Need some basic advice -TA, pH, CH, FC all things chemical

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I’m pretty sure all liners are going to have some level of calcium carbonate in them. I remember reading somewhere that it’s necessary in the manufacturing process to modify the mechanical properties of the liner material so that it can be run through various machinery at high enough speeds to make it economical. Calcium carbonate additions achieve those manufacturability requirements. So, at the end of the day, there’s always going to be some calcium in the liner. You can certainly ask liner makers where they get their materials from and what QA is done to ensure they are long lasting but I doubt the retail consumer can have much control over what they get.

Is anyone going to tell an installer - “Oh, that liner has Chinese vinyl in it … nope, I don’t want that.” I suppose one could but you may not have very many choices out there …
 
JoyfulNoise said:
I’m pretty sure all liners are going to have some level of calcium carbonate in them. I remember reading somewhere that it’s necessary in the manufacturing process to modify the mechanical properties of the liner material so that it can be run through various machinery at high enough speeds to make it economical. Calcium carbonate additions achieve those manufacturability requirements. So, at the end of the day, there’s always going to be some calcium in the liner. You can certainly ask liner makers where they get their materials from and what QA is done to ensure they are long lasting but I doubt the retail consumer can have much control over what they get.

Is anyone going to tell an installer - “Oh, that liner has Chinese vinyl in it … nope, I don’t want that.” I suppose one could but you may not have very many choices out there …
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I agree, however are there certain brands that are known for using higher quality vinyl? For myself, I asked my installer what liner did he recommend for durability and longevity and I bought the one he says he sells that in his experience routinely lasts 10 years or more.
The main question though and the one that I think most people are confused about because of all of the conflicting information out there is will water with low CH leach the CH out of the liner? Or is it the case that the CH in the liner absorbs water and that will cause it to wrinkle? I work under the assumption that you need to worry more about PH with a liner then anything. When I close my pool I bring my TA up to 120 just to prevent a drop in PH as I’m not monitoring chemistry. I also admit that I keep my CH at around 120, because that’s the level that prevents foaming and because every time I come to the conclusion that CH doesn’t matter, I come across something like this thread and I’m not sure about that anymore. I do know that a CH of 120 isn’t going to hurt anything…. Might be pointless for me to raise it from 50 to 120…. I don’t know (today) I had always assumed that they get brittle with time simply because the UV and age will eventually dry out the plasticizer in it.
 
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There are a lot of liner manufacturers, but they don’t make their own vinyl sheet.

They buy vinyl sheet from a small number of vinyl sheet manufacturers like CGT.

Each sheet maker probably has a range of standard sheet formulations and they would probably do a custom formulation for a big liner maker.

The most important thing is to buy from a reputable liner maker like Loop Loc, GLI, Latham, McEwen, Merlin etc.

In my opinion, the CSI is not going to be a significant factor.

As long as the CSI remains below scaling range, it won’t hurt to increase the CSI if you feel better about having a higher CSI.
 
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JamesW said:
There are a lot of liner manufacturers, but they don’t make their own vinyl sheet.

They buy vinyl sheet from a small number of vinyl sheet manufacturers like CGT.

Each sheet maker probably has a range of standard sheet formulations and they would probably do a custom formulation for a big liner maker.

The most important thing is to buy from a reputable liner maker like Loop Loc, GLI, Latham, McEwen, Merlin etc.

In my opinion, the CSI is not going to be a significant factor.

As long as the CSI remains below scaling range, it won’t hurt to increase the CSI if you feel better about having a higher CSI.
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I have a Latham liner. I checked their page for their recommendation I had looked at this before, but forgot. “Calcium hardness. For vinyl pools, calcium should be between 150-250 ppm. A low level can result in foaming, which is unpleasant but shouldn’t harm the liner.” This particular manufacturer is claiming that low CH shouldn’t harm the liner.
www.lathampool.com

How to Balance the Water Chemistry in your Vinyl Liner Pool - Latham Pool

Maintaining proper water chemistry is an art of the right ingredients. Find out how to properly balance water chemistry in a vinyl liner swimming pool.
www.lathampool.com www.lathampool.com
 
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JamesW said:
There are a lot of liner manufacturers, but they don’t make their own vinyl sheet.

They buy vinyl sheet from a small number of vinyl sheet manufacturers like CGT.

Each sheet maker probably has a range of standard sheet formulations and they would probably do a custom formulation for a big liner maker.

The most important thing is to buy from a reputable liner maker like Loop Loc, GLI, Latham, McEwen, Merlin etc.

In my opinion, the CSI is not going to be a significant factor.

As long as the CSI remains below scaling range, it won’t hurt to increase the CSI if you feel better about having a higher CSI.
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I think balanced is best.

