Hello and help with chemical allergies.

Re: comments referencing low-to-no sanitizer:

Please, folks, I know eczema can be a pain and I hate/react to bromine as much as anyone, but please do not soak in a hot tub that it not adequately sanitized. I had to cover a story once about a couple who both DIED after hot tub exposure to legionnaire's disease.
Yes, it can happen.

There are ozonators you can add and myriad other strategies to ensure the water is sanitized. But please don't "guess" or otherwise compromise the sanitation level ;)
 
Todgeist said:
Thanks for all the replies. Since my last post, I had another allergic reaction with no chlorine or bromine just the pristine blue, and had to rethink everything. My best figuring was that when I replaced the air lines with 1/2 " liquid tite conduit I may have saved $30 over flex pvc, but it is leaching a chemical into water. I realized that after every water change it was longer before I had a reaction. i.e. the chemical was leaching and had to build up in the hot tub to a certain level. I am in the process of going back to bromine/ chlorine and will just make water changes until stops. Thats what I get for being cheap :hammer:

Hmmm... Could also be bacteria in the plumbing building up over time, especially if you are not maintaining a constant level of sanitizer (chlorine, bromine, baquacil) in the water at all times. Any hidden bacteria that survives the sanitizer (biofilms in the plumbing) could then just start multiplying again once the sanitizer level reaches zero.

I initially had a problem with my used tub occasionally provoking "hot tub itch" ... A thorough decontamination including Spa System Flush, cleaning, new filters, and even a new cover... And the problem went away. The brown gunk that floated to the surface during the Spa System Flush was amazing and disgusting. Overnight free chlorine loss went from 30-40% to 20%, so I think there was definitely something organic in the plumbing before the flush.

Get your TF100 kit and post numbers. There might be something else going on.

I now use a Chlormaker salt water chlorine generator on my hot tub, which allows me to keep a constant low, but effective, level of chlorine in the water. Less than some cities tap water. Before that, I followed the Dichlor/bleach method, which just takes daily monitoring/dosing, whereas the SWCG can maintain the tub for days or even weeks without intervention.
 
How often do you use the tub and how hot?
When I first got mine set up and running, like a new toy it used it almost on a daily basis. and developed rash and itch issues, I was using a test kit so all the chemistry was correct.
when I reduced it's use to just a few times a week, the problems subsided. I found that too hot and too much chemicals was causing issues, I keep the tub a bit on the cooler side maybe 100 f and the chemistry to a minium. perhaps you might want to do a shock treatment back to back a couple of times, then do a partial water change and re treat until you get to a minimal safe level of chemistry. too much chor or brom and high tenmps is going to cause skin issues. Some like to get the water so hot that they can only stay in the tub for 5 minutes, I keep my set so I can stay in the water 1/2 an hour or longer, if I so decide to.
 
Definitely agree with the temperature issue... too hot is very drying to the skin and dehydrating to the body. It also causes you to sweat more (dehydration), creating more bather waste in the water, requiring more chlorine to oxidize it... otherwise you use up the chorine, and are left with half-oxidized chloramines, or combined-chlorine... which is very irritating to eyes and skin and creates that stinky "chlorine" smell more commonly associated with public pools.

Since my municipal water supply switched to monochloramine for residual sanitizer, I can now smell it in my tap water. It measures out to 1ppm CC on my TFT100 kit. I keep my hot tub at 0 to .5 CC max... so on a fresh fill I shock with dichlor to 15 PPM chlorine just to reduce the tap water CC to 0 and start off with truly clean water. This also helps build up the initial CYA level before I add salt and switch on the SWCG.
 
