Hi all, we have bought a house with an existing 1200 litre (300 gallon?) hot tub that hadn't been used for a few years.
We are a family of five - but myself (husband) get a rash every time I use the pool. We have had the pool running for maybe a month so far. Originally the rash was back of knees, waistline, under arms and was quite unbearable, now the rash seems to be mainly just my waistline and behind knees with only a little under arms. I have never had a problem like this from a pool in my life. I do have slight sensitive skin over certain time of year though. I get the rash about 5 hours later after using the pool (in the middle of the night) and then it clears up after a couple days.
We have had the kids friends over at different times, so maybe 15 different people but I am the only one who gets this rash.
We first set the pool up with help, using a bromine/dichlor product from the guy who replaced our controller etc, I got the rash from day one. My wife was daily down to the pool shop to have water tested to get it balanced. I even got the rash when the bromine was at 0.
We then switched to straight dichlor thinking it may have been the bromine, (without draining the pool) but still have the same issue. The stabliser level is currently betwen 50 and 100 on the strips, but as I say I got a rash straight away with the clean treated water. We would add 2 or 3 teaspoons of dichlor after use at night, and by the next day the levels are minimal.
As a test we went to a public swimming pool and hot tub, and I didnt get the rash. We talked to the pool maintenance guy and he said the pool was treated with sodium hypochorlite? Which is bleach I think. We had test strips with us and the chlorine was really low anyway.
We have even just let the pool go a couple days without adding any dichlor and I still got a rash (although I went in the morning and didnt get any rash until later that night which is longer than usual.
Not sure where to go to from here. Do we drain the pool and switch to a bleach system, or an expensive sensitive skin non chlorine product? Or am I reacting to something in the ph/ alkaline products? We didnt think it would be the bacteria hot tub rash you read about, as I am the only one affected and its not big sores or anything, just red itchy skin which then leaves some small hive type bumps in some areas. We just dont want to drain and reheat the pool and do the wrong thing so are after ideas.
Also as a side note I notice lately the pool really foams up like a bubble bath when the jets are on.
We are a family of five - but myself (husband) get a rash every time I use the pool. We have had the pool running for maybe a month so far. Originally the rash was back of knees, waistline, under arms and was quite unbearable, now the rash seems to be mainly just my waistline and behind knees with only a little under arms. I have never had a problem like this from a pool in my life. I do have slight sensitive skin over certain time of year though. I get the rash about 5 hours later after using the pool (in the middle of the night) and then it clears up after a couple days.
We have had the kids friends over at different times, so maybe 15 different people but I am the only one who gets this rash.
We first set the pool up with help, using a bromine/dichlor product from the guy who replaced our controller etc, I got the rash from day one. My wife was daily down to the pool shop to have water tested to get it balanced. I even got the rash when the bromine was at 0.
We then switched to straight dichlor thinking it may have been the bromine, (without draining the pool) but still have the same issue. The stabliser level is currently betwen 50 and 100 on the strips, but as I say I got a rash straight away with the clean treated water. We would add 2 or 3 teaspoons of dichlor after use at night, and by the next day the levels are minimal.
As a test we went to a public swimming pool and hot tub, and I didnt get the rash. We talked to the pool maintenance guy and he said the pool was treated with sodium hypochorlite? Which is bleach I think. We had test strips with us and the chlorine was really low anyway.
We have even just let the pool go a couple days without adding any dichlor and I still got a rash (although I went in the morning and didnt get any rash until later that night which is longer than usual.
Not sure where to go to from here. Do we drain the pool and switch to a bleach system, or an expensive sensitive skin non chlorine product? Or am I reacting to something in the ph/ alkaline products? We didnt think it would be the bacteria hot tub rash you read about, as I am the only one affected and its not big sores or anything, just red itchy skin which then leaves some small hive type bumps in some areas. We just dont want to drain and reheat the pool and do the wrong thing so are after ideas.
Also as a side note I notice lately the pool really foams up like a bubble bath when the jets are on.