Pool store refused to test my water...

[Carolina]

Yesterday I went into the local pool store to get my water tested (I have a waterfall, and I always need to keep on top of my alkalinity and pH). I am a stay-at-home mom, and I usually get my water tested during the week when the manager is running the store. Unfortunately, on Saturday, the store is staffed by seventeen year olds.

The store always asks about one's method of sanitization, and I always, of course, reply "bleach". Well, the seventeen year old looked at me like I had 2 heads. Usually when a pool store employee gives me a hard time about the BBB method, I politely reply that I am a chemist (I was an analytical chemist until I quit to be home with my young children, and I spent a few years doing water analysis as well). Generally, employees keep quiet after that, because they assume that I probably know what I am doing.

To my misfortune, both seventeen year olds proceeded to argue with me, and to make a long story short, refused to test my water because the chlorine level (I had just shocked the pool the night before) bleached out the O-tolidine reagent in the chlorine test.

Unfortunately, this store is now the only game in towm, so I may be getting a Taylor reagent kit. Boy, do I WISH I had access to my lab again!! And thanks for listening to my vent.

[Watermom]

Next time just tell them that you use liquid chlorine. They don't need to know that it is bleach. But, better yet -- do get your own test kit. Your results will be much more reliable than those provided by seventeen year olds at a pool store.

(I'm not against 17 year olds. I have a 22 yr.old, a 16 1/2 year old and a just turned 12 year old and although my two older ones are pretty sure that they know everything, obviously they do not! My little one is by far the most sensible one of the bunch. It's funny - my 16 yr. old just recently got his driver's license and keeps referring to the car that we allow him to drive some as "my car." Needless to say, I continue to remind him that I am the one paying the car payment, the insurance and for the most part, the gas money. Even though I never drive this particular car, it doesn't matter. As long as my money is what is keeping it on the road, it will be MY car whether I drive it or not!!)

[Carolina]

Thank you - that is good advice. Why stir up the pot when you don't need to :-) Now, I do know some perfectly reasonable 17 year olds, I suppose these 2 just thought I was a nut. As for cars, my 2 children (ages 6 and 4) are not driving until they are reasonable - at least 30 or so!

[cleancloths]

As a former chemical engineer who worked for 5 years in a chlorine production facility I find it very funny that they call it liquid chlorine. Liquid chlorine can only exist under high pressure at ambient temperatures. It you opened a cyclinder of liquid chlorine it would quickly flash off as a gas. But, they are pool store empoyees, so what do you expect them to call liquid bleach.

[CarlD]

I would speak to the manager or the owner. There's no reason for a clerk to refuse to test pool water.

Ultimately, the only chemicals you MUST get from a pool store (like CYA and Polyquat) are available from Internet sources, so once you do your own testing, you can tell them where to go.

Or, better yet, don't tell them. Just stop going and suggest alternatives to your pool-owning friends.

Unless, of course, their superior is smart enough to realize that what they did was VERY bad business and fixes the problem.

[chem geek]

cleancloths,

In the pool industry, "liquid chlorine" is any liquid source of hypochlorite so that includes both bleach and chlorinating liquid. It's true that it is not technically "liquid chlorine", but that's what people call it in this industry, as far as I can tell. I sometimes even write "liquid chlorine" instead of always saying "bleach or chlorinating liquid". I suppose an accurate compromise would be "a liquid source of chlorine".

Richard