need the bottle vertical, and you don't shake it, you turn it over a few times

[Fgalvezpool]

I am a pool cleaner and we here use Taylor Test kit (liquid) better to do it right and not get inaccurate results. I sometimes use test strips but only to check the Conditioner Levels since that do takes more time so i use strips but i still dont trust them. Do it once, do it right with liquid test

[intxe]

Nothing beats a good drop based test kit. It has made all the difference in my experience! No more weird unexplained issues.

[drdrew]

If you are going to do it then you should do it right. That means accuracy. That means a liquid dropper test. With strips you get inaccurate readings which wastes chemicals, money and time

[jonahschlek]

Well you do a above ground pool open video this year

[ZPIN]

Had so many problems with strips. The chlorine and alk are usually pretty close but everything else hard to read and off by a lot more from what I've seen using them hundreds of times

[mayorb]

Strips are good for a quickie "thumbnail sketch" of the water's balance. I prefer more accurate readings before adjusting chems.

[mikeguerrieri]

For some dumb reason I do both at the same time and it's almost always different from the strips to the kit, new or old.
Is there a test kit you would recommend that is reliable?

[nagel]

test strips are for pool pros while for home owners you should be using reagents

[bizboy]

I just look at at....and shock if needed. I've had an inground pool for 5+ years....open and close it by myself...have never had any issues. Maybe I'm just we don't have any large trees and it's fenced relatively clean.

[XJonAye]

I got a liquid test kit. But I always feel like I'm doing something wrong

[brandonleavitt]

The color on the liquid one is hard to tell the color outside for me, it be so bright it all looks the samesometimes

[marksullivan]

Strips are handy for a quick check on Chlorine…but everything else they’re useless. Especially PH.

You need a real Taylor test kit to know exactly what’s going on

[Dave-hr]

If you hire a chem tech from a pool company I'd say that investing a little money for test strips is a good thing IF YOU SUSPECT YOUR TECH OF NOT DOING THEIR JOB. However, as the video said, strips are less accurate but they will easily tell you if chemicals have been added.

[JT-slui]

Test strips all day long. Use them like you should and they won’t get old and keep them in their bottle and they won’t get moist. 👍🏻