Tulsa Pools : Water Treatment
Speaker 1: Hello, Divers! And welcome to Dive Time! I’m your host, Cody Albright. And, here with me, as always, is my beautiful, lovely co-host — and wife! — Rachel.
Speaker 2: Hello!
Speaker 1: Together we are the owners of Sierra Pools and Spas of Tulsa. You can find us online at sierrapoolsandspas.com, or give us a call at 918-884-8427. Again, that’s www.sierrapoolsandspas.com, or give us a phone call at 918-884-8427.
And, also, you can check us out on Facebook — we’re on there. You can give us a Like, and we’d appreciate that. So you can contact us through any of those methods.
So, today, we are going to be talking about water treatment for your Tulsa pools. So, without further ado — drum roll — water treatment for your Tulsa pools. Here’s Rachel Albright. Let’s talk about water treatment for your Tulsa pools.
Speaker 2: Yes, water treatment is very important; it keeps the water clean. So a proper filtration system is going to remove all the large particles of debris from your pool and spa, but it’s not going to do anything about the bacteria and the algae spores that are going to find their way into the water.
So, there’s a lot of things that can compromise the quality of the water, and you’re gonna have to have some kind of chemical to get rid of this bacteria. Some really nasty things can happen to your water: it can turn colors; it can get cloudy. There’s rain; there’s airborne micro-organisms — and even swimmers can compromise the quality of water. There’s a nasty statistic about people peeing in the pool —
Speaker 1: Ooh! That’s gonna be fun. You know, I always heard that when you pee in the pool, it would turn purple. And it never did for me, so …
Speaker 2: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:01:55]
Speaker 1: [crosstalk 00:01:56] I don’t understand.
Speaker 2: That’s a lie. [crosstalk 00:01:56]
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. [crosstalk 00:01:58]
Speaker 2: ‘Cause your mom didn’t want you to pee in the pool. [crosstalk 00:01:59]
Speaker 1: Yeah. It’s kinda like — [crosstalk 00:02:00]
Speaker 2: ‘Cause it’s really gross. [crosstalk 00:02:02]
Speaker 1: If you swallow watermelon seed — [crosstalk 00:02:03]
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. [crosstalk 00:02:03]
Speaker 1: The watermelon will grow in your stomach. So it’s kind of like that.
Speaker 2: But it is really disgusting, and according to the Huffington Post [crosstalk 00:02:10]
Speaker 1: But everyone does it.
Speaker 2: Not everyone, but, a lot of people.
Speaker 1: In the ocean it’s easy to do. I don’t feel guilty at all in the ocean or the lake.
Speaker 2: That’s disgusting. [crosstalk 00:02:20] But —
Speaker 1: But … It’s like peeing in the shower: everyone does it Tulsa Pools.
Speaker 2: Not me.
Speaker 1: But not in the pool, because that’s gross. I agree with you. I feel like I’m getting the wrong message out there. Don’t pee in your pool; I was kidding about that. Okay, I’m sorry. Go on.
Speaker 2: Anyways, according to the Huffington Post, nearly 64-percent of adult Americans — adults, people! —
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 2: Admit to peeing in the pool. This doesn’t include children, which we know pee in the pool. So just think about: if you have children and adults, one out of six adults are peeing in your pool. SO, that’s pretty gross.
Speaker 1: That is gross. That is not true. [crosstalk 00:02:57]
Speaker 2: And then — [crosstalk 00:02:58]
Speaker 1: Is this true?
Speaker 2: It’s according to the Huffington Post; you can look it up Tulsa Pools.
Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
Speaker 2: It is true. And, so, I don’t even want to think about the percentage of children — I’m sure that’s 100-percent. So, there’s … you really want to make sure that you are keeping your water sanitized, because that is really nasty.
Speaker 1: But, to be honest, though, as a kid, I really don’t remember peeing in the pool —
Speaker 2: [crosstalk 00:03:22] I guarantee it.
Speaker 1: Because they always told me that it’s gonna turn purple, so. [crosstalk 00:03:25]
Speaker 2: [crosstalk 00:03:25] So you were scared.
Speaker 1: I mean, it scared me pretty good. But I might have; I don’t know.
Speaker 2: That’s funny.
So you’re pool water should be clean enough to see clearly a coin thrown into the deep end, and it should feel good on your skin. It shouldn’t be stinging your eyes; it shouldn’t make your skin itchy or irritated. Your water should be clean enough that those things aren’t happening. And the only way to achieve those results is to kill off bacteria with a disinfectant. Get rid of organic matter through oxidation, which is the breaking down of material at the molecular level, and keep the basic elements of the water in balance with each other. So make sure it’s PH-balanced and everything.
