Help!! Odor (like chlorine) smell that makes you cough

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The spa test is done. But the whole reason for this exercise (the smell) wasn't tested. I was trying to direct my wife over the phone, when I got the results I told her to take it out of spa mode. By the time I thought about it, it was too late. Plan to re-run the test in the AM.

Anyway, results:
Pre-test: pH 7.6, FC 2, TC 3

3.5 teaspoons ammonia added and 3 hours later:

FC 0 TC 0.5.

Any initial thoughts?

I should have info about coughing/smell in the AM.
 
OK, it seems that adding the somewhat exact theoretical amount is somewhat shy of what is needed and ended up using a little too much FC. Add some chlorine to get it to 3 ppm and add one teaspoon of ammonia. After a few hours, that should get your CC to zero and then a smell test would be valid. So at least now we know that 1) we need to use a little more then the theoretical amount of ammonia and 2) we need to make sure to have enough FC available. I had assumed that some FC would be recovered as the nitrogen trichloride was oxidized, but it seems that something else may be going on instead. At any rate, it does seem like the ammonia + FC combo does get rid of the CC -- we'll just need to see if this gets rid of the smell as well.

Richard
 
Test re-do is done.

Pre-test: FC was raised to 4. TC 5. pH 7.6

2 teaspoons of the 2.5% ammonia added. Wait approx 2 hours.

Results: FC 1. TC 2. pH 7.6.

COUGH STILL PRESENT!! :grrrr:

I'm still have the spa isolated, I'm going to add the additional 1.5 teaspoons and see what happens.
 
If you're going to add more ammonia, be sure to bring up your FC somewhat since we don't want to run out again. One difference between the spa and the bucket was that we added CYA to the bucket because I wasn't sure if you really had CYA in the water. I don't know if that's what made the difference or if it was using more ammonia to start with. Let us know what happens. As for the smell, we really want to check that when the CC is measuring as zero (or <= 0.2 ppm).
 
Well..... Still adding ammonia and still coughing.

I have added beach twice to keep the FC up. Got a bit aggressive last go around. Have the FC at 6.

Have added a total of 8 teaspoons (4 doses of 2 teaspoons) of ammonia.

The last test, I diluted the FC sample down (per Taylor's instruction) to be able to see a true color change. And it does in fact still change. The FC with the smallest water sample reads 2 and the TC is difficult to quantify but it is definitely darker pink. Not up to 3 but darker.

Keep going???? Any thoughts??? I keep thinking the coughing is better, but in the end we still cough.
 
No, don't keep going -- you don't want to add too much ammonia since it's just more work to get rid of. You shouldn't need to add more than 3 times the amount I had you add since that would bring you to the level of the bucket test that seemed to work at least for CC getting to zero. At this point, you'll need to maintain FC so that it holds over many hours. If it's dropping, then it's continuing to react with the ammonia you added so wait until that is complete.

It sounds like you are using a DPD color comparator test. That is not accurate for measuring FC vs. CC. The FAS-DPD chlorine test is far better and is in the Taylor K-2006 and the TF100 test kits we recommend. We may have been on a wild goose chase here because it's possible the bucket test didn't in fact help and instead we got fooled with the DPD test. I assumed you were using one of our recommended test kits or at least a FAS-DPD test.

The only other possibility is that we added CYA to the bucket which we didn't do to the spa. After the FC becomes stable in your spa and is no longer dropping (keep your jets off -- just recirculate) you could try adding 5 tablespoons of CYA which would be equivalent to what we did in the bucket test BUT I'm not hopeful since I think the bucket test may have given us false hope. Nevertheless, it's possible that with more CYA in the water, the chlorine will react more slowly the way we want it to. This amount of CYA in the spa will be a negligible increase in the pool when you eventually circulate between the spa and the pool.

Darn! I thought we were on to something, but maybe we weren't after all. All is not lost, however. If the above doesn't work, Jason's original suggestions of opening up the pool longer (initially, keeping it open until the smell goes away) along with the ventilation should help. If UV from sunlight (i.e. an open window) can hit the pool water, then that can also help. I was just trying to find a new and expedient way to solve the problem.

Richard
 
Don't leave me yet... I still believe :wink: However, I have closed down the witches caldron for the night.

The FC is/was holding in the end. It did drop initially and during the middle but when I over shot the FC at the end there was essentially no drop after the last ammonia dose. I only used the circulating pump today. The jets and air were only on briefly to test the dreaded cough.

I have the Taylor K-2005. I need to order the TFP "club kit" but have been trying to use up this kit. I suppose if I keep my junior chemist badge, I should look into the correct tool sooner than later.

I will try to add the CYA and give it another shot tomorrow after work. Provided the forecasted 8-12" of snow somehow misses us. I may be digging a hole instead of running experiments.

I took the spa out of isolation so I will be starting fresh. When I add the CYA, should I then add the 3.5 teaspoons of ammonia as you first suggested? My FC is 3.5 to 4.

Until tomorrow. And thanks again!!
 
