PDA

View Full Version : Ok here we go



IMherDad
03-25-2006, 08:33 PM
This is the year we are switching. After doing a lot of reading late last year we are "drinking the kool-aid" and moving to bleach. My wife thinks I may be nuts but after seeing just how much chemicals have increased this year its time to make the move. We have a 33' above ground pool, 2 hp pump using Zeobrite.

So my questions are this:

1) We need a test kit. Which one will work best for our situation?

2) What do we need to get started?

3) We will open the pool in the next 30 days or so do we need to shock the water before we start adding bleach?

And I am sure there will be a ton more questions and thanks for the help!

Islander2C
03-25-2006, 08:45 PM
I too am thinking about making the switch. I hope you get alot of replies!:)

mwsmith2
03-25-2006, 10:31 PM
The test kit that is going to work the best is the one that ben sells. However, I'm not exactly sure when he is going to have the new kit out for sale. I'd wait for his kit, it's really the best darn thing on the market.

Michael

CarlD
03-25-2006, 10:38 PM
This is the year we are switching. After doing a lot of reading late last year we are "drinking the kool-aid" and moving to bleach. My wife thinks I may be nuts but after seeing just how much chemicals have increased this year its time to make the move. We have a 33' above ground pool, 2 hp pump using Zeobrite.

So my questions are this:

1) We need a test kit. Which one will work best for our situation?

Well, the easy answer is Ben's Pool Solutions PS234 kit. Taylor makes a similar one. It will measure chlorine levels up to 100ppm (parts per million).




2) What do we need to get started?

Information. Read the tips and A/G info on PoolSolutions.com
Chemicals? the 3 Bees. Bleach (for chlorine), Borax to raise pH. Baking Soda (to raise Total Alkalinity). You'll need Muriatic Acid or Dry Acid to lower pH, CYA/Stabilizer/Conditioner to establish the correct CYA level, and, on occasion, Polyquat 60%--the ONLY algaecide you should use.



3) We will open the pool in the next 30 days or so do we need to shock the water before we start adding bleach?

Please don't be offended: the question doesn't mean anything. ALL shocking is, is raising the chlorine levels to the point that the chlorine kills anything growing and consumes other contaminants.

You also don't realize that bleach IS chlorine. If you go to the pool store and buy "Liquid Chlorine" or "Liquid Shock", all you are buying is bleach--sometimes in a stronger concentration, sometimes EXACTLY the same. Branch Brook Pools in my area sell gallon jugs of "Liquid Chlorine" that is 6% Sodium Hypochlorite. This is EXACTLY the same chemical as "Ultra Bleach" in a different package with a different label. Those 5 gallon blue carboys of "Liquid Chlorine" are simply the same as "Ultra Bleach", but at twice the concentration--12% rather than 6% Sodium Hypochlorite.

Bleach is a FAR better chlorinator than the powders or tablets you have been using. There is: Di-Chlor powder. This adds CYA as well as chlorine and lowers pH. The CYA levels build up until they are too high and THEN they make your chlorine INEFFECTIVE. Tablets are usually Tri-Chlor. They add even more CYA and are extremely acid, lowering your pH. Now, the HTH tri-chlor tabs also add copper--which turns blonde hair green and creates all sorts of other problems. Then there's Cal-Hypo--the powder adds lots of calcium to your water. Sooner or later, you have too much and your water gets milky. Cal-Hypo tablets don't dissolve properly and either clog your skimmer or leave white stuff on your pool bottom. And they add calcium.

Only Sodium Hypochlorite solution avoids all these side effects. It doesn't matter what it's called, just that it contains Sodium Hypo and what concentration. It can be call Bleach, Liquid Chlorine, or Liquid Shock--it doesn't matter.

And whatever you use for chlorination, once it's dissolved into the water, chlorine is chlorine--it's all the other chems added (or not) that makes a difference.



And I am sure there will be a ton more questions and thanks for the help!

