Free Swimming Pool Water Test Log Template (UK): PDF & Excel
Daily pool water readings with bather load alongside them, tested against the targets in your own pool safety operating procedure.
A pool water log that records readings without bather load is missing the variable that explains most of them. Combined chlorine climbing through a busy Saturday is a different problem from combined chlorine climbing on a quiet Tuesday, and only one of those points at the plant. This log puts them side by side.
↓ Download PDF (print-ready)↓ Download Excel (editable)
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What's in the template
- Daily test log: date, time, free chlorine, combined chlorine, pH, alkalinity, water temperature, clarity, bather load, whether the reading was in range, the action taken and who tested. 50 rows per sheet
- Periodic checks: the weekly and monthly plant checks, with result, any defect and the action taken
One deliberate omission
This template does not print target ranges on the sheet. That is intentional. Correct ranges depend on your disinfection system, on whether stabiliser is used, and on the pool type, so a single printed figure would be wrong for a large share of pools that downloaded it. There is an "in range" column and a space to record your own targets, which should come from PWTAG guidance and from your pool safety operating procedure.
If you cannot immediately say what your target range is and where it is written down, that is the finding, and it matters more than any single day's reading.
How to use it
Test before opening, during the day and at close, at the frequency your operating procedure sets. Record the actual figure rather than a tick: a log of ticks proves only that somebody visited the plant room. The value of the record is in the trend, and trends need numbers.
Where a reading falls outside range, the action column is the important one. Record what you did, including any decision to close the pool and when it reopened. An out of range reading with a recorded corrective action is evidence of a system working. An out of range reading with a blank next to it is evidence of the opposite.
Water hygiene duties do not stop at the pool tank. See our guides to water hygiene records and L8 ACOP compliance and legionella risk assessment, which cover the showers, spa pools and dead legs around it.
Who must keep this record
The pool operator: leisure operators, hotels, schools, gyms, holiday parks and holiday lets with a shared pool or hot tub. There is no single regulation prescribing a pool water log, but the duty arises from the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, and HSE guidance HSG179 on health and safety in swimming pools is the benchmark an inspector will work from.
Spa pools and hot tubs deserve particular attention. Their higher temperature, aeration and lower water volume per bather make them a materially greater legionella risk than a main pool, and they are usually the item found to be under-monitored.
How long to keep it
Keep completed logs for at least five years. Water quality records are requested after any illness reported by a pool user, and outbreak investigations look at the weeks before the incident rather than the day of it. A continuous run of dated readings with bather loads is what allows you to show the pool was operating correctly.