Summary: For property managers and risk managers, improperly maintained pool water carries significant commercial pool liability risks with serious financial costs.
If your commercial property includes a pool, chances are you already know it requires regular maintenance. But what many property managers—and even some risk assessors—don’t fully realize is how quickly a small slip in pool water chemistry can snowball into a costly health, legal, or reputational disaster.
Improperly maintained pool water doesn’t just affect swimmer comfort. It can lead to illness outbreaks, equipment failure, legal action, and long-term reputational damage. And while the upfront cost of pool maintenance may seem high, it pales in comparison to the cost of a serious incident.
From lawsuits to health department closures and reputational damage, let’s explore the key commercial pool liability risks and financial costs your organization may face if pool water chemistry isn’t properly monitored and managed.
We'll begin with the most immediate and visible risk: public health and safety. Poor water chemistry compromises sanitation and increases the likelihood of harmful pathogens or dangerous chemical reactions.
When disinfection is inadequate or chemical dosing is mismanaged, the results can be swift—and in the worst cases, severe.
An improperly sanitized pool is an ideal breeding ground for bacteria and parasites like Cryptosporidium, E. coli, and Legionella. These pathogens can cause gastrointestinal illnesses, respiratory infections, and even life-threatening conditions. If an outbreak occurs, it can result in medical claims, CDC involvement, facility shutdowns, and lawsuits.
Estimated Cost: $50,000 – $500,000+ (Source: CDC)
Too much chlorine or incorrect chemical mixing can result in chemical burns, skin and eye irritation, or respiratory issues. These incidents often require emergency care and can quickly escalate to liability claims.
Estimated Cost: $10,000 – $100,000+ (Source: CDC)
Mixing pool chemicals improperly or letting chlorine levels spike leads to chloramine creation, a potentially toxic gas at certain levels–particularly in indoor pool environments with poor ventilation. This can lead to mass evacuations or hospitalizations; while rare, these are costly events when they do occur. They also damage the pool or property’s reputation and can lead to a significant loss of business.
Estimated Cost: $100,000 – $1,000,000+ (Source: CDC)
Source: CDC – Pool Chemical–Associated Health Events
Beyond the direct health effects, there are serious regulatory consequences that come from failing to maintain water quality. When a commercial pool violates health or safety codes, the penalties can hit hard and fast.
Even a single failed inspection can cause days of closure, fines, and scrutiny from the public and regulators alike.
Health departments often have strict protocols for water quality. Violations can lead to immediate shutdowns, steep fines, and repeat inspections. Every day a pool is closed can mean lost revenue, dissatisfied tenants or guests, and additional staff time.
Estimated Cost: $5,000 – $50,000+ in fines; $1,000 – $10,000/day in lost revenue (Fines vary by state and local health department penalty schedules)
In some cases, poorly maintained facilities can trigger compliance violations, especially if features become unusable or hazardous. ADA non-compliance penalties can stack quickly, especially for repeated or unaddressed issues.
Estimated Cost: $25,000 – $100,000+ (Source: US DOJ)
In addition to keeping swimmers safe, properly balanced water chemistry also protects your infrastructure. Even with no visible signs of distress, incorrect water chemistry can be quietly destroying your equipment, structures, and systems.
This type of damage is often not discovered until it's extensive—and expensive—to fix.
Acidic water or high chlorine levels can corrode metal fixtures, pumps, HVAC systems, and even building materials. Over time, this leads to costly repairs that typically aren’t covered by insurance.
Estimated Cost: $10,000 – $250,000+ (Source: Pool & Hot Tub Alliance)
On the flip side, hard water can leave calcium deposits that clog pipes, cloud pool surfaces, and damage filtration systems. Removing scale buildup often requires specialized service and downtime.
Estimated Cost: $5,000 – $50,000+ (NSPF Pool & Spa Operator Handbook)
Of course, when something goes seriously wrong, insurance and legal settlements come into play. But coverage may not be enough, especially when major incidents exceed policy limits or trigger exclusions.
And while claims may be covered, increased premiums and reputational harm often follow.
When an individual suffers a severe injury or fatality linked to water quality, settlements and jury awards can reach staggering levels while also keeping people away from your property..
Estimated Cost: $500,000 – $5,000,000+ (Source: Insurance Journal)
If multiple guests are affected by an outbreak or chemical incident, it can lead to class action litigation. This is particularly risky for properties like hotels, gyms, or apartment complexes where many individuals use the pool.
Estimated Cost: $1,000,000 – $10,000,000+ (Source: CDC)
Finally, it’s important to consider the long-term and downstream financial impact of a public health or legal incident. Even after fines are paid and repairs are made, your reputation may not recover easily.
A pool incident doesn’t just affect the pool: it can affect your entire property brand.
Whether it’s bad online reviews, word-of-mouth, or negative media coverage, a damaged reputation leads to declining memberships and tenant dissatisfaction. Depending on the nature of the incident, you may also lose staff and have a hard time recruiting new employees. This erosion in trust can have long-lasting financial consequences.
Estimated Cost: $50,000 – $500,000 annually (Source: Aquatics International)
Source: Aquatics International Case Studies
Dealing with media fallout, issuing public apologies, and managing stakeholder communication typically requires a dedicated crisis PR team—yet another unbudgeted cost.
Estimated Cost: $25,000 – $100,000+ (Source: Institute for Public Relations)
Source: Institute for Public Relations, PRSA benchmarks
Even a single water chemistry incident can snowball into massive losses. From minor incidents like mild chemical burns to fatalities that lead to wrongful death suits and create trauma and serious reputational damage, many of these incidents are preventable with sound water quality care and maintenance. This means that improperly balanced pool water chemistry is a risk management failure with potentially devastating consequences.
Daily water testing, employing certified pool operators, documented maintenance and pool chemistry logs, and adherence to local health codes are best practices to keep pool guests healthy, the property in good shape and standing, and financial safeguards that can save properties anywhere from $10,000 to $10M+. .
So what can you do? Thankfully, these incidents are largely preventable with a few key practices. To help mitigate these risks, property managers and risk professionals should ensure that:
In the world of commercial property management, pools are often seen as amenities: valuable, but routine. However, the risks of improper pool water chemistry go far beyond cloudy water or irritated eyes. From lawsuits to structural damage, the costs can be staggering.
Proactive water quality management impacts every aspect of pool ownership, protecting people, property, and profit.
Pool Shark H2O instantly performs the complex math of dosage calculations, so you can easily make any chemistry corrections to ensure your body of water is safe for your swimmers.
Test results and adjustments are logged and locked automatically, and remotely accessible from anywhere–making it simple for multiple staff members to use, as well as for pool operators, managers, and owners to check in on pool water quality, even across multiple bodies of water.
This helps reduce the number of on-site visits to pools, ensures 100% Health Department compliance, and helps prevent unnecessary risks and liabilities. Log sheets are stored digitally for as long as you’re required to, saving physical space, time, and money, and making it simple to pull up accurate log sheets when needed.
Pools can be a lot of fun for everyone–that’s our ultimate goal. But we can only achieve this goal through healthy, balanced water. Running water quality tests, logging the results and adjustments accurately, and maintaining accurate records is the best way to manage pool water through every shift in chemistry.
Pool Shark H2O is precise, effective, cost-effective, and significantly lowers both health and business risk for pool owners and operators, from HOA and apartment pools to multi-location aquatic centers.