Bleach question

[VinDeeLoo]

We are thinking about going to bleach to chlorinate our pool. My question is, does the bleach not bleach you swimwear when using it? It may be a silly question, but my husband is not sure about using it until he knows.

We had to drain our pool and start over because we couldn't get it clear, no matter what we did. All levels were good except for hardness.

 

[Texas Splash]

The bleach is fine as long as you use the correct dosage (FC level) as noted on the Chlorine/CYA Chart (link below). As with any chemical, the proper amount and accurate testing (with the proper test kit) is key. Please see the TF-100 link below.

Oh ... and welcome to TFP!

 

[Mr Bruce]

The bleach is "buffered" by the amount of stabilizer (CYA) in your water. If you have the proper amounts of each, it doesn't smell, bleach out clothes, etc. The ABCs of Water Chemistry in Pool School would be a great read.

 

[crokett]

bleach will not discolor your swimwear, unless you splash some on yourself while you are adding it to the pool. That's how I learned to pour it slowly into a bucket first, then pour that into the pool.

Take a look at the Pool School on this site and read about water chemistry.

 

[titleistseemore]

Chlorine and bleach are the same chemical, chlorine is at a higher concentration than the bleach you put in your washing machine. So if you switch to bleach from chlorine concentrate, you will have to add more bleach because of the lower concentration

 

[YippeeSkippy]

First off, chlorine is chlorine no matter where you get it from. Some buy it in powder and pucks from the pool store, others buy it in liquid form from the grocery store. Its all the same chemical, although it can be in different strengths. If your goal is to keep 4ppm FC in your pool to sanitize it, you can put in ANY strength chlorine if you know just how much will bring you up to that 4ppm. We use a program (found at the top) called PoolMath to do the calculations on how much to put in.

Chlorine's strength is tempered by the presence of stabilizer (aka CYA) in the water. A pool with 1ppm FC and 0 stabilizer is much stronger than a pool with 5ppm FC and 30 ppm stabilizer. So since we generally all have stabilizer in our water we are fine.

So our swimwear is perfectly safe from problems, as is the liner in a pool and the equipment. As long as everything is balanced correctly its the easiest, cheapest way to chlorinate a pool in my opinion!

(Vinyl pools don't need calcium, so you never need to add it unless you have a heater)

----------
Dang.. I thought I'd be the first to answer this question and look how many beat me to the punch! :gone:

 

[VinDeeLoo]

Thank ya'll for the answers. We have a Taylor K-2006 kit. Our CYA is 0, so I need to get it up. I have some stabilizer in the pool now, but am pretty sure it isn't enough. Need to go get more. It is what was left over from when we opened the pool in June.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Perhaps some numbers might help alleviate your husband's concerns -

8.25% laundry bleach typically has a % available chlorine of ~ 7.62%. That is, bleach is normally sold by weight % of sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) so if you convert it to the volume % of available chlorine (Cl2), it makes it easier to compare what we normally measure in pools as free chlorine. Most clothes washers (at least for my Maytag Bravo XL) limit the amount of bleach added to 3/4 cup max and the water volume of my typical white clothes is probably around 10-15gal (can be more or less as the machine has an automatic water level system determined by the weight of clothes in the machine). But if we use those numbers we get the following -

0.75 cup * (8 oz/cup) / (15 gal * 128 oz/gal) = 0.3125 %

(0.3125% * 7.62%) * 1,000,000 = 238ppm available chloriine

And that 238ppm is unstabilized chlorine which means it's all hypochlorite (OCl-). Normal swimming pools will have, on average, about 5ppm free chlorine which is stabilized meaning that most of the chlorine is bound to the cyanuric acid molecule and held in reserve. Only a very small fraction (~ 5% or so) of that 5ppm exists as either hypochlorous acid or hypochlorite anion (those are the two active chlorine species that sanitize and oxidize).

So you can see that the amount of chlorine in bleach used to clean clothes is hundreds of times more concentrated than what is used to disinfect swimming pools. Now that's not to say that a chlorinated swimming pool will not degrade clothing. But what people normally associate with "bad chlorine pools" are the types of pools managed in commercial facilities (like the YMCA, etc) where they are not allowed to use stabilizer with chlorine and thus have pool water with much more harsh levels of active chlorine in the water. In places like those, a typically bathing suit won't last more than a season or even less. The methods we advocate create pool water that is very comfortable to swim in and not harsh at all.

 

[VinDeeLoo]

Thanks!