TaylorPool Water Test Kit, Complete Swimming Pool Water Test Kit, for Chlorine, pH, and Alkaline Levels, Ideal for Pools, Hot Tubs, and Spas, 1-Pack

QUICK SUMMARY: This is the exact and perfect kit to test your pool or spa water. It is accurate, easy to use, and will save you a TON of money because you won't have to blindly follow the advice of your neighborhood pool store. Highly recommended!!Background: We just had built a new backyard pool this summer. Initially, I took water samples every week to two (sometimes three) different pool stores that sell chemicals and equipment to pool owners. I quickly learned that water testing is half-art and half-science. I also learned that NOBODY will be as careful to perform water tests on your pool water than YOU. Finally, I learned that there is so much variation in testing methods -- leading to differing, often conflicting advice from the pool pro at the pool store -- that the best course of action is to just do everything yourself. It's easy to do, and it'll save you money, too.More background info: I mentioned above that I had my water tested by two (or three) pool companies. Using water samples taken at the same time and place in my pool, and having the water tested within the hour, these pool companies would give sometimes widely varying test results -- leading to sometimes conflicting advice. Example: Pool Co #1 said my free chlorine was 4 ppm, while Pool Co. #2 said my free chlorine was either near zero or super high, like around 10 ppm. Example #2: Pool Co. #1 said my Total Alkalinity was way too high; add acid! Pool Co. #2 said my alkalinity was a little low; add baking soda! Whom do I believe? This is why I test my own water now -- I *very carefully* measure everything, including the amount of water being tested, and the drops of the chemicals I add to the water. I'm not in a rush; I want accurate test results.What I LIKE:- It's easy to learn how to test your pool water for all the essential things: Free Chlorine, Combined Chlorine, pH, Total Alkalinity, Calcium Hardness and Cyanuric Acid (stablizer). Only the cyanuric acid test is a little tricky, but you can easily repeat that test over and over without using more test chemicals (more on that later).- There is a very helpful pamphlet included in this kit that explains a lot about water testing and sanitizing. It's pretty easy to read, too.- Using this kit lets you very precisely determine chlorine levels, including both free and combined chlorine, without having to do any color matching. In fact, there is no color matching for any of the tests except the pH test.What Could Be BETTER:- I wish the kit came with a larger supply of the chemicals you use the most: the powder and drops used with the chlorine test, and the red drops used for the pH test. These are the tests you'll want to perform daily. The other tests can be done between once a week and once a month.- The kit should point users to the Taylor website's videos which show how to perform the tests.Additional Advice: Using this kit, I'm taking a minimalist attitude towards pool chemicals. I don't shock the pool -- EVER -- unless combined chlorine is 1.0. That saves money on chlorine. I don't add clarifiers, phosphate removers, shocks, superchlorinators. I keep my pool water around 3-4ppm with high levels of stablizer so the chlorine doesn't get burned up in the sun. I do add algicide once a week as a precaution against algae. And I only add acid when pH rises to 7.8 or higher.Advice on Testing Procedure: Taylor (the manufacturer) says that to measure the liquid drops correctly, you must invert the bottle 180 degrees -- not 90, 120 or 150 degrees. Turn the bottle completely upside down and SLOWLY squeeze the bottle to form full drops that fall into your test water. If you turn the bottle horizontally (90 degree rotation), then squeeze, the drops you create are undersized and you don't get accurate results because you added too little test chemical into your water. I am shocked at how pool pros at pool stores and others who maintain public swimming pools use Taylor chemicals but don't follow Taylor's instruction on performing the test procedure!I've already disregarded the advice of the "pros" who have suggested that I add this chemical or that chemical to my pool. Using this Taylor kit, I am confident that I can continue keeping my pool water crystal clear and sparkling by spending 5 minutes a day doing chlorine and pH tests, and a few more minutes doing the other tests on Saturday morning. If I followed the advice of the "pros", I would've dumped acid into my pool when I didn't need to, or I would have shocked my pool even though there was no reason to do so. With knowledge comes power, and this Taylor kit gives me the knowledge I need to maintain my own pool water quality.Highly recommended!!!9/6/2012 UPDATE: It's been a year now since I wrote the above review. I re-affirm everything I wrote. My water has been sparkly clear every day of the year, and I've only shocked the pool once, just before a big pool party with lots of kids. I only use algicide after a big rain, not once a week. I test my water every 2-3 days now. I still take water samples to the area pool stores every couple of months, but I trust my results before I trust theirs. One tip I didn't mention in my review: use only one scoop of the FAS-DPD powder, not two, if the water turns pink after adding just one scoop (it always turns pink for me after one scoop). Adding the extra scoop when the water is already pink doesn't improve or detract from the test you're performing, but it does waste the expensive powder unnecessarily.12/20/2013 UPDATE: Wow! Thanks, Amazon-ers, for all the Helpful votes! :-) This summer, we dropped using algicide altogether, even after big rains. We keep our pool in the 3.0 to 4.0 free chlorine range, and that apparently has kept algae and pink slime away without adding any other chemicals to our pool. I probably saved $50-$100 this year not using algicide. If I am worried about water clarity after a party or big rain, I add 1.5 gallons of unscented, plain Clorox (which is just diluted form of pool store liquid chlorine). The pool was spotless, crystal clear and enjoyable all year long. I also don't test the water every day, either; instead, I test the water 2-3 times a week. Because the water condition is held constant for so long, and because I know my pool and pool water so well, testing more frequently than this is unnecessary. If you're just starting out, test every day until you really understand your pool and how to balance your water. Then, back-off testing it daily but not less than 2-3x per week. I can't believe how easy it is to maintain crystal clear water. Note that I added the extra advice, above, on the test procedure to use, since it's important to not only use good quality test chemicals, but also to follow a correct test procedure, too.01/22/2017 UPDATE: I don't have a salt test kit, and my salt water chlorine generator's salt reading was reading high (it does that when the water temp drops). So, I went to three pool stores to have my pool water tested (two of them Pinch-a-Penny stores, one a local pool store). Below are the results from the three stores.Salt reading? 3000 or 3300 or 3750Chlorine level? 1.5 or 4.0 or 4.0 (I got 5.5 from my own testing)pH? 7.3, 7.6, 7.4 (I got 7.2; I added acid an hour earlier)Alkalinity? 80 or 85 or 120 (I tested 85 after adding a little baking soda when it was 80)Calcium hardness? 270 or 330 or 290 (I got 380)Stabilizer? 25 or 80 or 60 (it's 60, and has been for months)I watched one guy (who didn't test my water) shake drops out (NO! gently squeeze them out). Another squeezed drops holding the bottle horizontally (NO! hold the bottle completely upside down). The imprecision of these pool stores in their testing process is observable if you know what to look for.The kicker? My chlorine has been high because the water cooled. The Pinch-a-Penny that told me my chlorine was only 1.5 said I should I use the Boost button to increase my chlorine. NO!!Never, NEVER trust a pool store to test your pool water.(I'm going to buy my own Taylor salt test kit now....)

