new pool owner

[bingusboy]

I just bought a house in Seattle, the pool is 16x30, 3' to 8'. My children are allergic to too much chlorine, so I was thinking about going to a salt system or bromine. Does anyone have any suggestions.

[CarlD]

Allergies to chlorine are usually something else and you need to check on that.

Frequently, people complain about too much chlorine, but really we learn that it's been bad pool maintenance. Chlorine measures are really Free Chlorine (FC--the good stuff), Combined Chlorine or Combined Chloramines (CC--the bad stuff) and Total Chlorine (TC=FC+CC).

Combined Chloramines (CCs) indicate you have something that needs to be absorbed/negated by the chlorine. They give out that classic unpleasant "chlorine" smell we associate with pools. The cure is to add MORE chlorine to neutralize the CCs until it's 0. My pool is frequently at 5-9ppm of FC, but with 0ppm of CC--and there's little if any chlorine smell.

CCs are also irritating to eyes and skin--they may be the source of your kids' apparent allergy to Chlorine. If they've been swimming in public pools then the chemical level may not be as carefully adjusted as we members do here.

Low pH is also irritating to eyes--and Chlorine gets blamed as well.

These are all things to consider because I understand that TRUE chlorine allergies are extremely rare--but a lot of stuff mimic them.

I can never see the positive side to bromine or bacquacil...but an SWG may be just the thing for you. Steady, low-level chlorine levels that maintain sanitary conditions. Nothing wrong with that!

[dep78737]

Sensitivity to chlorine may be a better description than allergy. A SWG will allow you to sanitize your pool with virtually no chlorine odor plus the salt gives the water a nice "feel" that folks with sensitive skin really like. We found it to be the best solution. Other alterantives like ozone and Nature2 still require a minimal level of chlorine anyway, so we bypassed them and went with the SWG only.

[bingusboy]

So for the size of my pool, what is the best SWG, I let my pool run 24/7, is that too much.

--Try not to double-post, please. If you accidently do, you can edit the post to ask us to remove it, or PM us--I've deleted the second post...CarlD