Chlorine question

[jayatpitt]

I'm a new pool owner and planning to go BBB. I have a 27,000 gallon IG pool The pool school says I should be adding 2-3ppm daily of chlorine. If I use 1 as my starting value in the pool calculator, and 4 as my ending value (simulating the addition of 3ppm), that suggests for a 27,000 gallon pool I would need to add 168oz daily of 6% bleach.

Is that right? I think that's roughly 2 bottles per day or so. At $3 per bottle that's $6 per day, or $180 per month.

Am I missing something here?

 

[Richard320]

I'm a new pool owner and planning to go BBB. I have a 27,000 gallon IG pool The pool school says I should be adding 2-3ppm daily of chlorine. If I use 1 as my starting value in the pool calculator, and 4 as my ending value (simulating the addition of 3ppm), that suggests for a 27,000 gallon pool I would need to add 168oz daily of 6% bleach.

Is that right? I think that's roughly 2 bottles per day or so. At $3 per bottle that's $6 per day, or $180 per month.

Am I missing something here?

Yeah, that's right in its essence.

Except Chlorox is now 8.25%, which works out to almost perfectly one 121 oz jug per day...which is still about 3 bucks a day.

The good news is you might not lose 3 ppm/day. If the pool gets little use and you keep it covered, your chlorine usage will go waaaay down.

 

[jblizzle]

Also realize the minimum FC you should maintain is dependant on your CYA level ... and likely well above 1ppm.

You may have just used 1ppm as an example, but wanted to be sure.

 

[elwood58]

The cost, and bottle management, is what led some of us to switch to Salt Water Chlorine Generators.

 

[BoDarville]

jayatpitt:

If you are serious about minimizing your chlorine usage, keep as much debris out of your pool as possible. This includes cleaning the skimmers, pump basket, and vacuum filter (if you have one) - these can be the pool equivalent of "electrical vampires" (appliances that consume some power even when turned "off"). I am fanatical about this (wife would use other words) but you get the point Accumulating organic debris in these places, as well as in the pool itself, will increase chlorine demand slightly but consistently and cumulatively.

I averaged about 2 ppm FC loss per day at the height of swim season in an uncovered pool that get sunlight for much of the day while running with CYA in the low to mid 30's for much of last season. Looking at my records for last year, I spent $46 for 6% bleach in June (which included a pool party), $37 in July, and $37 in August (had another pool party). In fairness, August also included $32 for PolyQuat 60 algaecide and $30 for trichlor pucks - the latter two items I used while on vacation for two weeks. Were it not for that, I would probably have spent $45-50 for bleach in August. Yes, it is possible that some of the bleach I used in a given month may have been from inventory I purchased in a prior month. But even at that, I never came close to $180 / month. Attention to the details mentioned above played a role in managing FC use.