Too high and the water heater groans in pain — like kidney stones. Hot water raises CSI even higher inside that poor heater.

Too low and maybe the liner gets a beating too? It seems easy enough to keep it balanced so why take the chance but if it really does make no difference, why waste the time. I guess it can be a tough call.
 
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I think we need some guinea pigs to sacrifice their pools in the name of science and run some tests. And post pics in a couple of years of their holy liners.

Maybe @onBalance could throw a few pieces of vinyl liners into his next batch of plaster test pools ;)
 
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I’d do (my local low CH / TA) tap water for a year. Keep it at 37 degrees F. Now that’s a test. ;) Send me some vinyl. We’ll weight it and eval thickness, flexibility, color, etc. . . . ? Before / after. I can weight stuff within better than +-0.006g.
 
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That also caught my eye. 200 hrs. min color change, woo hoo! But a full 1,500 hrs. before degradation. At a nominal 6 hrs. per day, that’s less than a year. How do they compare to sunlight? All I can find says they’re about the same as full sun?
 
SoDel said:
That also caught my eye. 200 hrs. min color change, woo hoo! But a full 1,500 hrs. before degradation. At a nominal 6 hrs. per day, that’s less than a year. How do they compare to sunlight? All I can find says they’re about the same as full sun?
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62 days before degradation begins is how I took it. Those lamps are insanely bright. They are about if not the closest thing to sunlight I have ever seen, and I’ve played with a lot of lights. It was crazy the spotlights we had in house were “supertroupers” with 2000w lamps. They were about the length of a compact car. I was the only guy that could see in the dark so it was always my job to find the performer in pitch black and light them up. It was fun.

Super Trouper – Strong Lighting

strong.lighting strong.lighting

en.m.wikipedia.org

Super Trouper (spotlight) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org

Edit: 62 days…. Apparently I forget that nighttime is a thing…
 
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Orion7319 said:
62 days before degradation begins is how I took it. Those lamps are insanely bright. They are about if not the closest thing to sunlight I have ever seen, and I’ve played with a lot of lights. It was crazy the spotlights we had in house were “supertroopers” with 2000w lamps. They were about the length of a compact car.

Super Trouper – Strong Lighting

strong.lighting strong.lighting
Click to expand...

I bet they're great at making grilled cheese sandwiches at close distance ...
 
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Toxophilite said:
I would imagine cheap thermoplastic jugs make use of the filler in production. Should not my jugs of 34% MA be eaten alive?
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I’ve had a jug weep acid after long term storage. Made a mess. But what we’re aiming at here is calcium deficient water taking it from the vinyl. Acid resistance is another test. :)
 
SoDel said:
How do they compare to sunlight? All I can find says they’re about the same as full sun?
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Since it is an "accelerated" study, it will be a multiple of the full sun.

You would need a copy of the actual test to know the exposure, irradiance level, wavelength and other test parameters.

ASTM G155 Experimental Parameters to Specify

To perform a relevant accelerated weathering test that is right for your application the following test parameters need to be defined carefully:

Overall exposure duration (hours) (used to simulate indoors/outdoors conditions)

Lamp filters

The lamp irradiance level

The type and duration of moisture exposure

The timing of the light and moisture exposure

The temperature of light exposure

The temperature of moisture exposure

The timing of a light/dark cycle.

There are predefined cycles in table X3.1 of ASTM G155 that can be used when doing xenon arc testing.



1655255804348.png
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1655257017727.png
www.astm.org

Standard Practice for Operating Xenon Arc Lamp Apparatus for Exposure of Materials

Significance and Use 5.1 The apparatus exposes specimens to light, heat, and optionally moisture, often to attempt to replicate specimen property changes observed in outdoor and indoor end-use environments. Exposures are not intended to simulate the deter
www.astm.org www.astm.org


I made a test lamp that produces 987 yottawatts per square meter, but it seems a little bit strong for most materials.
 
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SoDel said:
So the available xenon is like up to 3x sun (which for degradation at 1,500 hrs, assuming 6 hrs full sun is 750 “real” days?).
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Apparently lots of different variables they can apply to it. I don’t claim to have a background in materials science and engineering, so I wouldn’t begin to have an idea as to what real world outcomes one would expect to see from these numbers from this test. However I do believe that 1500 hrs simply means 1500 hours of exposure to sunlight.
www.micomlab.com

ASTM G155 Testing - Sun-Accelerated Aging of Materials | Micom

Contact Micom for ASTM G155 accelerated aging testing services to simulate the aesthetic changes caused by sun exposure on coatings and other materials.
www.micomlab.com www.micomlab.com
 

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