Just FYI. Since you already have the Taylor K-2005, you only really need this FAS-DPD chlorine test kit from tftestkits.com since the other parts of your kit are close to the same as the TF100. Of course, if you are getting low on the other chemicals, you can spring for the entire TF100. Also, the TF100 has a CYA test that will measure down to 20 ppm.

You've got a lot of patience putting up with my mad scientist experiments. As for what to do, you'll add 5 tablespoons of CYA (remember that it's a PITA to dissolve ahead of time), then with your 2.5% ammonia you'll add 11 teaspoons of ammonia to be closer to what we did in the bucket experiment (since that "seemed" to work, we'll go back to that larger quantity). You'll want the FC to be at 4 ppm before you add the ammonia and it takes 11 fluid ounces of 6% bleach to raise the FC by 1 ppm.

Richard
 

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I'm coming late to this party but a couple of things come to mind: First, your original tests showed "salt at 1600ppm". Did you mean TDS?
Also, using liquid chlorine "bleach" only contributes about 12% chlorine, and really raises your TDS, which when it gets too high, can interfere with chlorine effectiveness.

I'm still with the "chloramines" theory, and I'd suggest some draindown to remove some TDS, and then use a stronger shock, like a dichlor or even a cal-hypo. Other's thoughts? :?:
 
budster said:
I'm coming late to this party but a couple of things come to mind: First, your original tests showed "salt at 1600ppm". Did you mean TDS?
Also, using liquid chlorine "bleach" only contributes about 12% chlorine, and really raises your TDS, which when it gets too high, can interfere with chlorine effectiveness.

I'm still with the "chloramines" theory, and I'd suggest some draindown to remove some TDS, and then use a stronger shock, like a dichlor or even a cal-hypo. Other's thoughts? :?:
Click to expand...

A bit of misinformation here. TDS is a bogus measurement. It's not the TDS that are important but the ionic species that are present in the TDS. Sodium and chloride ions are innocuous. If they interfered with chlorine's effectiveness then SWGs would not work at all since the TDS in a salt pool is a combination of the native TDS of the water PLUS the added salt. Calcium and suphates can be problematic and cyanurates (CYA) are the major culprit when there are water probems attributed to high TDS, usually in pools dosed regularly with trichlor and dichlor.

Shock is a verb, not a noun. It's something you do (raising the FC high enough to reach breakpoint or to kill algae) and not a specific product. It does not matter what form of chlorine you use if you are raising the FC by the same amount. FC raised 10 ppm by any of the unstabilized chlorine will have exactly the same effect (however cal hypo will also raise the calcium by 6 ppm for every 10 ppm it raises the FC and this could be undesirable in some cases. Lithium and Sodium Hypochlorite have much less impact on overall water balance.)
The use of dichlor for shocking is something that we do not recommend in the vast majority of cases since Dichlor will raise CYA levels by 9 ppm for every 10 ppm of FC added! This can quickly lead to overstabilization of a pool and since we are talking about an indoor pool the addition of CYA is NOT recommended. CYA in an indoor pool should really be no higher than 20 ppm.

Persistent chloramines in indoor pools is a known problem partially because they do not get exposure to the UV light that outdoor pools do. UV is needed to effectively break down chloramine when shocking. This is why many commercial indoor pools use supplementary UV.
 
I did mean salt (not TDS). I added a bit of salt for the silky, smooth feel. May eventually go all the way to a salt system, but elected to wait. Wanted to see if there was any corrosion before investing in the commercial generator for my size pool (big $$$).

Will run a full fresh set of numbers and the test tommorow.
 
budster said:
I'm still with the "chloramines" theory, and I'd suggest some draindown to remove some TDS, and then use a stronger shock, like a dichlor or even a cal-hypo. Other's thoughts? :?:
Click to expand...
Jeff had tried shocking to high FC levels before with no discernible effect.

As waterbear said, it's the resulting FC that matters -- the type of chlorine that is used is not relevant except that it adds extra things. With bleach or chlorinating liquid, you do have to add more by weight, but by cost it's actually less expensive than other sources after accounting for the cost of extra chemicals needed to balance the pH (see this post). The following are useful chemical facts that you should be telling all of your dealers to whom you sell:

For every 10 ppm Free Chlorine (FC) added by Trichlor, it also increases Cyanuric Acid (CYA) by 6 ppm.
For every 10 ppm FC added by Dichlor, it also increases CYA by 9 ppm.
For every 10 ppm FC added by Cal-Hypo, it also increases Calcium Hardness (CH) by 7 ppm.
Every source of chlorine will convert to chloride as it gets used up so for every 10 ppm FC you will increase salt by 6 ppm. With most hypochlorite sources of chlorine (except Cal-Hypo), these also increase salt by 6 ppm upon addition so have a net increase of salt after usage of 12 ppm.