You might want to install a whole house water filter to get rid of the taste and smell of the utility treatment.
As far as tubs go, there are several products you can try out that don't require a lot of chlor or brom. Rather spendy, but I tried a produce that you put in the filter and activate it with a bit of chlor and aside from weekly or monthly shock treatments, you don't need any additional products, adding a ozone generator might be worthwhile but also spendy. My tub which is used infrequently gets regular water changes, mostly due to rain fall. I only add about a 1/4 cup of chlor every week or 2, less in the winter and have add 1 charcoal briquet sized bromine tablet to the water, when it's gone, I add another.
This program works for me and I no longer have skin issues and the water stays clear. When it starts to cloud up I know I need to increase the dose of chlor.

I think one of the reasons chemical companies what you to use more is so they can sell you more often...
 
I use a Britta filter for my drinking water - more just to keep chilled water on hand to drink. Filtering out the slight taste/smell of the 1ppm monochloramine is a nice bonus. I've certainly had worse tap water... while I benefit from minimally treated mountain-fresh water, nearby communities are on well water. The previous owner of my tub was on a community well. 350ppm CH... the jets and filter hold-downs were covered in scale. They used a hose-end filter, but that doesn't do anything for hardness. Whereas, my tap water hardness is about 10 ppm CH. It's about like having bottled water on tap, only better.

I only use dichlor for the first week to bring up the CYA level to about 20-30 ppm. I then add 4 lbs of Morton's Canning and Pickling salt (all of $1.46), which brings my tub right to 2000 ppm salt, the specified requirement for my SWCG to function. It has a boost mode to use after soaking, which works similar to adding an ounce of Clorox when you get out. As the chlorine is used up, it converts back to salt, so the cycle can repeat. Pretty neat technology.

Last fill I also used a few other off-the-shelf items: bleach, borax, muriatic acid, and baking soda. All pretty easy to figure out with the online Pool Calculator and the TF100 test kit. I got 7 months on my last fill.

On the other hand, last time I was in a hot tub store, they were trying to sell me a bunch of chemicals, and once they found out I use a SWCG, they implied I should use special pool salt only, which they happened to have in stock for only $10 for what looked like 3 lbs, along with pH Up, pH Down, MPS, this, that, and the other thing. Even the local Ace Hardware was pushing some kind of "chemical free" pool care system... lots of little bottles of mysterious, well, chemicals. ;-)
 
You might want to try and cut back on all the chemicals, at one time I was adding di chlor, bromine tables, baking soda, calcuium carbonate, calcium chloride, and epsom salts.
You really dont need all this in a hot tub, in my experience less is better, and I'm going on better than ten years with the item.
As far as water hardness goes, the only think I know of to fix that is a reverse osmosis filter system, but to treat 300+ gallons will take a while.

I only really care about having the ph, chlor and brome level register on the test kits.
 
I'm quite happy with the regimen I've developed, many thanks to learning on this forum. My hot tub water is very stable, sanitized, silky, and non-drying on the skin. Once balanced, I've been amazed at how locked in the pH stays (7.2), the chlorine generator keeps a perfect residual level of sanitizer at all times, and well, it's just been so low maintenance! After 7 months, I finally changed the water due to a build up of organics that were evidently very slow to oxidize. That's pretty impressive to go that long in a 215g tub. Next time I'll probably cut it off at 5 months.

While I agree that one doesn't need all of the many and various chemicals the pool stores like to push on their customers, you do need some basic chemistry to maintain a safe and comfortable soak. For example, dihydrogen monoxide is a critical chemical for any hot tub, and if you're not adding at least that, you'll at least find it very uncomfortable... nevertheless, it can be a toxic substance when inhaled in its liquid form, and as the vapor can cause severe burns or even temporary blindness, so you must be careful. What surprises me is that the pool stores haven't figured out how much money they could be making by packaging and selling "Pool-grade" DHMO. ;-)

I do think it's hard to beat plain ol' chlorine for cost and effectiveness. Done right, you don't smell it, it doesn't irritate, and the water stays crystal clear, safe, and sanitized. If you do smell "chlorine" you're probably not using enough and have stinky, irritating chloramines forming. I've soaked in my tub even at 10 ppm free chlorine (buffered with 9 ppm CYA) on an initial fill. Not only could I not smell chlorine, but my skin was fine. Granted I normally keep my salt water chlorine generator adjusted to keep the tub at 2-3 ppm free chlorine against 30 ppm CYA. It works for me.

