About Water Test Calculator
A small team that builds practical apps, starting with making residential pool chemistry actually correct, not just acceptable-looking.
Why we built Water Test Calculator
Most pool maintenance apps recommend a flat “1–3 ppm free chlorine” target regardless of your pool’s cyanuric acid level. The chemistry research that this advice was originally based on dates from the 1970s, before cyanuric acid stabiliser was in widespread residential use. As outdoor pool stabiliser use became standard, the original target stopped being accurate, but the advice never caught up.
The result is that millions of pool owners follow “balanced” chemistry advice and then watch their pools go green anyway. The cause is well-understood in the professional pool chemistry community, the Trouble Free Pool community has documented it extensively, and the Pickens-method chemistry research formalised it, but it isn’t reflected in consumer test kits, dosing apps, or most general-purpose pool guidance.
Water Test Calculator is the first consumer app to auto-calculate CYA-based chlorine targets by default. Every test recommendation, every shock dose, every chemical adjustment takes your CYA reading into account before computing the answer. That’s the differentiator. Everything else, the multi-pool support, the volume memory, the offline-first design, is in service of making that core chemistry correct in a way you don’t have to think about.
The team
Ben Harris
Co-founder · App + SEO
Australian SEO specialist with a background in technical content development and search optimisation for mid-market clients. Co-founded NovaForge Labs to build mobile apps that solve practical problems for everyday users, Water Test Calculator is NovaForge’s first public launch. Based in Melbourne.
The Water Test Calculator app’s chemistry methodology is cross-referenced against the Trouble Free Pool community standard, ANSI/APSP-11, AS 3633-1989 (Australian Standard for private pools), and reference-kit testing using a Taylor Technologies K-2006C.
NovaForge Labs
NovaForge Labs is the studio behind Water Test Calculator. The team builds mobile applications that take niches where commercial advice is wrong, or oversimplified to the point of being wrong, and rebuild the user experience around what’s actually true. The intention is to ship a small number of apps that handle their domain correctly, rather than a large number that handle their domain loosely.
Water Test Calculator is NovaForge’s launch product. Future apps in development cover related home-management niches that have similar “consumer advice diverges from technical truth” gaps.
Methodology and references
All technical content on watertest.ai is based on the following authoritative sources. Citations are linked at the foot of each guide:
- Trouble Free Pool, ABCs of Pool Water Chemistry
- Richard Falk, The Chlorine/CYA Relationship (Pickens Method)
- ANSI/APSP-11, Water Quality Standards in Public Pools (Association of Pool & Spa Professionals)
- AS 3633-1989, Private Swimming Pools, Water Quality (Australian Standard)
- WHO Guidelines for Safe Recreational Water Environments, Volume 2
- US CDC Healthy Swimming guidance
- Taylor Technologies K-2006C Complete Pool Test Kit, used as a reference standard for chlorine, pH, alkalinity, calcium hardness, and cyanuric acid measurement
Where consumer advice diverges from these sources, we follow the technical sources and explain why. Pool chemistry isn’t a matter of opinion, the numbers are what they are. Our job is to make them accessible.
What you’ll find on this site
- Chlorine pool water testing & maintenance guide, the complete primer for chlorine pools.
- Saltwater pool guide, SWG cell maintenance, Australian brand comparison, and salt-cell-specific chemistry.
- Spa & hot tub guide, bromine vs chlorine, drain cycles, spa-specific parameter targets.
- Pool volume calculator guide, worked formulas for rectangle, circular, oval, and kidney pools.
- Shock treatment calculator guide, break-point chlorination and the CYA × 0.40 rule.
- Chlorine lock & CYA flagship guide, the long-form explanation of why your pool won’t hold chlorine.
- Best pool water testing apps in 2026, comparative review of 8 apps in the category.
Get in touch
For product enquiries, partnership requests, or technical corrections, contact us through the Water Test Calculator app once it launches (approximately 10 days from publication of this page), or sign up for the launch list on any of our guides.