So most homeowners are gonna use either chlorine or bromine, but nowadays saltwater is becoming very, very, very popular, and we’ll talk about the benefits of that a little bit later on. Chlorine is the best-known sanitizer, and for years it really was the only thing available in the market. But in recent years, bromine and then, again, as I said, saltwater, has become available and has been an alternative option.
Chlorine is popular because it is both an oxidizer and a sanitizer, and it’s relatively inexpensive. Tulsa PoolsYou can buy chlorine in liquid, tablet, or granular form. Now when you add the chlorine to the water, it goes to work immediately. A certain amount of the chlorine always has to remain in the water to constantly destroy subsequent bacteria and organic material. That means that any given time there are two types of chlorine present in the pool: the type that is sitting by to clean up the water is called Free-Available Chlorine. Then there’s the chlorine that has already done its work and has combined with organic matter, called Combined-Available Chlorine, which is actually a compound made up of chlorine and nitrogen or ammonia. So, together the FAC and the CAC comprise the total-available chlorine in a pool or spa.
You can think of it this way: the FAC, or the Free-Available Chlorine, is the good chlorine. The CAC, or the Combined-Available Chlorine, is the bad chlorine because it no longer has the ability to sanitize the water. And that is where you get the chlorine odor; it’s from that CAC. It’s that chlorine that combines with nitrogen or ammonia and it gives off that nasty smell.
So, when you smell that, there is not enough Free-Available Chlorine in the water to sanitize your pool. That’s why you’re smelling the Combined-Available Chlorine. That would mean that you need to either shock your pool … which is going to be adding a very, very high amount of chlorine to your water to kill everything that’s in there. Or, just adjust your levels of chlorine that you’re adding in your pool. Because the CAC is gonna cause skin irritation and burning eyes.
So the forms of chlorine — there are three different types: there is liquid, tablet and granular. Tulsa Pools Some types contain more chlorine than others, and in addition some products contain stabilizers which keep them from losing strength in sunlight and heat. Generally, chlorine products that contain the most free chlorine and are the most stable, cost the most. And I’m gonna list off several different types of chlorine in their different forms. And I’m gonna start with the least expensive and work up to the most expensive.
So the least expensive type is Sodium Hypochlorite. This is the liquid form of chlorine, and it contains about ten- to fifteen-percent free chlorine. It’s not household bleach, which contains only about five-percent chlorine. Once in the water, this product becomes very unstable.
The next would be Calcium Hypochlorite, better known as Cal-Hypo. This is available in granular and tablet form. It contains up to 65-percent free chlorine and dissolves quickly in water; however, it’s unstable and usually must be used with a stabilizer.
Di-Chlor, this is a tablet-form product that dissolves quickly in water. Tulsa Pools It is very stable and contains about 60-percent free chlorine. And the most expensive would be Tri-Chlor, this is a tablet-form product that dissolves slowly in water. In contains 90-percent free chlorine and is very stable.
So when you’re administering the chlorine, you have to mix liquid or granular chlorine with water before pouring it into the pool. And with handling the chlorine, you always want to be sure you use a clean container, and make sure that it is not combined with any other chemicals. Certain household chemicals can make chlorine very unstable, so you definitely want to be careful with that.
If you use a chlorine tablet, you can place it in a floating-erosion feeder, in which the water slowly dissolves the tablet, or in a holder that you can install inside the skimmer, if you don’t want something floating around in your pool.
Another option is to actually install a chemical feeder in the pool’s circulation system. So you can install these downstream of the pump and the filter. That means that every time the pump is turned on, the pool is getting a dose of chlorine which is being distributed throughout the pool more evenly than is possible with hand- or simple-erosion feeders. So that’s a really good option. It is more expensive, but it definitely provides the most efficient administering of the chlorine.
To maintain the chlorine’s efficiency, most manufacturers recommend keeping chlorine levels at about one-to-three parts per million for pools, and slightly higher levels for spas. Spas require more disinfecting than pools because the area is a lot smaller, but you have a lot of people in there. So it’s basically a hard-use pool. So five people in a 700-gallon spa equals almost 200 people in a 25,000-gallon pool. So you’re using … the water in the spa is getting a lot more use than the pool water. So you have to have a lot more chlorine in there.
