Quote Originally Posted by chem geek View Post
I originally posted the following on another forum, but thought it was valuable enough to post here as well.






Trichlor Tabs/Pucks (3") ... $77 for 35 pounds so that's $2.20 per pound
Dichlor ... $104 for 40 pounds so that's $2.60 per pound
73% Cal-Hypo ... $120 for 50 pounds so that's $2.40 per pound
Lithium Hypochlorite ... $150 for 25 pounds so that's $6.00 per pound (from this website since Leslie's doesn't carry it online as far as I could tell)
12.5% Chlorinating Liquid ... $3.50 for 1 gallon from my local pool store (9.7 pounds -- product is 16% denser than water) so that's $0.36 per pound
6% Bleach ... $1 for 96 ounces (6.75 pounds -- product is 8% denser than water and 96/128th of a gallon) so that's $0.15 per pound

Notice how much less expensive per pound the chlorinating liquid is. It had better be because most of it is water, so what we really need to see is the cost per available chlorine and that is as follows:

Trichlor Tabs/Pucks ......... $2.20 / 0.915 = $2.40
Dichlor .......................... $2.60 / 0.554 = $4.70
73% Cal-Hypo ................ $2.40 / 0.724 = $3.31
Lithium Hypochlorite ....... $6.00 / 0.474 = $12.66
12.5% Chlorinating Liquid . $0.36 / 0.108 = $3.33
6% Bleach ..................... $0.15 / 0.057 = $2.63

The above cost is for the same amount of chlorine. That is, if you added the amount of each product required to raise the FC by the same amount for all of these products, then the above shows the relative costs (the costs above are for amounts that would raise the FC by 12 ppm in 10,000 gallons). You can see that Trichlor and bleach are roughly comparable in cost while Cal-Hypo and chlorinating liquid is a little more expensive and Dichlor a little more expensive than that. Lithium is much, much more expensive. Not just twice as much (as with Dichlor vs. Trichlor), but over 5 times as expensive as Trichlor or chlorinating liquid.

Richard

I get tricholr for 50lbs for $80 at BJ's. That is $1.60 per pound.

for Chlorine 1.60 / .915 = $1.74

that seems to be the cheapest way to go.