New product: A&H Clear Balance

[KLHink]

There's a new product I have so far only seen on the Dwight and Church Arm & Hammer website. Has anyone seen this on the shelf? Does it have anything added to it other than Baking Soda? (Ingredient info not in their site that I could find). They do have a lot of information there on pool chemistry, and how they recommend use of Baking Soda.

[CarlD]

What's it for? What's it do?

I hope it's not a pool product because they INEVITABLY are a cocktail of chemicals that you are better off without.

[KLHink]

It is a "pool product", and I won't be buying it (if I see it in the store) unless I can determine what the ingredients are. I sent them a "contact us" note, asking what the active ingredients are. If Arm and Hammer has made a tab of baking soda, without anything else, they should have named it something like "baking soda pool tabs" instead of the confusing and vague "Clear Balance". They also, regardless, should have some ingredient list via their website. They already have a lock on my loyalty with the baking soda, in my house and my pool. I don't think there would be an issue if that is all it contains, could be a useful product. I would find it weird if it has a lot of anything else in it, since most of the information they give on their boxes and website supports BBB. Not sure I'd want to add more stabilizer when I use the tabs in the summer (after I clean and balance the pool myself, use them just to keep a minimum level of chlorine). I have less than 30ppm in there right now, need to vacuum the last of the debris out to waste, so I will wait to add CYA (so keeping chlorine levels up is a pain right now). I can not explain why, might be just good fortune, but I have never had more than 70-80 ppm in the last three years, even though I use tabs part-time.

Anyway, I'm curious about this product, maybe someone at Arm and Hammer will get back to me next week with an answer, will be glad to share.

http://www.armhammer.com/clearbalance/

[chem geek]

According to this link, the Arm & Hammer Clear Balance tablet has the following ingredients:

Sodium Bicarbonate ....... 86.60%
Clarifier and Other Ingredients ........ 13.40%

It is essentially a compressed tablet form of baking soda plus a clarifier. It would mostly be used in pools that use Trichlor tablets/pucks and run at higher TA such that the pH is relatively stable but where the TA would otherwise be slowly dropping over time.

It's not appropriate for a BBB pool (i.e. one using hypochlorite sources of chlorine) as the TA tends to be relatively stable in such pools. In a saltwater chlorine generator (SWG) pool where acid is added regularly, then over time TA will be needed as well, but it is MUCH better to test for that and add baking soda as needed rather than rely on a tablet that dissolves at a rate that you don't really control.

Richard

[CarlD]

According to this link, the Arm & Hammer Clear Balance tablet has the following ingredients:

Sodium Bicarbonate ....... 86.60%
Clarifier and Other Ingredients ........ 13.40%

It is essentially a compressed tablet form of baking soda plus a clarifier. It would mostly be used in pools that use Trichlor tablets/pucks and run at higher TA such that the pH is relatively stable but where the TA would otherwise be slowly dropping over time.

It's not appropriate for a BBB pool (i.e. one using hypochlorite sources of chlorine) as the TA tends to be relatively stable in such pools. In a saltwater chlorine generator (SWG) pool where acid is added regularly, then over time TA will be needed as well, but it is MUCH better to test for that and add baking soda as needed rather than rely on a tablet that dissolves at a rate that you don't really control.

Richard

Besides, you don't NEED clarifier. Plus, regular baking soda is going to be far cheaper--exactly the OPPOSITE of what the pool chem companies want.

[KLHink]

And I don't want clarifier, either. Well, I guess they made a choice to formulate that product that way for a reason, and we are all going to keep on buying the straight stuff from them anyway. I just thought it was an interesting product that might have had possiblilities, and so it does, but not for most of us here. I'm glad chem geek could find the ingredients faster than I could from the Arm & Hammer.
Now I'm just wondering when summery weather will arrive up here and how many pool days we will be allowed when it does... hopefully we've finally gotten the last of our below freezing overnights.