Good Luck!

donfranko
03-26-2006, 12:51 PM
Read...Read...read this board. There is plenty of info to get you started and keep you going. Water testing and keeping balance comes pretty quickly.
My pool was installed last year and my wife thought I was nuts when I told her I was going to use bleach. My rationale had more to do with putting less in the pool than cost. Anyway, crystal clear water the first year and I'll admit I've learned more since than. The wife is content that I know what I'm doing. The PS 234 kit is a must, I'd order as early as possible. Good luck.

chemicalbalance
03-26-2006, 08:38 PM
My advice is to not be afraid of the switch. Your neighbors, your wife, and your most of all, your pool chemical salesman with think you are nuts. Stay out of the pool store. Ignore them all and you will succeed.

Step 1. Read everything on the Poolsolutions.com website. Everything. Print it and reread it.

Step 2. Buy a decent test kit like the PS233 on the website or whatever new version they are selling. When you use the test kit, write down your results so you can see the effect of your work.

I bought my 10 year old home with an inground pool three years ago. The first year, I did everything the pool store told me to do. It couldnt have been more of a hassle. Their solution to everything is to add more chemicals and come back tomorrow with a new water sample. It cost about 75 bucks a week.

Stay out of the pool store. If you insist on using "pool chemicals" to appease nay sayers, at least buy them at a large discount retailer, never at the pool store. Lowes, Home Depot, and Walmart sell all the pool chemicals you could ever need. Still, its best to just use Borax, Baking Soda, and Chlorine Bleach from any cheap big box store. Get Muriatic Acid from an old fashioned hardware store in the masonary section, or get it in the paint section at your local home improvement warehouse. If you do not believe this site, then go to the arm and hammer website, they will list a dosing schedule for using baking soda. Similarly clorox posts pool information on their website. The muriatic acid bottle will also list dosing rates. You can also simply google any of these chemicals. Last year, I bet I didnt spend $100 total on pool chemicals the whole season.


A couple things which I did NOT learn early on.

1. Cloudy water is often the result of a dirty filter. The pool store told me to change my Diatomaceous Earth filter twice a season, but my water always seemed cloudy so they wanted me to add more chemicals. DE costs nothing at Lowes. About $15 for enough to last all season. I now change my filter the first of every month. Some people say it may be too often but again it costs nothing and my pool sparkles.

2. Baking Soda raises alkalinity. Acid lowers pH and and only lowers alkalinity temporarily (sort of). The point being, make slow changes to your pool chemistry and dont get on a roller coaster of fighting pH and alkalinity with acid and baking soda. Read the posted information on aerating to lower alkalinity if it is a problem.

3. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If you have a pool party with 15 ten year old boys, shock the pool immediately before you close it for the night. By adding your chlorine in a timely manner, you will eliminate 90% of issues related to low cholorine.

4. Use and believe your test kit. If the test kit results are good and if the pool water looks good, forget about it and go swim. Do not over think the process.

Good luck

kaybinster
03-26-2006, 08:54 PM
I would suggest not to switch to bleach, but use it in combination with TriChlor. I have done this for about 4 years with great luck. As others mentioned TriChlor tends to drop the pH while bleach will raise it. Thus, I supply half the chlorine needs with bleach and half with TriChlor thus I never have any problems with the pH and never have to deal with things like pH up or pH down.

mwsmith2
03-26-2006, 09:30 PM
Acid lowers pH and and only lowers alkalinity temporarily (sort of).

That's not completely correct. For those who might be confused, here's the quickie answer: Lowering your pH down to the 7.0 range will result in some permanent reduction in alk, due to offgassing of co2 during the low pH period. If you can areate the water to offgass more co2 while your pH is low, your alk will drop even more. Simply put, acid WILL permanently lower your ALK, if you drop it low enough.

Michael

mwsmith2
03-26-2006, 09:34 PM
I would suggest not to switch to bleach, but use it in combination with TriChlor.