And then you have on top of that the increased water temperature which promotes algae and bacteria growth, Tulsa Pools but dissipates chlorine. Spas often require more attention than pools. Also, keep in mind that the rays of sunlight and heat can drain chlorine of its punch, so it can make it less effective, making it unstable. Cyanuric Acid added to the water helps the chlorine and increase its useful life. Most chemical from the manufacturer sell stabilize-chlorine tablets, so there’s really no need for you to handle this acid separately; you should use a chemical feeder when using these types of products, though.
So the next type of sanitizer that we’re gonna talk about is Bromine. Like chlorine, it actually both disinfects and oxidizes unwanted material in the water. However, unlike chlorine, once bromine combines with organic matter, it does not produce an offensive smell. So that’s one benefit. When it combines with the different organic matter in the water, it’s not gonna give off an offensive smell like that chlorine does. And it doesn’t burn the eyes or the skin of swimmers, which is another great thing. There’s also no need to shock a bromine pool because the compounds break down naturally. It’s also resistant to high water temperatures, making this chemical a good choice for spas and hot tubs, or heated pools.
On the downside, it is more expensive than chlorine, and it also dissipates very quickly in the sunlight, and it cannot be stabilized the way that chlorine can. Although you can add chlorine to help stabilize bromine. And, in fact, some bromine tablets actually contain up to thirty-percent chlorine. So, while a good choice for the confined area and high-water temperatures of a spa, bromine is also an option for some large pools, particularly indoor pools because they are shielded from the sun. So that is another option for you.
The last option in sanitizing your pool water would be saltwater chlorination, Tulsa Pools and this is becoming very, very popular because of all of the health benefits it adds. And in some parts of the country it’s actually overtaken traditional chlorine systems. However, don’t let saltwater confuse you; it does still involve chlorine. Tulsa Pools The difference lies in the way the chlorine is produced and how it’s dispensed into the water, and how it feels on your skin. ‘Cause chlorine can be very drying for your skin.
Saltwater chlorination systems actually use a chlorine generator; this is how they produce the chlorine in the water. It’s an electrical device that converts salt into chlorine and continuously discharges it at low, but very effective levels into your pool. Basically, in simple terms, when water passes through the generator’s cell, salt is transformed into chlorine, which is the active sanitizer, and chlorinators are in lined-systems that are installed after the pool’s filter.
There are two basic types of chlorine generators available for residential pools. Tulsa Pools The first, and most common type, just calls for a small amount of salt — roughly the equivalent of one teaspoon per gallon — to be added to your pool water. This amount is so small that people don’t even recognize it as they swim. You can’t even taste it or anything. The second method relies on a tank in the pool-equipment area that contains pre-measured amount of salt. Some professionals note that these units can be messy and that it may be difficult to dispose of their byproducts.
There are a number of advantages and benefits to having a saltwater chlorination system. Because the chlorine generator produces chlorine in the form of a pure gas that is pumped directly into the water, there’s no need to buy, measure, store or handle chlorine in liquid or tablet form. So you never have to worry about having to replenish your chlorine supply because it’s delivered in a constant stream through the generator. As a result, there are way fewer chloramines, meaning that odor — you’re not gonna get that odor that you get when chlorine mixes with organic material in the pool.
Another thing: the saltwater will give your skin a more smooth feel, which is really nice. It doesn’t dry out your skin as much as a chlorine system will. Now, even though you don’t have to add chlorine, it’s not completely maintenance-free. You still do have to do some maintenance on a saltwater system: the cell will need be replaced over time, you’ll still need to check salt levels and keep the water properly balanced. In order to function properly, you do need to give it some attention to make sure that it’s maintaining a fairly-constant salt level. These are more expensive systems, so you can expect to pay at least around a thousand dollars for a chlorine generator. They are definitely more expensive, but in the long run, over time, you are not putting as much money into chemicals. So that can save you some money over the long run. And all the benefits really make it a popular option for a lot of people.
So that is a basic overview of the different ways you can treat your water for your Tulsa pools, and I hope it was informative for a lot of you, and —
Speaker 1: Yeah. That was great. That was great information about water treatment. Again, at Sierra Pools and Spas, we love to educate you about this. So, when we come to your consultation and come to the point of water treatment to install that into your pool, we’ll run you through how that process works and what’s best for your pool. We’ll educate you, for sure.
So that was a great time. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Thank you, Divers, for listening. And that’s gonna be a wrap! As always, this is Cody.
Speaker 2: I’m Rachel.
Speaker 1: And we’ll talk to you next time.