Negatives of using bleach? And bleach vs. liquid chlorine?

ride525 · Posted: July 25th, 2010, 3:12 pm

Just curious, if there are negatives to using bleach?

For instance for tabs, it is commonly pointed out that CYA builds up when using tabs.

How about bleach? And any thoughts on using 6% bleach vs. 10% or 12% pool chlorine? For instance would using twice the amount of 6% bleach add anything more to the pool than 12% chlorine?

Thanks for your thoughts,

Jeff

lbrownin · Posted: July 25th, 2010, 3:58 pm

I've been using bleach for a couple of months with great results. The only downside for me is having to carry those heavy bottles. If I had access to 12%, I would get that so I'd have half as many to deal with. Local pool stores don't carry it. Home Depot has 10%, but the bottles look like they have been around for quite a while. I plan to switch to a SWCG next year, budget permitting.

anonapersona · **Joined:** November 5th, 2008, 7:13 am **Posts:** 2365

Yup the downside is the jugs, concentrated would be nice if the price was same or better. Locally it is worse, somehow.

lapzanpool · Posted: July 25th, 2010, 4:38 pm

I'm fortunate, my local pool store carries 12.5% and it is about $2.50 a gallon. Much better price than Leslie (which is almost twice as much) and the other pool stores that have the 5 gallon jugs.

bk406 · Posted: July 25th, 2010, 4:59 pm

For the record, bleach is liquid chlorine :wink:

JasonLion · Posted: July 25th, 2010, 5:26 pm

The only negative is carrying the bottles/jugs. Higher concentrations mean less carrying, but they can't be stored for long periods of time.

ride525 · Posted: July 25th, 2010, 5:37 pm

Is there anything in the bleach or liquid chlorine that adds to the pool over time? (like tabs add CYA)

And does bleach or liquid chlorine add more than the other?

duraleigh · Posted: July 25th, 2010, 5:43 pm

Quote:

For the record, bleach is liquid chlorine :wink:

JasonLion · Posted: July 25th, 2010, 5:57 pm

Bleach/liquid chlorine adds just slightly more salt than other forms of chlorine. All forms of chlorine add salt. Some brands also raise the PH slightly more than other brands, though none of them raise it very much (usually the net change in PH is so small you can't measure it).

ride525 · Posted: July 25th, 2010, 8:46 pm

Does 6% bleach add more salt than 12% liquid chlorine. (Given you would use twice as much 6%). I thought I read that somewhere.

And does the bleach/liquid chlorine adding more salt raise the TDS faster?

Thanks,

Jeff

JasonLion · Posted: July 25th, 2010, 9:10 pm

Ignore TDS. There is no point in even thinking about TDS. TDS has absolutely no bearing on anything to do with pools.

Raising the FC level by a fixed amount adds more or less the same amount of salt regardless of what strength of bleach you use.

arvil · Posted: July 25th, 2010, 9:32 pm

The 12Â½% I get from the pool store is about $3.20 per gallon. I noticed last year that jugs of bleach in stores including Walmart and all the grocery stores are typically no longer gallons. They are usually 85 ounces which is 2/3 gallon. I guess they hope you don't notice that it isn't a gallon any more. Sorta like you can't hardly buy a pound of coffee any more.

anonapersona · **Joined:** November 5th, 2008, 7:13 am **Posts:** 2365

arvil wrote:

The 12Â½% I get from the pool store is about $3.20 per gallon. I noticed last year that jugs of bleach in stores including Walmart and all the grocery stores are typically no longer gallons. They are usually 85 ounces which is 2/3 gallon. I guess they hope you don't notice that it isn't a gallon any more. Sorta like you can't hardly buy a pound of coffee any more.

Yeah, like we all don't have calculators on our phones.

chem geek · Posted: July 26th, 2010, 3:12 am

For every 10 ppm Free Chlorine (FC) added by ANY source or chlorine, it will also add 8.2 ppm salt when the chlorine gets used up since it gets converted to chloride (which is salt). In addition, bleach, chlorinating liquid, lithium hypochlorite and chlorine gas all add an additional 8.2 ppm salt upon addition whereas Trichlor and Dichlor do not (Cal-Hypo is in between adding 2-4 ppm extra salt). Salt is far less of an issue than the Cyanuric Acid (CYA) added by Trichlor and Dichlor or the Calcium Hardness (CH) added by Cal-Hypo and on a percentage basis it rises the least. The concentration of product is not relevant towards these numbers that are relative to the FC.