The problem with this is that you don't have any control over your CYA levels, which leads to:

1. Reduced Cl effectiveness
2. Accelerated plaster erosion (as discovered by a leading pool chemical supplier)

Personally, when I was doing bleach, I controlled pH with muriatic acid. Simple and easy. No worries about how much CYA I was slamming into my pool with the tablets. I like adding one thing at a time, in quantities that I know about. That's what makes it easy to keep a pool in balance.

Michael

TfromNC
03-27-2006, 03:40 PM
The problem with this is that you don't have any control over your CYA levels, which leads to:

1. Reduced Cl effectiveness
2. Accelerated plaster erosion (as discovered by a leading pool chemical supplier)

Personally, when I was doing bleach, I controlled pH with muriatic acid. Simple and easy. No worries about how much CYA I was slamming into my pool with the tablets. I like adding one thing at a time, in quantities that I know about. That's what makes it easy to keep a pool in balance.

Michael

So you don't use chlorine pucks at all? You just use bleach for normal chlorination?

Watermom
03-27-2006, 03:45 PM
Yes! Bleach is the only thing I ever use as a chlorine source. I have never had a puck in my pool since day one, not any chlorine granules either. My water is always great and I don't spend a fortune.

Watermom

cnix
03-27-2006, 04:09 PM
I don't use pucks either. (Well, actually I used some last year after a drain/refill to add stabilizer.) It took only about 2 doz (from memory) over the course of 4-6 weeks and my stabilizer was up to 30 ppm starting from zero. The tri-chlor can really add CYA quickly.

I switched to bleach and never looked back. I'll use maybe 30-40 gal of 6% bleach during a long Tennessee season, and about 3 gal of muriatic acid. That's all. The pool is sparkling clean and stays that way. In the heat of the summer I check Chlorine every 2-3 days; this time of year, about every 2-3 weeks.

It takes maybe 5 minutes tops twice a week to get a rough chlorine check--close enough to monitor the level. Far simpler than trying to get rid of CYA. (I know--the previous owner's use of tri-chlor was what caused the drain/refill--CYA was in the 250+ range--looked like whole milk in the test vial)

Chuck

IMherDad
03-27-2006, 04:10 PM
all the answers and help. So now I am purchasing one of Ben's new kits and waiting until we pull the winter cover off to start testing. I sure hope there are some great directions and instructions in the kit.

Of course the wife is already looking for deals on bleach.

cnk
03-27-2006, 04:28 PM
We recently changed over. The pool looks great now, but be prepared for some neon green water. My husband thought that I had ruined the pool.

TfromNC
03-27-2006, 04:44 PM
[QUOTE=Watermom]Yes! Bleach is the only thing I ever use as a chlorine source. I have never had a puck in my pool since day one, not any chlorine granules either. My water is always great and I don't spend a fortune.

Watermom[/QUO

Thanks Watermom.
How do I add CYA if needed. Should I use trichlor pucks like cnix did until I get CYA right, then swith to straight bleach.

mwsmith2
03-27-2006, 05:04 PM
We recently changed over. The pool looks great now, but be prepared for some neon green water. My husband thought that I had ruined the pool.

This will only happen if you have a baquacil pool and you are converting it over to Chlorine.

Michael

mwsmith2
03-27-2006, 05:07 PM
So you don't use chlorine pucks at all? You just use bleach for normal chlorination?

I know this has already been answered, but yup, that's all I used. Easy too. Now I have a SWC, and life is even easier!

Michael

Watermom
03-27-2006, 06:12 PM
TfromNC:
Either way is fine - whether you add cya directly and then just use bleach or if you use trichlor pucks for awhile to build up your cya and then switch to bleach. Both will work. Personally, I just add cya and then use only bleach. Some others use the pucks until their cya starts to get too high and then switch. Really just a matter of preference. If you do use trichlor, you'll have to test cya periodically because it will continue to rise. But, you'll be killing two birds with one stone - adding cya and chlorine at the same time. On the other hand, if you just add the cya outright, you'll only have to test it a couple of times until you get it where you want and then the level should stay put for the summer. Your choice.

