Hi Lisa;

"Burning eyes" are a relative thing. Fresh water alone causes eye discomfort, as does sea water. To avoid all "burning eyes" you have to use something equivalent to saline solution, which is MORE salty than a salt chlorinator pool, but LESS salty than the ocean.

So, from the point of view of an experienced pool service guy, a complaint of "burning eyes" is meaningful only if it's comparative, like "It never burned our eyes till a week ago".

So the question is, "Has it always burned your eyes like this, or has something changed?"

Often in my experience, burning eyes -- other than just from staying in the pool a long time, for from fresh, or very salty, water -- are caused by three things.

First, is combined chlorine, from chlorine + too much urine, or chlorine + foamy algaecides, or chlorine + Yellow Out type ammonia based algaecides. In this case, the solution is to keep adding chlorine, stop adding the other stuff, and wait.

Second, some algaecides will cause significant eye irritation all on their own. Again, the solution is to wait.

Third, very low pH will cause eye irritation. (Very high pH could too, but I haven't personally encountered complaints arising from that situation.)


Other issues:

Thanks for the heads up, but I do know about the bad link. Unfortunately, it's turned out that I can't enable those links inside a forum section without turning on HTML within that section for everyone who posts . . . and that's a huge security risk. I'd tried to do it for just me, but wasn't able to find a combination of settings that accomplished that. A solution is a little further down the road.

Also, you do need to test your CYA. As soon as your K2006 arrives, test your pool water for CYA, using a 3:1 dilution (1/4 pool water, 3/4 cup tap water, mix, test, multiply result x4). Your CYA levels may be quite a bit above 100, and that's something we need to know. By the way, do NOT overtest CYA: the K2006 only has enough reagent to test CYA 6x!

Finally, the TA variation is not unusual. Unless you carry your sample to the pool store in a tightly closed bottle AND have filled it so no air space is left in the bottle AND keep it reasonably cool till it's tested, you can see big variations, that are not testing errors. On the other hand, test kits may be bad, and pool stores are often bad. So, don't worry about it, and just wait for the K2006.