A green pool cleanup in DFW costs $200 to $1,500 by published prices, and four things decide where yours lands. They are how green it is, its cyanuric acid level, its volume and equipment, and what is on the floor.
Three of those are visible from the deck. The fourth, cyanuric acid (CYA), sold as stabilizer, is a number many owners haven’t tested, and it can move a quote by hundreds of dollars. The CDC’s home pool guidance explains why: “disinfection times are longer in the presence of cyanuric acid.” A high-CYA pool needs more chlorine, held for longer, to kill the same bloom. Working out your own band first is how you tell a fair quote from a guess.
A green pool is an algae bloom: free chlorine fell below the CDC minimum and stayed there, which in a North Texas summer takes roughly two to three days in our experience. Recovery means killing the algae, filtering out the dead algae, and fixing whatever let chlorine hit zero, and each of those steps scales differently with your pool. For the do-it-yourself sequence, our green pool guide has the steps.
What sets the price
| Published range | What it is describing |
|---|---|
| $200 to $300 | A light bloom caught early, chemicals and a visit or two |
| $250 to $800 | The general residential range across severity tiers |
| $300 to $800 | Chemical treatment specifically, excluding drains |
| $500 to $1,500 | Jobs where a partial or full drain is needed |
The published ranges describe four different jobs rather than four competing answers, and the drivers below tell you which one you have. A quote at the bottom of the range for a pool at the top of the severity table isn’t a bargain; it’s a misunderstanding that will be corrected later in the week.
Driver one: how green the pool is
| What you see | What is happening | What the job involves |
|---|---|---|
| Water clear but faintly tinted, bottom visible | An early bloom, caught within a day or two | Shock, brush, filter. Often clear within 24 to 48 hours |
| Definitely green, bottom visible in shallow end only | An established bloom | Repeated shocking, heavy brushing, several days of filtration and filter cleaning |
| Opaque green, no bottom visible anywhere | A heavy bloom over a week or more | Multiple large chlorine doses, debris removal blind, repeated filter cleans, several days |
| Dark green or brown, debris and organics on the floor | Weeks to months unattended | Physical debris removal first, then chemistry. Partial drain often cheaper |
| Black spots on plaster, whatever the water looks like | Black algae, rooted into the surface | A different job. Mechanical scrubbing plus targeted treatment, over weeks |
Before calling anybody, take a photograph from the deck and one straight down at the shallow end steps. Whether the steps are visible sorts a pool into the top or bottom half of that table. Check which algae you have too, because the bottom row isn’t a green pool at all. Telling green, mustard, and black algae apart takes ten seconds with a brush.
Driver two: cyanuric acid
Stabilizer binds chlorine into a slowly released reserve, which is what you want against Texas sunlight, but the higher your CYA, the more free chlorine you need for the same sanitizing power. The working target is at least 7.5 percent of your CYA on a chlorine pool, and killing an established algae bloom means holding a shock level above that floor for days.
So consider two identical 18,000-gallon pools, both fully green. One is at 40 ppm CYA. The other has been running trichlor tablets for three seasons and is at 120 ppm, so it needs roughly three times the chlorine to reach and hold the same shock level for the same number of days. In our experience that is the biggest hidden driver of a green pool quote.
Why a fair quote sometimes includes a partial drain
On a pool with high cyanuric acid, the cheapest route to clear water is frequently to replace some of the water first, bringing CYA down, and then to shock a pool that responds normally. That’s why a quote that includes a partial exchange can be lower than one that doesn’t, and why any company that hasn’t tested your CYA is quoting a guess. The cyanuric acid guide explains the mechanism.
Driver three: volume and equipment
- Pool size scales the chemical cost directly. A 30,000-gallon pool costs roughly twice what a 15,000-gallon pool costs to shock, for the same result.
- Filter type and condition determines the second half of the job, because dead algae has to be filtered out. A sand filter clogs and needs repeated backwashing; a cartridge filter needs repeated tear-down cleaning, sometimes daily during a recovery; DE needs recharging each time. Filter labor is a real line on a recovery quote.
- A pump that isn’t working stops the job entirely. There’s no chemical route to a clear pool without circulation, so a dead pump makes it a repair first and a recovery second.
Driver four: what is on the floor
A pool that went green in August is a chemistry job. A pool that has been sitting since last fall has a layer of decomposed leaves on the bottom, and removing it is physical labor performed blind, by feel, through opaque water. It’s slow, it wrecks filter media, and it’s why the top of the published ranges exists. These are usually pools that went through an October leaf drop and a winter unattended, which is why our recovery calls cluster in March and April.
Drain and refill: when it makes sense, and the local warning
Replacing water is sometimes cheaper than treating a green pool, particularly when cyanuric acid is high, when total dissolved solids are saturated, or when the water is so organically loaded that chlorine demand is effectively bottomless.
Do not fully drain a pool in Collin County
Our expansive clay holds groundwater that exerts real upward pressure on an empty shell, which can lift or crack it. That’s a structural repair rather than a resurface, and it’s one of the most expensive mistakes a Collin County owner can make. Exposed wet plaster also crazes within hours in real heat. Never drain after heavy rain. If a pool needs a large exchange, it’s done in stages, or done by somebody watching a hydrostatic relief valve, and clay soil and your pool covers why.
Budget for the water itself, too. A large partial exchange is thousands of gallons on your meter, and it arrives hard, so the refill needs rebalancing. Hard water covers what fresh NTMWD water brings with it.
How long a recovery takes
A green pool recovery takes three to five days, because filtration, not chemistry, sets the pace.
- Day one: test, balance pH so chlorine can work, remove what debris can be removed, first large chlorine dose, brush everything.
- Day two: water often turns cloudy gray or blue-gray, which is progress rather than a setback. It means the algae is dead and suspended. Maintain chlorine, brush, clean the filter.
- Days three to five: filtration does the work. Clean the filter repeatedly, keep chlorine up, vacuum settled material out.
- After: rebalance fully, and fix the cause, or you’ll be doing this again.
How not to pay for it twice
A green pool recovery without a fix for the cause becomes a subscription. The four causes we see, in order of frequency:
- Cyanuric acid drifted high on tablets, so chlorine that reads fine isn’t working. See liquid chlorine versus tabs.
- Service was canceled or lapsed, frequently over winter to save four months of fees, and March arrived.
- The pump or filter failed and went unnoticed for two weeks.
- A vacation with a floater full of tablets and no plan, in July.
A recovery at the middle of the published range costs several times a monthly service rate, so if pausing service is what let the pool go green, the recovery costs more than the months of service it replaced. Ask any company quoting a recovery what they believe the cause was. An answer naming a mechanism comes from a company that won’t be back for the same job next year.
What we do
Green to clean recovery is priced by condition rather than by a flat rate, because the four drivers above determine the work. A flat rate is easier to compare, which is the case for it, but it has to be priced for the worst pool it might meet, so a light bloom pays swamp prices. Before quoting, we test the water, including cyanuric acid, and look at the filter and pump, because a quote from a photograph alone has no reasoning behind it.
After the recovery the pool goes onto the normal monthly rate on our weekly service page, and what your bill covers sets out where the boundary sits. We cover Plano, Frisco, McKinney, Allen, and the surrounding Metroplex.
