Isn't 10% "liquid chlorine" cheaper than bleach?

[kearpaul]

JohnT, you caught me. I checked the bleach and it is 6%, not 5.25% as I said. Maxima mea culpa. I like the way you boiled down the equation to remove water and lye.

Now, Carl and Evan, if you would please tell me more about carboys. Warning: newbie questions dead ahead. What kind of places sell carboys? It contains 2.5 gallons of the 'hard stuff' in a returnable container? Is it reasonably safe to store a carboy in a hot garage? The way my pool is ripping through chlorine, it sounds these are the way to go.

Cheers from the Sierra Foothills,
Paul

_ _ _ _ _
We may not pay Satan reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents.
Mark Twain

[AnnaK]

For me, the 5 gal carboy of the higher concentration bleach is by far the most economical. The intial deposit is $6 and refills are $3/gal. I keep the carboy in the garage and transfer the bleach to an old Clorox bottle with a syphon.

Not only do I save a little bit of money but I cannot justify the large number of plastic bottles I'd be going through if I bought bleach by the gallon. It's a pretty serious waste disposal issue out here in the contry.

I buy the carboy refills at the pool store. Pool stores aren't all bad

Anna

[CarlD]

Carboys are blue containers...some are square, some are round--but most stores use the square ones and you can return the "deposit" carboys to any store that uses them. Some stores have 2.5 gallons, but here in NJ they are mostly 5 gallons.

Better than a syphon: A lot of the pool stores sell a spigot for the carboys for about $4. that replaces the cap--like an old-fashioned beer-barrel tap.

You can test the strength yourself:
1) Use a 1 ml eyedropper (most drug stores have them, or a child's used-up cold medicine eye-dropper).
2)Add 1 ml to 10 liters of tap water
3) that's5x 2 liter soda bottles and you are diluting it to a concentration of 1:10,000.
4) and measure EXACTLY as if you were testing your pool.
5) Whatever you read (say, 5.75ppm or 13.5ppm) is the REAL concentration of the bleach/liquid chlorine.


You MAY want to test your tap water first for chlorine and adjust accordingly.

[Spensar]

What kind of places sell carboys?

Aside from pool stores you can also try industrial cleaning supplies (my source).

[AnnaK]

The carboys here in Pennsylvania are yellow. They look like jerry cans and have a red lid covering the fill hole on top of the canister. I like the spigot idea but can't figure how that would work on these types of carboys. The syphonig can be messy though I've gotten prety darn good at knowing just when to turn the suction off to fill the bottle but not spill over.

The things we learn with the care and feeding of a swimming pool!

[kearpaul]

Thanks everyone. Very helpful.

Best,
Paul

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I'm a peripheral visionary. I can see into the future -- just way off to the side.
Steven Wright