Household bleach vs store bought chlorine

[outdoor]

Ok so everybody seems to say just use bleach when needing a quick boost to chlorine levels since it is so cheap.

but according to this link it is 11 times less concentrated

http://www.ehow.com/facts_6153959_pool- ... leach.html

 

[GreatCanadian]

Yes, and different blands of bleach have different concentrations. Overall, the bleach tends to be cheaper, that's why it's recommended here. You'll use more of it, but pay less (sometimes, the pool chlorine is cheaper. You have to work out the cost per ounce, and go with the cheapest. Either works fine - they should, they're the same thing in different concentrations).

 

[Bama Rambler]

And your point is??

Keep in mind that bleach doesn't add any unwanted chems to your water. And there are several cost comparisons here that show that bleach is the least costly of all the added chlorine sources.

Read the first sentence and that should give you and idea of how much to trust what they say. "The most common source of pool chlorine is calcium hypochlorite" If you look in all the stores and read here some you'll see that trichlor is far more common than cal-hypo.

 

[GreatCanadian]

I am assuming he meant liquid chlorine, not the pucks. In that case, they're the same, as long as he gets regular bleach, unscented, no additives.

 

[thehowheels]

Ok so everybody seems to say just use bleach when needing a quick boost to chlorine levels since it is so cheap.

but according to this link it is 11 times less concentrated

http://www.ehow.com/facts_6153959_pool- ... leach.html

The concentration of chlorine per gram is totally useless, unless you're worried about how much energy you need to put into transporting the stuff.

What's important to most of us is the actual cost of using the product. Check out chem geek's post, Cost Comparison of Chlorine Sources.

 

[FamilyGuy]

His link is compareing calhypo to liquid bleach

 

[duraleigh]

His link is compareing calhypo to liquid bleach

Exactly!

 

[FamilyGuy]

Like trying to compare a chainsaw to a steamroller

 

[Donldson]

The concentration of chlorine per gram is totally useless

Exactly. If that were important then everyone would use direct chlorine gas injection.

Bleach is recommended because it adds the least extra:
-Bleach adds about 1.5 ppm salt per ppm of chlorine.
-65% cal-hypo adds 1 ppm salt and 0.7 ppm calcium per ppm of chlorine.
-Dichlor adds 0.9 ppm CYA and 0.8 ppm of salt per ppm chlorine.
-Trichlor adds 0.6 ppm CYA, 0.8 ppm salt, and a slight decrease in pH per ppm of chlorine.

Since salt is the most benign of these things it is better to just add salt than calcium or CYA. Lithium hypochlorite also only adds salt but it is far more expensive per ppm than bleach. Bleach is king because it does what we want it to do and not much else.

 

[chem geek]

From the article:

One gram of pool chlorine (65 percent calcium hypochlorite), dissolved in 1 liter of water, would provide a FAC level of 0.47 grams per liter, whereas the same amount of household bleach (6 percent sodium hypochlorite) dissolved in the same amount of water would provide a FAC level of 0.04 grams per liter.

Thus, gram for gram, the pool chlorine will provide 11 times more FAC than household bleach.

Bleach prices vary, but from this post in a thread with perhaps a hundred or more bleach prices from 2013, 96 fluid ounces (about 2939 grams using 1.08 g/ml density) of 6% bleach is $1.29 so that works out to 0.044 cents per gram. Cal-Hypo the cheapest I could find here is $161.84 for 90 pounds (about 40823 grams) so 0.40 cents per gram or 0.40/0.044 = 9 times more expensive per gram than bleach. In terms of the FAC level that they quote, the ratio was 0.47/0.04 = 12 times higher. So for this huge amount of Cal-Hypo compared to the small quantity of bleach, the Cal-Hypo is 3/4ths the price per FC. However, most Cal-Hypo is not at the extremely low price I found. Much more typical is this where you get 25 pounds (11340 grams) for $61.43 so 54 cents per gram so over 12 times more expensive per gram than bleach making Cal-Hypo and bleach more of a wash. Actual prices will vary around the country.

Of course, with Cal-Hypo, it increases CH while with bleach it does not. Between Cal-Hypo and Trichlor or Dichlor, Cal-Hypo would be better to use because the rise in CH is proportionately slower relative to when it becomes a problem (compared to CYA with Trichlor/Dichlor).