My new million gallon pool!

ColdAirGuy · Posted: May 26th, 2012, 9:55 pm

Just curious as to what everyone here thinks, i'm just picturing all that chlorine burning up as it's fed, along with the moola.
Anyone have experience with Ozone generators? I'm thinking we should be looking into an ozone generator for the long term cost savings.

Suziqzer · **Joined:** September 21st, 2009, 12:40 pm **Posts:** 697

No cya?? By the mention of the presence of seagulls, I'm guessing this is outside. I would think adding cya would make the chlorine consumption much less! Why not treat it like a pool?

chiefwej · **Joined:** June 11th, 2011, 11:27 pm **Posts:** 418

Well if it's really a million gallons according to the Pool Calculator you need to add 250 pounds to get a CYA of 30.

ColdAirGuy · Posted: May 26th, 2012, 10:17 pm

Yes it's outside, and a million gallons.
I'm new here and ruffling feathers is not the fun thing to do, but hey perhaps it will earn me an attaboy?!?

Suziqzer · **Joined:** September 21st, 2009, 12:40 pm **Posts:** 697

Ouch!

chiefwej · **Joined:** June 11th, 2011, 11:27 pm **Posts:** 418

Best price I could find is about $59 for a 25lb. pail. So $250 -$500 depending on what you want the CYA level to be. Should save that back in Chlorine cost in no time.

ColdAirGuy · Posted: May 26th, 2012, 11:02 pm

Thanks, that's about the price I found too.

I've already mentioned the CYA issue once, and it fell on deaf ears....need to convince these people that this is a cost saving issue which is difficult when our "water treatment expert" hasn't mentioned it ever.

Leebo · **Joined:** July 21st, 2011, 5:53 pm **Posts:** 1068

I'm just thinking out loud here....and I'm an idiot.

In many states public pools have a laws that require a VERY low FC level for public pools. Maybe there is some stabilizer in the pool but a very low level.....thus allowing the company to keep the FC levels low as well. If you have a CYA level of 20 (which is like 0 when testing)...your target FC is 2. Many states require a max of 3ppm or the pool must be closed. Also....several states "strongly discourage" the use of CYA. Here's a quote from Penn. laws for public pools.

Quote:

The use of Cyanuric Acid, stabilizer, trichlor, and dichlor is not recommended in Pennsylvania aquatic facilities
Cyanuric acid can cause adverse human health effects and can eliminate chlorine’s effectiveness against Cryptosporidia.

JasonLion · Posted: May 27th, 2012, 6:56 am

Ozone wouldn't help. Adding even 5 ppm of CYA would greatly reduce the chlorine usage, though it would also require recalibrating your ORP target.

ColdAirGuy · Posted: May 27th, 2012, 10:54 am

Thanks for the input guys....

My concern was the fact that we are dumping so much chlorine into this thing on a weekly basis. I am by no means an expert on any of this obviously, How would the ORP setpoint be affected Jason? From what I've read 650 to 750 in the controller handbook is sufficient.

JasonLion · Posted: May 27th, 2012, 11:01 am

Having ORP at 850 is certainly too high, and could lead to corrosion from high FC levels.

CYA changes the ORP response curve. All of the ORP numbers will be lower when there is CYA in the water. If you go that route, you need to measure the FC level and adjust FC till it is where you want it, and then set the ORP controller to whatever it reads when you have the FC level you want to have.

Ohm_Boy · Posted: May 27th, 2012, 11:10 am

I'm gonna just drop an excerpt from bikeshed.com about Parkinson's Law, about why it is easier to build a power plane than a bike shed, and let you draw your own parallels...

Quote:

Parkinson shows how you can go in to the board of directors and
get approval for building a multi-million or even billion dollar
atomic power plant, but if you want to build a bike shed you will
be tangled up in endless discussions.

Parkinson explains that this is because an atomic plant is so vast,
so expensive and so complicated that people cannot grasp it, and
rather than try, they fall back on the assumption that somebody
else checked all the details before it got this far. Richard P.
Feynmann gives a couple of interesting, and very much to the point,
examples relating to Los Alamos in his books.

A bike shed on the other hand. Anyone can build one of those over
a weekend, and still have time to watch the game on TV. So no
matter how well prepared, no matter how reasonable you are with
your proposal, somebody will seize the chance to show that he is
doing his job, that he is paying attention, that he is *here*.

