Find a way to collaborate with the PPOA?

[UnderWaterVanya]

The PPOA folks seem to "get" the chemistry of pools. Their methods are geared to large pools but they have a lot of science backing their claims and they might be able to help refine some explanations and provide a way to defuse "pros" who think they know better than the experts here.

Nice article there:
http://ppoa.org/?page_id=418

 

[y_not]

The PPOA folks seem to "get" the chemistry of pools. Their methods are geared to large pools but they have a lot of science backing their claims and they might be able to help refine some explanations and provide a way to defuse "pros" who think they know better than the experts here.

Nice article there:
http://ppoa.org/?page_id=418

I Like it UWV, they definitely seem to coincide with what this forum teaches.
There are a few things with a little difference, like CYA levels and such. But they have the same concepts and ideas from what I scanned. I didn't fully read it though.

Nice to be able to stick this URL in front of someone, a naysayer and say, HEY! Look at this, see these guys, remember them? Yeah..
LOL

Love it UWV, you're such a nerd!

 

[UnderWaterVanya]

I Like it UWV, they definitely seem to coincide with what this forum teaches.
There are a few things with a little difference, like CYA levels and such. But they have the same concepts and ideas from what I scanned. I didn't fully read it though.

Nice to be able to stick this URL in front of someone, a naysayer and say, HEY! Look at this, see these guys, remember them? Yeah..
LOL

Love it UWV, you're such a nerd!

I agree - the deltas are not things that are not unexpected - chem geek has talked about the fact that commercial pools have a different CYA need than residential. Most of these guys also use some form of automatic liquid chlorination so they don't have the same concerns we might have about daily dosing.

But the underlying CYA to Chlorine relationship, the articles debunking TDS nonesense, etc all fit.

Oh and I prefer Geek.

 

[chem geek]

In that particular article, it's mostly consistent with what we say except for:

Stabilizers, (often called conditioners,) are inappropriate indoors as stabilization from sunlight destruction does not occur (chlorine losses remain the same) yet the ORP is nonetheless depressed resulting in less chlorine function.

This ignores CYA's other role which is to be a chlorine buffer while moderating chlorine's strength. The PPOA generally misses the point that a high active chlorine level has downsides. Without CYA, one would need to consistently provide a low FC or 0.2 ppm to 0.4 ppm and that's hard to do so instead they have a much higher active chlorine level. With a small amount of CYA, one can have for example 4 ppm FC with 20 ppm CYA for the equivalent of 0.2 ppm FC with no CYA, but having ample chlorine available to handle local bather load.

The PPOA is very focused on ORP and generally higher active chlorine levels without regard to the downsides of faster oxidation of swimsuits, skin and hair, faster creation of disinfection by-products, especially nitrogen trichloride, faster outgassing of chlorine, faster corrosion rates.

This link is to other articles that will give you a better sense of PPOA's approach of blasting with high chlorine levels to get rid of chloramines without regard to side effects of that strategy (see the ORP articles).

I E-mailed Kent Williams at PPOA on 12/20/04, 6/16/06, 7/4/06 and 7/9/06, mostly about the chlorine/CYA relationship (some on ORP) and he never responded. I do not believe he is interested.

 

[UnderWaterVanya]

Oh well it does at least offer some professional validation. I like their stance on trichlor and dichlor also. Essentially calling out the sales oriented motives behind the push to use it. Their advice was in a word, "don't".


- Sent using Tapatalk

 

[Patrick_B]

I honestly don't see any need for professional validation here. I certainly don't have a desire for it, especially with the unyielding attitude of the industry at large on long held beliefs, no matter how inaccurate they might be.

 

[chem geek]

In response to Is CYA Out on the Inside?, Kent Williams and Rich Young of PPOA wrote a response CYA Revisited where they made it very clear that they did not believe in using CYA indoors at all. They correctly understand CYA's moderation of chlorine's effective strength and therefore it's rate of sanitation and oxidation, but they then assume that with no CYA that such rate is perfectly OK and not too high. Yet they say it's OK to use in outdoor pools, in moderation, since it protects chlorine degradation from sunlight, but again miss the point that with no CYA at all the chlorine level may be too high. They don't seem to understand how the active chlorine level can be "tuned" via the FC/CYA ratio.

If they proposed only having an FC of 0.2 ppm or even 0.5 ppm in indoor pools and figured out how to maintain such low levels consistently throughout the pool, then that would be reasonable, but they don't mention that at all and current regs generally require a minimum of 1 ppm FC for pools and 2 ppm FC for spas. The CDC and others have shown that a higher FC level is needed to not "run out" of chlorine since circulation and chlorine feeder systems aren't generally that good, especially in larger pools. Without CYA, this is a high active chlorine level, but again these PPOA people make no mention of that in spite of their claim that they "have clearly done more research on this subject than anyone in the industry". Their view is that if there is more bather load, then you need a higher FC level to keep up with it for oxidation, completely ignoring the side effects of rate of creation of disinfection by-products and the oxidation rate on swimsuits, skin and hair. They also don't seem to understand that CYA behaves as a chlorine buffer so lets one have a higher FC level to not run out of chlorine anywhere in the pool but still have a lower and tunable active chlorine level for appropriate disinfection rates and that any extra oxidation should be done with means other than chlorine so as to avoid creating more chlorinated disinfection by-products.

When I was at the National Swimming Pool Foundation (NSPF) World Aquatic Health Conference (WAHC) a week ago, I spoke with Doug Sackett who is heading the effort for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Model Aquatic Health Code (MAHC) and he noted that there was an indoor waterpark with serious disinfection by-product problems that then lowered their Free Chlorine (FC) level significantly and found that the level of disinfection by-products (and associated irritation and smell) dropped substantially. Part of the key to having it work was the use of supplemental systems such as UV, but the UV alone didn't help that much when the FC level was high (no CYA was used in this pool). Basically, the lower active chlorine level from lowering the FC reacted more slowly with organic precursors while supplemental systems had more of a chance to oxidize or remove them before chlorine more fully reacted with them to produce irritating and volatile disinfection by-products.