The following chart shows how much the CYA, CH and Salt would rise after 6 months if there were 2 ppm FC per day chlorine usage and no water dilution:

........................ CYA ... CH ... Salt
Trichlor .......... 220 ...... 0 .... 295
Dichlor ........... 325 ...... 0 .... 295
Cal-Hypo .......... 0 .... 255 ... 360
Bleach* ............. 0 ........ 0 ... 595

*Bleach, chlorinating liquid, lithium hypochlorite and chlorine gas all result in no CYA, no CH and the same amount of salt.

Note that a rise in CYA of 220 ppm is much worse than a rise in CH of 255 ppm which is worse than a rise in salt of 595 ppm.

geekgranny · Posted: July 26th, 2010, 3:57 am

chem geek wrote:

For every 10 ppm Free Chlorine (FC) added by ANY source or chlorine, it will also add 8.2 ppm salt when the chlorine gets used up since it gets converted to chloride (which is salt). In addition, bleach, chlorinating liquid, lithium hypochlorite and chlorine gas all add an additional 8.2 ppm salt upon addition whereas Trichlor and Dichlor do not (Cal-Hypo is in between adding 2-4 ppm extra salt). Salt is far less of an issue than the Cyanuric Acid (CYA) added by Trichlor and Dichlor or the Calcium Hardness (CH) added by Cal-Hypo and on a percentage basis it rises the least. The concentration of product is not relevant towards these numbers that are relative to the FC.

If one had a daily chlorine consumption of 2 ppm FC per day, then after 6 months of using only Trichlor, the CYA would rise by nearly 220 ppm and the salt by almost 300 ppm if there were no water dilution. If one were using Dichlor, the CYA would rise by nearly 330 ppm and the salt by almost 300 ppm. If one were using Cal-Hypo, the CH would rise by at least 120 ppm and the salt by around 400 ppm. With bleach or chlorinating liquid (or lithium hypochlorite or chlorine gas), the salt would rise by almost 600 ppm. A rise in CYA of 220 ppm is much worse than a rise in CH of 120 ppm which is worse than a rise in salt by 600 ppm.

That the most concise and perfectly understandable explanation one could ever find anywhere.... from our very own chemgeek. :goodjob:

gg=alice

mynewpool · Posted: July 26th, 2010, 8:19 am

For those that use bleach and hate to lug the jugs you can do what I do because I hated lugging the jugs. Get measuring buckets from walmart, home depot, lowes, etc. I have two buckets that measure up to 64 ounces in measurements of 8 ozs for acid and bleach. I see how much I need and just fill up these buckets and carry those to the poolside to add what is needed. You can always get bigger buckets but then the breakdown goes higher such as 16 or 24 ozs instead of the 8. There have been a few times to where I needed to make a second trip to fill up with more bleach, but beats the heck out of having to carry the jug around. I got my measuring buckets at walmart for less than 2 bucks a piece. I think they were around 1.50. Hope this helps some.

ride525 · Posted: July 26th, 2010, 8:30 am

Thanks for all your posts.

To summarize:
1. There really isn't any difference between adding 12% liquid chlorine, or twice the amount of 6% bleach.
2. Liquid chlorine or bleach adds about twice the amount of salt to the pool vs. tabs. 600ppm vs. 300 ppm in Chem Geek's example for six months, with chlorine consumption of 2ppm FC per day.
3. Don't worry at all about TDS, it has no bearing on anything to do with pools.

Thanks again,

Jeff

JasonLion · Posted: July 26th, 2010, 8:45 am

ride525 wrote:

1. There really isn't any difference between adding 12% liquid chlorine, or twice the amount of 6% bleach.

There is one difference, how much you need to carry.

mynewpool · Posted: July 26th, 2010, 9:07 am

So does no one just get smaller buckets and carry it to the pool besides me?

257WbyMag · Posted: July 26th, 2010, 9:19 am

The amount of salt that bleach of the liquid chlorine adds is fairly negligible. As was mentioned, the only downside to bleach that I see is carrying it. I don't have to carry it as far as some people do though.

Negatives of using bleach? And bleach vs. liquid chlorine?

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