In Denmark we call it "setting your fingerprint". It is about
personal pride and prestige, it is about being able to point
somewhere and say "There! *I* did that." It is a strong trait in
politicians, but present in most people given the chance. Just
think about footsteps in wet cement.

ColdAirGuy · Posted: May 27th, 2012, 12:28 pm

Thanks for that excerpt Ohm.....very true.

Jason, thanks for the lesson here

JasonLion wrote:

Having ORP at 850 is certainly too high, and could lead to corrosion from high FC levels.

CYA changes the ORP response curve. All of the ORP numbers will be lower when there is CYA in the water. If you go that route, you need to measure the FC level and adjust FC till it is where you want it, and then set the ORP controller to whatever it reads when you have the FC level you want to have.

What is the reason an ORP sensor is used to determine when to feed chlorine vs. an actual sensor measuring free chlorine?
I've noticed the daily log for the water treatment (log contains PH, ORP and FC) the free chlorine can be anywhere between 1 and 3.5 ppm at any given time. The swings are pretty wide.

chiefwej · **Joined:** June 11th, 2011, 11:27 pm **Posts:** 418

Having spent many years as a Fire Chief, I would present a multimillion dollar budget and most of the discussion would be about magazine subscriptions. The powers that be always defer the discussion to a topic they feel they can grasp. Moral: If you can't dazzle them with your footwork, baffle them with your B.S.

JasonLion · Posted: May 27th, 2012, 3:15 pm

ColdAirGuy wrote:

What is the reason an ORP sensor is used to determine when to feed chlorine vs. an actual sensor measuring free chlorine?

ORP sensors cost about $150 to $300, FC sensors cost around $800 to $2000 (and were far more than that until recently). FC sensors are also rather sensitive to fouling with various chemicals which can ruin the sensor. ORP has all kinds of problems, but none the less it is the most cost effective thing available.

Lershac · Posted: May 27th, 2012, 3:41 pm

I would take the guy responsible for maintaining it to lunch a few times and veeeery slowly feed him the idea and let him think it's his idea. If you go over his head he will be an enemy, and if you let him have it he will recognize you as a team player who knows his politics, and has smart ideas to boot.

ColdAirGuy · Posted: May 27th, 2012, 6:54 pm

JasonLion wrote:

ColdAirGuy wrote:

What is the reason an ORP sensor is used to determine when to feed chlorine vs. an actual sensor measuring free chlorine?

ORP sensors cost about $150 to $300, FC sensors cost around $800 to $2000 (and were far more than that until recently). FC sensors are also rather sensitive to fouling with various chemicals which can ruin the sensor. ORP has all kinds of problems, but none the less it is the most cost effective thing available.

Thanks for the info, helped me quite a bit.

P.s...Lershac- The guy responsible is a paid outside contractor.
The guys I have tried to explain this to are my supervisors who are of the mindset that "it's been like this forever" why change anything now, it works!

I'll have to keep my own daily log on the amount of chlorine we are currently using with zero CYA

JamesW · **Joined:** March 2nd, 2011, 8:02 pm **Posts:** 1874

I think that you should treat it as a regular pool, following the guidelines here. I would think that the chlorine usage should not be more than 20 gallons of 12.5 % sodium hypochlorite per day (140 gallons per week).

I think that you should be using at least 40 ppm CYA, testing the FC using FAS-DPD at least once or twice per day and adjusting the chlorine feed rate based on FC readings, not ORP.

You might want to consider a salt system.

ColdAirGuy · Posted: May 27th, 2012, 9:04 pm

JamesW wrote:

I think that you should treat it as a regular pool, following the guidelines here. I would think that the chlorine usage should not be more than 20 gallons of 12.5 % sodium hypochlorite per day (140 gallons per week).

I think that you should be using at least 40 ppm CYA, testing the FC using FAS-DPD at least once or twice per day and adjusting the chlorine feed rate based on FC readings, not ORP.

You might want to consider a salt system.

Thanks for the input James,

I just looked at the FC log for the pool and it's jumped from 0 to 3.5 and everywhere in between during the past two weeks.

I would be afraid to suggest salt as we tend to repair pinhole leaks here and there on a regular basis.

I'm with you on feeding via the FC readings and just using the ORP as a reference. Have to look at for the most feasible, cost effective way to bring on our feed pumps.

Lershac · Posted: May 27th, 2012, 9:20 pm

Man that is almost someones salary right there... Just going poof in the sunlight every week. A shame, but there is waste like that everywhere in industry... its amazing sometimes how waste gets ignored as long as the company itself overall is profitable.

My new million gallon pool!

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