If you do decide to just add cya separately, add enough per label directions to take your cya to about 30ppm. Add it directly to the skimmer. Then wait about a week to give it time to dissolve in your filter and don't backwash during this time. Be patient. If you don't give it enough time to dissolve completely, you may end up adding more than you should. Then you have another problem because the only way to lower cya is to do a partial drain. Better to aim a little low initially and then sneak up on the desired level of 30-40 than overshoot it. Hope this helps.

Watermom

CarlD
03-27-2006, 09:28 PM
I occasionally use pucks--when both my pH is high and I want to raise my CYA level slowly. Or I'll use up some of my di-chlor powder. When both are gone, I'm back to my mainstays anyway, bleach, CYA, dry acid or muriatic acid.

IF you test your water everyday for chlorine and pH, and check all the tests once a week (FC, CC, pH, T/A and CYA) then you can control it. Sooner or later using pucks your CYA will hit the max you should be using (it's different for each situation and owner's preference).

The key to EVERYTHING in pool maintenance is proper, frequent, concistent testing. Takes 2 minutes a day to run the OTO kit chlorine and pH test. Even with Ben's kit and the FAS DPD powder it only takes 5 minutes a day to test chlorine and pH. The full battery of tests takes about 15 minutes, once a week. It will save you are WORLD of trouble and a heap of money.

matt4x4
03-28-2006, 04:06 PM
I can't speak for MWSMITH2, but I don't use any at all, it adds stabilizer, then you have to use more chlorine to have it be effective - it snowballs, only add stabilizer when the CYA level drops, teh ONLY way CYA will leave your pool is through pumping it out (backwash/drain/Leak), otherwise it should remain stable pretty much all year.
As for pucks, the only time you will see pucks in my pool is when I go away for over a week because the pucks will insure keeping the Cl levels up.

aylad
03-29-2006, 06:01 PM
Lots of the posters on this forum only use bleach. You'll find that there aren't very many who use trichlor pucks, and even fewer who use them on an ongoing basis. Creates too many problems with high CYA levels.

Janet

leejp
04-03-2006, 02:09 AM
After a couple of years with Tri-Chlor pucks, I'm thinking about switching to bleach this year as well. Some questions...

How do you add Bleach? into the skimmer? the deep end of the pool?

How often? Duh... as often as the water requires. So I knew that.. But how often is that? With the tri-chlor tablets, I just dialed the chlorinator up/down depending on the test results. But since there isn't the continuous feeding that one gets with a chlorinator or a floatee, how often can one expect to have to add chlorine once the switch is made?

How much? Duh... as much as the water requires. So I knew that too... but here in upatate, NY (season is June through August with temps generally between high 60s to mid 80s during this perios), how much bleach can I expect to go through is a season? It's generally been $4/day to run the pool around here ($2 to run the pump and $2 for the chemicals... mostly the tablets). Can I expect to save significant $$$ by switching to the 3 Bs?

duraleigh
04-03-2006, 11:13 AM
Some questions...

How do you add Bleach? into the skimmer? the deep end of the pool?

Skimmer...pump running


How often? Duh... as often as the water requires. So I knew that.. But how often is that? With the tri-chlor tablets, I just dialed the chlorinator up/down depending on the test results. But since there isn't the continuous feeding that one gets with a chlorinator or a floatee, how often can one expect to have to add chlorine once the switch is made?

Short answer...almost daily depending on the test results


How much? Duh... as much as the water requires. So I knew that too... but here in upatate, NY (season is June through August with temps generally between high 60s to mid 80s during this perios), how much bleach can I expect to go through is a season?

How big is your pool? How many people swim? Does it get full sun? etc. etc.


It's generally been $4/day to run the pool around here ($2 to run the pump and $2 for the chemicals... mostly the tablets). Can I expect to save significant $$$ by switching to the 3 Bs?

No, not huge amounts but significant. You'll also head off a future problem if you've only used pucks to this point.

Dave S.

mwsmith2
04-03-2006, 11:19 AM
Down here in Houston, TX I had to add 0.75 gal every three days during summer. BUuuuuuuut, it all depends on your pool.