Obviously, water replacement would remove what is registering as persistent Combined Chlorine (CC), but we're trying to avoid that and find something that might reduce it directly. We've seen this problem at least once before where shocking doesn't do any good at getting rid of the CC. Note that Jeff was able to get rid of the CC in one bucket test where he added more CYA, some FC and ammonia, but didn't do a smell test afterwards. So we're going to try again with what he did with that bucket test, but do the experiment on the spa.

Richard
 
Finally home. I hate winter travel!!!

The pool is crystal clear and looks fantastic. I tested the pool and was a bit surprised:

pH 7.4 (CAT controller 7.7), FC barely 0.5, TC 1, Alk 100, OPR 650 (would have thought this would be lower and triggering the bleach pump). Ran the spa jets and still got a bit of a cough, but it is the best it has been since we filled the pool. What does that mean??

Question: Should I add bleach to the whole pool or just enough to the spa to run our test??
 
Well, apparently time helps, probably because this stuff is somewhat volatile so may have slowly outgassed away -- were both the pool and the spa covered during this time? I would just do the test on the spa alone, though with the lower measured CC it shouldn't take as much ammonia so cut that in half. At this point, we just want to see if there is a method that works, but it'll be a tough decision as to whether to apply it to the pool as a whole vs. just letting the pool air out more.
 
Pool has been covered since last weekend (like eight straight days)...I think. Since I was away, I don't believe my wife went swimming.

What is the down side to treating the whole pool with ammonia? My high school and college chem has completely left me.

I think the CC needs to be dealt with, and I am willing to keep trying whatever you can dream up. Essentially the smell is gone, but the cough is still there (although much, much better). There is some chemical that is aerosolized when the spa jets/air blower is on that gets you in the throat and starts the cough.
 
Well, the treatment that seemed to work in the bucket may have required additional CYA to be added. Though it wasn't much, it would increase your CYA by about 20 ppm so if you were already at 15 ppm then that would raise it to 35 ppm. I don't like having the CYA that high in an indoor pool. Though not needed to protect chlorine breakdown from sunlight, some small amount of CYA is good as it will lower the active chlorine concentration to prevent disinfection by-products such as nitrogen trichloride from forming. The problem is whether a higher CYA slows down the breakpoint reaction so that monochloramine builds up too much or causes any other side problems.

It's hard to reduce CYA once you've raised it -- it requires dilution to lower -- so that's why I'm hesitant to do anything to the entire pool. If you did the test to the spa and it worked, well, then it's a tough call, but if you do the test to the spa and it doesn't work, then we know for sure not to try it in the pool. I have no problem with the ammonia part of the experiment as we will get rid of that via chlorine, but the CYA part is a one-way decision. Unfortunately, the bucket test that didn't increase the CYA level didn't work, but we also used less ammonia there as well.

I suppose we could try just using the higher ammonia amount and not add any CYA and see if that works in the spa. If it does, then that's something safe that can be done with the pool.

Repeating and adjusting the quantities I calculated earlier for the spa: You'll add 5 tablespoons of CYA IF we do that part (we can try without it for the first test), then with your 2.5% ammonia you'll add 5 teaspoons of ammonia (less than the 11 teaspoons since you are only measuring 0.5 ppm CC and not 2 ppm CC). You'll want the FC to be at around 3 ppm before you add the ammonia (not 4 ppm since there's less ammonia, but we don't want to run out of chlorine) and it takes 11 fluid ounces of 6% bleach to raise the FC by 1 ppm. So go ahead and isolate your spa, do a smell test as a baseline, then make sure the chlorine is at around 3 ppm FC and then add the ammonia slowly over a return flow. See how things smell and measure (CC) in a at least an hour or perhaps a few hours. I'm crossing my fingers.

Richard
 
OK - I am beyond frustrated....and ultimately deflated. I have run the "experiment" countless times in the spa without "complete" success. I have altered the variables up and down. Higher CYA, higher and lower FC, more ammonia, etc. I no longer consider myself a junior chemist wanna-be. At various times my wife and I think the we are making progress and the smell is gone, but then you bend down and breath deeply over the bubbling spa and the coughing begins.

I was close to draining the pool this last weekend. Fortunately, we have had a steady flow of family and friends for the holidays which has prevented this drastic move. For some reason on Sunday the coughing seemed to be a rather high level again. My wife complained she and her friend sat coughing while the kids splashed around (kids were coughing too).

Before I drain the pool this weekend. I thought I would throw this question out there. Does anyone know anything about UV lighting? Specifically, there is a company www.ultraviolet.com that has systems big enough to handle entire swimming pools. I called them for information late this afternoon. It seems like this is my solution, sunshine in a bottle. It is expensive for my size pool but may be worth it. At this point my wife is thinking we should cut our losses and rent a back hoe.
 
I was re-reading the posts within my topic. I found Water Bear's comment "Persistent chloramines in indoor pools is a known problem partially because they do not get exposure to the UV light that outdoor pools do. UV is needed to effectively break down chloramine when shocking. This is why many commercial indoor pools use supplementary UV."

Is my above question exactly what you are referring to??

Thanks again.
 

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