44 Seconds With Frank, Pool Chemistry

44 Seconds with Frank is segments of 4 different listener questions that Frank has to answer, but he only has 44 seconds to give the best answer he can give.

This segment is questions from listeners about pool water chemistry.

00:00 - 00:54 introduction

00:54 Question 1: Why should you use borates in your pool?

borates does 4 things in your pool. 1. borates softens the water much like salt water does. It is easier on the skin and easier on the eyes. 2. borates is a clarifier, it helps remove suspended particles from the water. 3. borates help stabilize pH. pH is critical to water balance to help protect your pool surfaces and pool equipment, and pH is important on controlling how effective your chlorine is. 4. borates is an algae-stat, borates helps restrict the growth of algae. with less algae growth you can use less sanitizers, if you can use less sanitizer then you save money and your pool is easier to maintain and your pool consistently looks better.

02:00 - Questions 2: What is the effect of pH on chorine?

when chlorine goes into water it goes in as an active chlorine (hypochlorous acid) and an inactive chlorine (hypochlorite ion). ph determines what percentage of the available chlorine is active, and what percentage of chlorine is inactive. at a pH of 7.5 it is about 50/50. as active chlorine gets used up, inactive chlorine switches over to become active to maintain the balance according to pH. at a pH of 8.0 only around 20% of available chlorine is active active, and around 80% is reservice. at a pH of 7.0 around 80% of available chlorine is active and around 20% is reserve. so the lower the pH the more active the chlorine is. remember with cya or stabilizer in the water at around 30 to 50 ppm, only about 3% of the chlorine is available, the rest is bonded to cya.

02:53 - Question 3: How much chlorine should you use in your pool?

There are a lot of variables to determine how much chlorine a pool requires to maintain proper sanitation and kill algae. No two pools are exactly alike. What products are you using? What is the strength of the product? Where are you getting your chlorine? What is the swimmer load and demand for sanitizer? Are there a lot of swimmers, or dogs, or do you get a lot of organic material in the pool? The proper amount of chlorine that you should have in your pool on a constant and consistent basis, if you do not keep borates in the water at 40 to 50%, is 7.5% of your cya or stabilizer level. so if cya is 50 ppm, then you should have chlorine levels of 3.75 ppm. If you do have borates in the pool at 40 to 50 ppm, then you should keep a chlorine residual of 5% of the cya or stabilizer level. So if cya is 50 ppm, then you should maintain a chlorine residual of 2.5 ppm. So it takes 50% more chlorine residual if you do not have borates. But how much chlorine you need to add to a pool is different from pool to pool. Test and dose accordingly.

03:43 - Question 4: Why is stabilizer bad?

cya or stabilizer is a necessary evil. We have to protect the chlorine in outdoor pools from the UV rays of the sun with stabilizer, or it chlorine will burn out very quickly. Typically 30 to 50 ppm is enough to sufficiently protect the chlorine from the sun. Stabilizer does greatly reduct the effectiveness of chlorine. The more stabilizer there is in the water the more chlorine it takes to properly sanitize it.