People sometimes insist they are allergic to chlorine... but I think they're really reacting to chloramines, which can indeed be very irritating. The body produces its own chlorine for certain uses, and muriatic acid, which I use to lower pH as needed, is also the same thing your stomach uses in gastric acid. Both chlorine and muriatic acid eventually turn into salt.

I've learned enough chemistry on this board to just be dangerous... but at least my hot tub is safe! :)
 
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Interesting I've never heard of dhmo. But if it works for you more power... I like the KISS method, I figure it it's not being added to a lake for safe swimming... do we really need it in a solo use pools and tubs? Granted the water volume ratios are a bit different, but for my solo use and infrequent use, the quantity and variety of chems works for me. It's seems the more stuff I added the worse my skin issues got. However, up here in the Seattle area, we have fairly good water, neutral ph, soft and low mineral count and the utilities don't need to add a bunch of stuff to make it safe for drinkling. The cost however is painful, every 2 months I get a bill for about $100 and I don't water plants or lawns, I am the sole occupant so not a lot of volume in use but still a lot of money for a few gallons of water. I'm thinking I need to unplug the utility and have a well put in, it will pay for itself in about 7-10 yrs at current rates.
 
toddbailey said:
Interesting I've never heard of dhmo. But if it works for you more power... I like the KISS method, I figure it it's not being added to a lake for safe swimming... do we really need it in a solo use pools and tubs? Granted the water volume ratios are a bit different, but for my solo use and infrequent use, the quantity and variety of chems works for me. It's seems the more stuff I added the worse my skin issues got. However, up here in the Seattle area, we have fairly good water, neutral ph, soft and low mineral count and the utilities don't need to add a bunch of stuff to make it safe for drinkling. The cost however is painful, every 2 months I get a bill for about $100 and I don't water plants or lawns, I am the sole occupant so not a lot of volume in use but still a lot of money for a few gallons of water. I'm thinking I need to unplug the utility and have a well put in, it will pay for itself in about 7-10 yrs at current rates.
I can guarantee you use DHMO. You may recognize DHMO by its other names, H2O, or, as some people call it, "water."
 

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OK, I get the joke, I've never heard of water being called DHMO before and didn't stop to think to associate DMHO with the elements listed.
I somehow assumed that DHMO was some bizare organic substance, perhaps, like 1,2 Diethyl, 2,4 methyl 1,2 hydrazine oxylate etc.

Anyway, safeway sells tub grade DHMO, except they call it distilled water, and they make a small fortune per bottle, $3.79 a gallon.

"it can be a toxic substance when inhaled in its liquid form, and as the vapor can cause severe burns or even temporary blindness"

Any liquid when inhaled in large enough quantities can be harmful, and you are confusing the vapor temp with the vapor state, water doesn't have to be at 100c to be in it's vapor state, relative humidity for example is an expression of water vapor in air at the current amb. temp.
 
Hah, you guys crack me up. :)

I had a chemistry teacher back in college that had the whole class going about the dangers of DHMO and how they even sneak it into our beverages, and that it should be banned.

There are lots of ways of managing tubs and pools, some more successful that others, some overkill, some underkill, literally... after what I've learned, I don't use the Jacuzzi tubs in hotel rooms. Heck, didn't one one of the big water park resorts recently have a problem with bacterial contamination.... or would that be a DHMO Recreational Exposure Facility?
 
Oh, and more info about DHMO here:
http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

Agree with the generally great quality of water in the Seattle area... but well water, bleh. The only well water I've ever liked was softened and otherwise naturally clean, but still not as good as what we get right out of the Cascade Mountains here. In Everett we are (for the moment) still on flat-rate. I have no water meter. That will be changing, supposedly due to new Federal regulations requiring water meters so as to monitor leaks and conserve water. Now that the Kimberly Clark pulp mill/paper plant has shut down, a massive consumer of water, this old mill town has more water than it knows what to do with. We sell it to surrounding communities, including parts of Seattle.