Michael

leejp
04-03-2006, 12:13 PM
Short answer...almost daily depending on the test results

So you test and add daily?
Do you eyeball or have a measuring pitcher?
I assume even the biggest pools don't require more than a gallon every day. Do you add all at once or spread it out?
How do you handle going away on vacation?



How big is your pool? How many people swim? Does it get full sun? etc. etc.


26,000 gallons.
4 people... not heavy usage (our kids are young and can't swim yet).
Full sun ~10hrs day

Part of my motivation is to reduce the amount of different chemicals I put in the pool. At present I have no idea what's in the water in my pool (The previous owner put it in). Judging from the contents of the box he left me... It was Baquacil at one point. Two years ago when I first moved in and before I discovered poolforum, I was adding any old pool store recommended algaecde, clarifier, shock... This year I want to establish a strict 3Bs (Bleach, Borax, Baking Power) regimen and carefully control anything else that goes into the water.

rdietman
04-03-2006, 05:28 PM
i have a 22000 gal pool and add every 3 days or so also. if i remember correctly 1 gal of store bought 6% raises me about 2-2.5ppm i use 12% from the pool store because i buy about 10 cases at the beginning of the season on sale and 1 gallon raises me about5 ppm. i usually test every day after work and pour in around the pool edges . usually drops to about 1 ppm and then i put in a gallon of 12% and im good for 2-3 days. also depends on your cya levels , the higher your cya the higher you need to keep your ppm. mine is at about 40 for the cya. have sun most of the day also but keep the solar cover on when were at work. only open all day on weekends. i do not dump in skimmer because i have a heater and the high dose of chlorine running through that cant be good for internals. at least in my opinion and i got that from others on the board. dont beat me up on the ppm per gallon adds because its been a while and im working off old age memory here.

aylad
04-03-2006, 06:57 PM
You can use mwsmith's bleach calculator to figure out how much bleach you need to add at a time to maintain your minimum chlorine level. If you'll test daily, it won't take you long to begin to anticipate how much/when your pool uses it up.

When I add the bleach to my pool, I never pour it into the skimmer--I pour it slowly into the stream from my return, and let it mix that way.

Janet

Watermom
04-03-2006, 11:56 PM
Like Janet, I often add bleach in front of the return jet. But, other times, I just dump it in the skimmer. It doesn't hurt it a bit. It quickly gets pumped out and dispersed into the pool. Then, I just make sure I leave the pump running for a couple of hours after I add it.

Watermom

kaybinster
04-04-2006, 06:13 PM
Tried the calc program but it just dies on me when I hit calc. It says Run-time error 13 type mismatch.

Sherra
04-04-2006, 07:15 PM
Try downloading it again. I downloaded it about a week ago and it's working fine for me.

fog80
04-04-2006, 07:26 PM
i tried to use that bleach calculator but i dont know what to put in for pool size (L)

kaybinster
04-04-2006, 08:27 PM
Downloaded it three times, still won't work.

duraleigh
04-04-2006, 08:51 PM
Fog and Kay,

put in gallons for pool size......It works, you may be asking it to calculate without giving it enough info.

Dave S.

Sherra
04-04-2006, 09:41 PM
i tried to use that bleach calculator but i dont know what to put in for pool size (L)
Go into "more calcs" at the top of the window and go down to "settings" and change it from metric to imperical and your default units will be in gallons then...no conversion necessary! You can also enter your pool size in the settings and you won't ever have to enter it again.

kaybinster
04-04-2006, 10:25 PM
Repeat 10 times "I am an idiot!" :(

I finally read the instructions again and found my mistake. I was entering 5.25% as 5.25% rather than "5.25"! Once I did it right it works well --- GREAT PROGRAM.

VOLDADDY
04-05-2006, 12:52 AM
I had to add a gallon every other day to keep my levels where they needed to be. I just switched from baquacil last summer and used bleach about the last month and a half, but I had it pretty much down to a routine. Of course, I have forgotten everything and will have to play around some this year, but you will notice a pattern and can pretty much stick by it.