Is Borax hard to find?

[PoolDoc]

I'm getting the impression that Borax may be hard to find in some areas of the country. What about your area?

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[Watermom]

They sell it multiple places here (Walmart, K-mart, Kroger grocery stores.) Maybe other places, too, but those are the stores I usually shop at. One time earlier this summer, they were totally sold out at Walmart. I blame that on the Pool Forum and those dumb ole mods sending everybody out to buy some for their pools!

EDIT --- As much as we send people to Walmart to buy 5-way kits, bleach, and Borax and as much as we refer people to Amato Industries to buy a Taylor K-2006, they should send us a donation, don't ya think??

[CarlD]

What about the midwest where there is no coast?

[cbellcqa]

I am in Pittsburgh PA..forgive me...considered North East? and yes I'm having trouble finding Borax. Bought the last 4 boxes at my local grocer and they said it will no longer be carried. Tried Wal-Mart, K-Mart and other stores noted in previous posts with no luck. Was going to try the manufacturer directly.

[PoolDoc]

For folks in the middle, pick the 1/4 of the country you feel closest to.

Feel free to list your actual city.

Also, if anyone has found anyone selling borax online for $1/lb or less delivered, please list those locations.

PoolDoc

[AnnaK]

This online vendor, The Chemistry Store, is a good source for:

Borax

Baking Soda (sodium bicarbonate)

Washing Soda/Soda Ash (sodium carbonate)

I buy sodium percarbonate (the active ingredient in Oxyclean) there and use it in the laundry and for cleaning. It's especially excellent for soaking off baked on grunge on cookie sheets, oven ware, BBQ tools and etc.

[PoolDoc]

Thanks for the info Anka! I do need to add a bit of a caution.

Sodium percarbonate is good for a number of things, but I need to warn that it
is NOT for pools. It is NOT compatible with chlorine!

PoolDoc

[chem geek]

Ditto. Sodium percarbonate is best used for getting rid of Baquacil/biguanide/PHMB if one wants the conversion to go faster and be less colorful than using chlorine alone to do the job. However, it costs more than using chlorine for that purpose.

Basically, sodium percarbonate is equivalent to adding sodium carbonate (i.e. "pH Up") and hydrogen peroxide with the latter being completely incompatible with chlorine (i.e. the two will annihilate each other...gently).

[CarlD]

H2O2--a colleague's brother was a rocket scientist working on H2O2 propulsion systems.... I guess it wasn't the 3% solution!

[waterbear]

Some history on Sodium Percarbonate and swimming pool:

Sodium Percarbonate WAS sold to the commercial pool industry by one company that I know of as a non chlorine oxidizer. It was discovered that it not only was not compatible with chlorine but it also messed up ORP readings that many commercial pool installations depend on to maintain properly sanitized water. (I was actually told this by the President of said company.) Said company had stopped selling it for pool use several years back and (after moving their manufacturing location across the country) now is selling phosphate removers!

There is still one company selling sodium percarbonate for pool use as a specialty product to clear a badly fouled pool. The company is Proteam (who brought us Supreme and did much of the initial research on Borax as an algaestat in their St. Augustine, FL test pools before they were bought out by Haviland.)
The product is called System Support and it actually does work but is expensive (both for the product itself and for the large amount of dry acid needed to maintain the pH, since sodium percarbonate, as chem geek said, is highly alkaline). Waste has called it the "Alka-Seltzer Treatment" which is an apt name.

I personally have used it on green swamps with all kinds of leaves and stuff at the bottom. It causes the stuff to float up so it can be easily skimmed off and can usually clear a mess like that in about 48 hours with one treatment. Since it is being used in a pool without any chlorine at the time and since the peroxide is expended there is no problem getting the chlorine to hold after the treatment in my experiences with it. IMHO, it is useful for a pool service that cannot be on hand to dump chlorine in every few hours to clear a pool and where expense is not an issue.

However, as Ben said, once you have a pool with chlorine in it (and not a nasty green swamp) there is NO valid reason to put it in a pool.