Until I get that water meter, I could treat my tub like one giant bathtub and just fill it when I want to use it. The thought crossed my mind, but there would be the issue of keeping the plumbing clean and not wanting the pump seals to dry up. Just easier to use a bit of chlorine.
 
Ban DHMO: Dihydrogen Monoxide!

The Invisible Killer
Dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and sickens over 4 billion and kills over 2 million people every year (United Nations World Health Organization, 2008: www.WHO.Int). Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there. Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance. For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death.

"Recreational DHMO illness can have a significant impact on public health not only because
of the severity of the illness but also the number of people who die."*
*Department of Health, State Of Washington (www2.DOH.WA.Gov).

Dihydrogen monoxide:

is also known as hydroxyl acid, and is the major component of acid rain.
contributes to the "greenhouse effect."
may cause severe burns.
contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape.
accelerates corrosion and rusting of many metals.
may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of automobile brakes.
has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.
contamination has been found in all floodwaters where death has occurred and violent thunderstorm rains containing destructive lightning.
changing from crystalline to liquid is a leading cause of the destruction of arctic ice and glaciers.

Contamination Is Reaching Epidemic Proportions!
Quantities of dihydrogen monoxide have been found in almost every stream, lake, and reservoir in America today. But the pollution is global, and the contaminant has even been found in Antarctic ice. DHMO has caused millions of dollars of property damage in the midwest, and recently California. DHMO contamination is even found in most cells in the human body!

Despite the danger, dihydrogen monoxide is often used:

as an industrial solvent and coolant.
in nuclear power plants.
in the production of styrofoam.
as a fire retardant.
in many forms of cruel animal research.
in the distribution of pesticides. Even after washing, produce remains contaminated by this chemical.
as an additive in certain "junk-foods" and other food products.
to dissolve medicines before giving them to children and older adults.

Companies dump waste DHMO into rivers and the ocean, and nothing can be done to stop them because this practice is still legal. The impact on wildlife is extreme, and we cannot afford to ignore it any longer!

The Horror Must Be Stopped!
The American government has refused to ban the production, distribution, or use of this damaging chemical due to its "importance to the economic health of this nation." In fact, the Navy and other military organizations are conducting experiments with DHMO, and designing multi-billion dollar devices to control and utilize it during warfare situations. Hundreds of military research facilities receive millions of tons of pure DHMO through a highly sophisticated underground distribution network daily. Many facilities store large quantities for later use. Many municipalities also have DHMO storage facilities.
 
BravoRomeo said:
Oh, and more info about DHMO here:
http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

Agree with the generally great quality of water in the Seattle area... but well water, bleh. The only well water I've ever liked was softened and otherwise naturally clean, but still not as good as what we get right out of the Cascade Mountains here. In Everett we are (for the moment) still on flat-rate. I have no water meter. That will be changing, supposedly due to new Federal regulations requiring water meters so as to monitor leaks and conserve water. Now that the Kimberly Clark pulp mill/paper plant has shut down, a massive consumer of water, this old mill town has more water than it knows what to do with. We sell it to surrounding communities, including parts of Seattle.

Until I get that water meter, I could treat my tub like one giant bathtub and just fill it when I want to use it. The thought crossed my mind, but there would be the issue of keeping the plumbing clean and not wanting the pump seals to dry up. Just easier to use a bit of chlorine.


what a small world, we are almost Neighbors, I'm actually out in Carnation, so our water comes from the same plumbing that feeds Seattle, Tolt river pipline
I have little complaints with the quality, except late summer when the lakes are down the water does take on a "green" taste. It's usually not that bad, compared to arizona a few years back. So bad I had to mix city water with distilled to make it drinkable. But I digress. I'm considering a well to fight the high cost of what the district charges. Nearly $600 a year is ridiculous
 
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