There are similar test kits out there, I cannot speak for those. I got a 7500 gallon above ground pool hearing my whole life how much of a nightmare they are and how expensive the chemicals are. I didn't care, I wanted a pool. I also got test strips, they were not nearly good enough. This pool is round, 18ft diameter and 52" deep. The volume of your pool directly reflects how much your chemicals will cost. I'll kind of break that down as well in this review. Keep in mind, my pool is only 7500 gallons.I ordered this. It allows you to do a bunch of tests and comes with a nice guidebook on what it all means. It's a lot but if you read the little book it's very interesting and gives you an actual understanding of some of the many things happening in your water.The bottle sizes are small and you can only test for CYA a handful of times (you shouldn't need more than this kit for a solid summer of learning) and some of the tests you only need to do once or twice a season, so those bottles will last a long time.For the tests that require frequent testing, which changes depending on your water source, there is quite a bit here. I have very high alkalinity in my water, so there was a lot of alkaline and PH tests I had to do before I got that in check. My hardness was alright, and PH will move around a bit since chemicals aren't neutral, but for me my PH tends to go up, so a couple bottles of muriatic acid lasts the entire year, easily.I'll review the product first. I love this thing. There's 2 sizes so it's recommended to get the one with the larger size bottles. I got the smaller one and honestly it's enough. As I said, most of the tests aren't even monthly tests, and even the larger size bottles are still pretty small for the regular tests. You can purchase a 16oz bottle of R-0871 and a half pound of R-0870 powder for less than the cost of this entire kit, and you'll be able to test chlorine every day of the year 20 times if you want.So i recommend getting this kit, learning the chemistry, then just buying large bottles from Taylor of the refills you use often. This is a perfect starting point though and it will save you money.Most of the tests are very simple once you get the hang of it. Get a water sample, put in a few drops of a certain bottle, put in drops from another bottle, reference a sheet, add what it says. A few have an extra step and a few have even less steps. Once you learn it, you can pop out a chlorine test in a minute. I pretty much end up putting a red solo cup (2 cups) of 10% liquid chlorine in the pool a day now that the pool is balanced, and every 2 weeks I need to add a cup of muriatic acid. Of course you need to balance everything first and get your CYA levels right, but if you read the booklet you'll understand all that in no time.Cost: So I spent the summer learning and trying to figure out the ins and outs so I did a few experiments so I probably used more chemicals than I had to overall just to get the hang of it, but here's what I spent.I spent about 20 dollars in muriatic acid, bought a massive bottle of pool conditioner(cya) for like 30 bucks that should last years, a box of shock powder packets for 30 bucks, and about a gallon of 10% liquid chlorine a week. sometimes more, sometimes less. Those gallon jugs are 6 bucks each approx.Overall, now that it's balanced, on average for a 7500 gallon pool, I don't spend more than 10 bucks a week. The odd time I go on vacation and the water gets a little out of control, I just shut off the pump, let it settle, and vacuum it out to waste a few times then dump in a packet of shock powder and turn the pump back on and clean everything a couple more times and it's crystal clear again.I'm about to now purchase larger sizes of the chemicals to check chlorine levels and I should be good to go for years.

I’ll be the first to admit it – I’ve been using dip sticks for far too long, and it’s been a frustrating experience. But the TAYLOR TECHNOLOGIES INC K-2006 TEST KIT has completely transformed my approach to pool maintenance, and I’m kicking myself for not making the switch sooner.This kit is an absolute game changer. It provides accurate and reliable results, which is crucial for maintaining a safe and sparkling clean swimming pool. The FAS-DPD method for measuring chlorine levels is a revelation compared to those finicky dip sticks.What I love most about this kit is its precision and ease of use. It’s straightforward to follow the instructions, and the color-matching system is simple and foolproof. No more guesswork, no more frustration.I can confidently say that this kit has improved the quality of my pool water, and it gives me peace of mind knowing that I’m using a professional-grade tool. It’s an investment that pays off in the long run, both in terms of time saved and the health of your pool.In conclusion, if you’re still using dip sticks like I was, it’s time to upgrade to the TAYLOR TECHNOLOGIES INC K-2006 TEST KIT. Don’t be like me and wait too long to make the switch. This kit changes everything and makes pool maintenance a breeze. Highly recommended! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐🏊‍♂️🔬