Newbie to pools

[mthandt]

Yeah, it's been a matter of some interest to me how many new members here share that involvement.

You talking about Involvement with other forums?

Do you know what a ballpark dose would be for getting the pool to 12-15ppm?

[PoolDoc]

Yes, involvement with other AUTO forums.

On a 11,000 gallon pool, a gallon of plain 6% bleach adds about 5 ppm. So a 15ppm dose would be ~3 gallons.

[mthandt]

Well at least one now, lol. But I'm sure there are more. I take care of all the friends and families vehicles and I know what a great asset forums can be. Learn the majority of my stuff from them.

And thank you for the info. Just found out that the chlorine from the pool store is quite cheap after the initial purchase of the container. Aboout $2/gal for 11.5% chlorine.

[PoolDoc]

Yeah, that's a good price for bleach. I think it's cheaper in Florida, than in most other parts of the country.

A couple of cautions:

1. Bleach is corrosive, but commercial bleach (above 10%) is very, very corrosive. Make sure you do not get ANY on what ever you carry the bleach in. You can lose a truck bed to a drop of bleach here, and a drop there.

2. Bleach doesn't store well in warm weather. At 90 degrees (when the BLEACH is 90), it can lose a LOT of its strength in just a week. If the bleach has a little iron in it (it often does), you can turn 12% bleach into 6% bleach very quickly.

3. For the same reason, try to buy bleach within a few days (1 - 2) of your supplier's delivery and then -- ideally -- add it to the pool immediately.

4. If you need to store bleach, it will last much, much longer in a air conditioned room than it will in a hot garage or pump room. It doesn't fume (well, it gives off oxygen, when it deteriorates), so there's no odor and no chlorine gases. It's just the drips that are a problem.

[mthandt]

I've noticed that a lot of pool trucks have the beds completely rusting out on them. So it looks like I am gonna have to buy 2 1/2 gallons at a time and store half of it for a week.

But just thought of something. If I'm keeping the pool at about 3-5 ppm with the TC won't I only have to raise the chlorine about 10-12 ppm using liquid chlorine? So then I would only need a little more then a gallon of the of the 11.5% chlorine weekly? You think it would be ok to assume that I can use a little over a gallon for the first week and then just the rest of the chlorine the second week because it has degraded. I mean i would test it afterwards but I'm thinking it should be close, might not be enough though.

[PoolDoc]

Rusted out truck beds? Yeah, that's bleach.

Your plan sounds reasonable. How well it will work depends . . . on how pure the bleach is (low metals bleach lasts longer); on how cool your storage area is, and so on. But, it's a good place to start, so long as you use a K2006 to check how well it's working.

Keep in mind that -- even in Florida -- you can store bleach for a while, now. In July? Not so much, unless you keep the bleach in an AC'd place.