Crisco in gunite pool

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kiksroks

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Aug 18, 2008
22
Hey guys! This is my first post 8)

I have run a pool service and repair business for the last 8 years and have never come across a problem like this. My partner who has been in the business for 30+ years has but he is old school and with all of the advancements lately I thought there had to be an faster way to deal with this than what he advised.

Here is the story; A bunch of one of my customer's kid's freinds thought it would be wise to use cooking oil to lube the slide :roll: sooooo all of the kids coated themselves in crisco and proceeded to enjoy the pool :| I get the call a couple days later and go out to check it out. Basically I have a film of oil over the top of the pool a nice ring around the tile and a bunch of coagulant on the pool sweep hose. I stuck a finger in and it is sticky like glue. YUCK! Any of you professionals seen this before? Any Ideas on how to handle it?
I am trying to skim it off the top by running the filter (DE) 24/7 and back washing daily. Just started today but I just know there has to be something out there to hasten the process. Any Ideas???

Thanks,
Ty :hammer:
 
Suspend pool privledges for all greasy kids :!: :!: :!:

What a mess!
 
Wow what a mess :evil:
The only thing I can think of to remove the oil slick is maybe try oil boom like they used on oil spills in the ocean. Oil boom is like a cloth tube with oil absorbent material inside. They come about 4 ft in lenght or so under the brand name "pig" . If you have a tax number for your buisness you can pick the boom up a Grainger industrial supply, the do not deal retail. They have facilities all over the country (maybe one near you) or order over the web, takes usually a day for shipping.
As for being stuck to the walls, have you tried and enzime based cleaner?

Good luck

jb
 
Thanks for the welcome!
What we have done so far is raise cl. and run filter 24 hours & b/w daily. I'm thinking we will add some clarifier today. It is quite a disgusting mess. How long until I can post pics?
 
kiksroks said:
Thanks for the welcome!
What we have done so far is raise cl. and run filter 24 hours & b/w daily. I'm thinking we will add some clarifier today. It is quite a disgusting mess. How long until I can post pics?
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Unfortunately, I don't think a high chlorine level is going to help very much because the oils in Crisco are mostly saturated which means they are long-chain hydrocarbons with single bonds. Chlorine doesn't oxidize such chemicals very much. Chlorine does much better with chemicals that have nitrogen or double bonds between the carbon.

The good news is that the same things that make these chemicals less likely to be oxidized by chlorine make them more likely to stay separated from the water so floating on the surface. This means they can be more easily skimmed off. The equivalent of a very large scum ball could work.

If you wanted to try and filter these out, then you'd have to run the pump at a high enough speed to form a funnel in the skimmer to pull the surface water into the suction line. However, I'm not so sure a clarifier will help that much to help consolidate these oils since they don't have much separated charges (the molecules may not have polar areas). I think skimming with physical removal from the surface is your best bet.

Richard
 

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This may sound stupid, but could you not use some sort of regular household degreasing spray on a rag and rub the tile? Maybe even with a little baking soda paste for a mild abbrasive? You could lower the water an inch and clean again until the sticky mess was clean. Let me say, I'm NO expert on pools. And obviously you would have to check the water chemistry after the cleaning to deal with whatever has been added. Maybe even close the pool for a day or so just to make sure the chemicals are all filtered?????????

You know they make those Mr. Clean magic erasers and household ceramic stove cleaners that rub that stuff off too. At least on my stove it does anyway.

Okay, I'll shut up because know I know my thinking is way to simple to work. :hammer: But just random thoughts from a simple thinker. :-D
 
lovingHDTV said:
You can buy oil absorbing pads that do this for you. They sell them for boating and such. Here is a link, not too expensive either.


http://www.dawginc.com/spill-control-ab ... l-pads.php
Click to expand...


I bought these pads to clean up globs of grease floating in the pool. They work good. To clean the vinyl and the skimmers, I used a kitchen grease cleaner called 409 and lots of shop rags.
 
The product that you need is called Pool First Aid from Natural Chemistry.

http://naturalchemistry.com/pool-and-sp ... ts/show/10

It is made for just this type of thing. The natural enzymes work by breaking down the oils and other contaminants.

Natural Chemistry also has a product called Pool Perfect that works well to keep things like body oils and suntan lotions from creating scum lines. Pool Perfect is good for cleaning oily waterlines, and in skimmers. It is also good to use while vacuuming during windy conditions. Throw a little bit on the surface of the water and it will create a smooth surface so you can see the bottom.
 
This may sound a little crazy but to get the film off the top you can break the surface tension by squirting a little dish soap in the center. The film will then scatter to the sides where it should be easier to skim out.
 
Aquaman95 said:
This may sound a little crazy but to get the film off the top you can break the surface tension by squirting a little dish soap in the center. The film will then scatter to the sides where it should be easier to skim out.
Click to expand...
You can do the same thing with tile soap and not risk forming bubbles.
 

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