Skin smells of chlorine after swimming

[fivestring]

I can't even wash it off my hands in the shower.

My wife did add 5 gal chlorine earlier in the day, maybe that is normal?

Here's the stats from the pool store....
vinyl liner AG pool, 33,000 gal.

FC 2.0
TC 2.2
CC 0.1
pH 8.1
Hardness 50
Alk 150
CYA 35
Copper 0.1

She said the alk and pH are a little high but backwashing would probably take care of that.

Should I do anything to try to remove the smell?

 

[no-mas]

Welcome to the forum!

Backwashing won't change your pH or TA; need to add acid for that. Your Chlorine is a little low at 2; for CYA 35 it should be 4-7, targeting 5. Check out pool school by clicking on the pool school box on the upper right corner of the page for more info.

With all that said, I can't answer the question you were really asking I'll sometimes have the slightest chlorine smell after being in the pool for a long time, but I don't mind it; smells "clean" to me.

 

[coloeb]

Adding 5 gal of 6% bleach would have taken her FC level from 0 to 9.5 based on 33k gal. Something is missing here.

1- How long after the sample was collected untill the pool store tested?

2-Was it full sunlight on pool when it was added? ( Thats alot to lose )

3- Do You have a way to test FC above 5ppm? ( ask your wife )

What I suspect is that you are smelling combined chlorine and your store readings are skewed. Exactly how did your wife determine that chlorine was needed , and to use that amount?

 

[Bama Rambler]

Welcome to TFP

Did she add 5 gallons or 5 jugs? some jugs of bleach are 1.42 gallons. That'd equal 7.1 gallons.
Was it Bleach or 10% or 12.5% Liquid Chlorine?

 

[Ohm_Boy]

Agreed that the smell is most likely CC, for which the fix is a good shocking. You want to validate those chlorine test readings (another case for having your own high-quality test kit) and see about getting that PH down to around 7.4

 

[Melt In The Sun]

It may not be CC. If I swim when FC is high (i.e. 13 w/ CYA @ 60, last week), I my skin smells faintly of bleach (not CC) til the next shower.

 

[AnnaK]

33,000 gallons is a lot for an above-ground pool. What are your pool's dimensions?

 

[fivestring]

Ok, my pool is a 33' round and I think 48" deep.
The sample was taken in the morning in full sunlight and tested within 20 minutes.
Our chlorine jugs are from the pool store (they sell it in bulk) and are 2.5 gal each. So I was wrong. She actually only added 2.5 gallons.
It is 10.5%.

My wife was told by the pool store to add one jug every 3 days since it is now pretty warm here in S Georgia.

We don't (yet) have a test kit except a cheap one from Walmart.

On a side note, is $13.32 a good price for 7.5 gallons of 10.5% chlorine? That is what we are charged.

(I don't like being a noobert)

Thanks for all the replies. I need to do some pool school to decipher some of these answers.

 

[AnnaK]

If the water depth is 48" I get 25,600 gallons for a 33' diameter pool. It would be less than that if the water depth is less, obviously.

I pay $15 for a 5 gallon carboy of what's said to be 12% chlorine but tests out at about 10%, so $3/gallon for a similar product. You're paying $1.78/gallon which is an excellent price if it really is 10.5%.

Adding 2.5 gallons of the 10.5% chlorine to your pool (assuming 25,600 gal volume) will raise your FC by about 10 ppm. So, if you swim on a day when you've raised the FC by that much and given that there's likely already chlorine in the pool it makes sense that your skin and hair smells of chlorine.

You might want to think about getting a quality test kit so you can dose your pool in a more gradual manner and maintain a much lower chlorine level.

 

[coloeb]

Your pool is 25,600 gal. Adding 2.5 gal. of 10% bleach will raise FC 9.8 . With you CYA of 35 you should be targeting no more than 7ppm FC. This advice is costing you money. The next thing is " just add 1 jug every 3 days. while this may be close to what you would use , the only way to know for sure is to test. and even then you want to add chlorine daily not every 3 days. Your price for a 7.5 gal. seems to be fair its the only saving grace I can see so far from your pool store. Do yourself a big favor and look into buying a reliable test kit. I use the TF-100 kit sold here on this site. The pool school is a very helpful bit of information no pool owner should be without.

 

[fivestring]

I studied Pool School a good bit tonight and have a better understanding of the process now but I can not find the page where the test kits are sold Can someone point me in the right direction, please?

 

[GApoolmommie]

Here: http://www.tftestkits.net//

You can find links to the most used areas in the mods signatures too, i.e. calculator, cya/CL chart, etc