Chlorine / Bleach

[ts8181]

Hello, I'm kind of new to the forum and have a question. I read an awful lot about using bleach, one even stated unscented bleach. Do people use bleach instead of chlorine, and aren't they both pretty much the same thing? Just wondering,Thanks.

[PoolDoc]

Bleach = sodium hypochlorite, which is one of the chlorine compounds that can be used to add chlorine to a pool. (The others are chlorine gas, calcium hypochlorite, lithium hypochlorite, trichloro-isocyanurate, & sodium dichloroisocyanurate.)

[Phillbo]

Yes, it's the same thing.

[CarlD]

When your local pool store sells liquid "Chlorine", or "Pool Shock", look at the ingredients. If it's Sodium Hypochlorite, it's basically the same thing as bleach. If it's "6%" then it's EXACTLY the same thing as regular unscented ultra bleach. The only difference is in the pool store it's probably in exact one gallon jugs and probably costs more per ounce or gallon. However, if it's 12.5% Sodium Hypochlorite, it's double the strength of the bleach, but, to be a value, should be no more than double the price of bleach. Finally, many pool stores sell reusable 5 gallon blue jugs of liquid chlorine, called "carboys". You pay a deposit for the carboy (about $6) and then, these days, the LC is $16 to $17, which is nominally abou the same as paying $1.60 - $1.70 per gallon of bleach. But you'll also need a spigot for the carboy and that's about $4 or $5. However, each time your return the carboy and replace it, you don't have to pay the deposit.

I've been using 3 carboys for about 5 years or more now, and have a couple of the spigots, so the deposits were paid long ago. What's nice about them is you don't have to dispose of lots of bleach bottles, especially if fighting an algae bloom. I keep a few empty gallon bleach jugs and just keep refilling them as I need from the carboy. I've used about 4 1/2 carboys this summer (very high chlorine demand summer, apparently nationwide) and will probably use one more. So that's about $100 for chlorine for the season, including sales tax, for a roughly 20,000 gal pool. And that's a high-usage season, so it's not too bad.

OTOH, bleach is GREAT because you can get it ANYWHERE, not just pool stores and it's the same chemical as Liquid Chlorine.

Carl