Am I using too much Chlorine

[Mojin7]

My last post got me up and running with my new pool. Thanks again everybody. Quick question though. Things have stabilized and I have been following the advice I got. My pool gets 10 hours if sun easily. Maybe more? I just moved in a couple weeks ago. My CYA level looks to be between 50 and 60. Every day at 5 pm I test the pool. My FC is at 4ppm. I add 20 oz to gain 1 ppm for my pool. I bring it to 8 ppm every night. And the next day it is back at 4 ppm. So that is 80 oz of bleach per day.
Is this typical? Feels like half a jug of bleach a day is quite a bit. $1.50 a day as I see it.
Anyway... the water is flawless and pure and clear as I have ever seen water. My last full test results were...
FC 4 to 8 everyday
CC 0
PH 7.4
AK 100
CH 120

Please I would love to hear thoughts on the chlorine usage.

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[Patrick_B]

You could cut back going to 8 as often, and save a 20oz here and there. If your are 60, then 7 FC is your target anyway. People with a lot of Sun lose 3-4 everyday, so it's no unheard of. I'm lucky, and unlucky. I can run near 40 and lose two, but I get some shade, and it's hard to warm my pool until it gets really hot, and stays warm at night.

What you are doing is good practice because over shooting the target by a point or so frequently really helps keep you further out of the danger zone. Sounds like you have a good grasp of this already so, good job.

 

[brauh01]

Mojin7,
Patrick_B's answer is the definitive one. Just thought you'd like to know I'm running about the same numbers and same level of chlorine usage.

Patrick_B,
Thanks for the "lose 3 - 4 everyday" comment. I have even more sunlight hours, and was never sure what usage rate to expect.
Bill

 

[Bama Rambler]

If that's a 54" deep pool then it's about 13,500 gallons so 80oz is about 4 ppm loss, which is a little high, but not unheard of.

How confident are you of the CYA test?
You could bump it up to about 60 and see if that brings the usage down a couple of ppm.
It also sounds like you may be a candidate for an injection system.

 

[duraleigh]

All good advice. I(t's tempting to bump CYA to 60 ppm. That would be my absolute max for a manually chlorinated pool.

An SWG would allow you to run 70-80 CYA and very likely get a consumption reduction perhaps as low as 2 ppm. That said, the front money on an SWG might be $1k

 

[Husky25]

Where are you getting your chlorine? Is it 8.25% bleach or 12.5% LC? You could cut down on the relative cost by upping the concentration of your chlorine. Of course, that doesn't work if you are already using LC.

 

[Mojin7]

You could cut back going to 8 as often, and save a 20oz here and there. If your are 60, then 7 FC is your target anyway. People with a lot of Sun lose 3-4 everyday, so it's no unheard of. I'm lucky, and unlucky. I can run near 40 and lose two, but I get some shade, and it's hard to warm my pool until it gets really hot, and stays warm at night.

What you are doing is good practice because over shooting the target by a point or so frequently really helps keep you further out of the danger zone. Sounds like you have a good grasp of this already so, good job.

Thanks again Patrick. I followed your advice last time and my pool is ridiculously healthy. I think I may overshoot to 8 less often. Maybe I later storms and high usage only. It's just when I bump to 7 FC I'm down to 3 to 3.5 in 24 hours. Again thank you for the affirmation.

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[Mojin7]

Mojin7,
Patrick_B's answer is the definitive one. Just thought you'd like to know I'm running about the same numbers and same level of chlorine usage.

Patrick_B,
Thanks for the "lose 3 - 4 everyday" comment. I have even more sunlight hours, and was never sure what usage rate to expect.
Bill

Thanks Brauh. Good to here this isn't too abnormal.

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[Mojin7]

If that's a 54" deep pool then it's about 13,500 gallons so 80oz is about 4 ppm loss, which is a little high, but not unheard of.

How confident are you of the CYA test?
You could bump it up to about 60 and see if that brings the usage down a couple of ppm.
It also sounds like you may be a candidate for an injection system.

That's exactly what I'm figuring on. And it feels a little high to add that much every day. I haven't strayed because the water is or seems perfect.
And actually I'm not super confident in my CYA test. I get 50 to 60 every time but hard to judge exactly when I lose sight of the dot.

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[Mojin7]

All good advice. I(t's tempting to bump CYA to 60 ppm. That would be my absolute max for a manually chlorinated pool.

An SWG would allow you to run 70-80 CYA and very likely get a consumption reduction perhaps as low as 2 ppm. That said, the front money on an SWG might be $1k

If only I could tell if the CYA was 50 or 60. I would bump to 60 if I lower just to see how it works. There is quite a bit of summer left!

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[Mojin7]

Where are you getting your chlorine? Is it 8.25% bleach or 12.5% LC? You could cut down on the relative cost by upping the concentration of your chlorine. Of course, that doesn't work if you are already using LC.

Hey Husky. I use Great Value from Walmart. 8.25%. I found it for about 2.80 a jug. 128 oz I believe. From what I have seen I "think" that's my best value there. Any other thought on that?

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[Husky25]

Concentrated household bleach typically comes in 121 oz. jugs. Ocean State Job lot sells fresh 12.5% LC for $2.99/gallon. I work across the street from an OSJL in Gales Ferry and in a pinch (read: weekends), I'll go to the one on the Berlin Tpke. Using the Price per Ounce Calculator, you are paying $0.28 per oz. of active ingredient when using bleach (plus tax). 12.5% 128 oz. (gallon) jug at $2.99 is less than $0.19 per oz. of active ingredient. OSJL sells cases of 4 for $11.96. Willimantic and Manchester are closest to you. I suggest picking up a case or two and to make sure it is not a wasted trip, swing by Bidwell for some wings on the way home. :tasty: .

 

[borjis]

I'm in full sun for 7 hours and with recently getting cya down from 70 to 40 I was putting in about 1 gallon of bleach a day. (1 gal = 3ppm for me)

When cya was 70 I needed one gallon only every 3 days, which I liked, but wasn't fun when I had to do a slam (tons more of bleach than if it was 40)

So I use my solar cover (blue) during the day now and it uses a lot less chlorine now. Heats the upper 12 inches of water too.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

I don't see $1.50 a day as much to pay for the use of a pristine healthy pool. That's just $45/month. In the heat of the summer.

What would you be paying if you were buying pool store potions?

 

[laprjns]

Willimantic and Manchester are closest to you. I suggest picking up a case or two and to make sure it is not a wasted trip, swing by Bidwell for some wings on the way home. :tasty: .

I go to the Enfield store (very high turnover of their chlorine so always fresh) but i guess I could make a case for going to Willimantic if I stop for a bucket or two of wings!

Mojin7 - You best value for chlorine around here is at OSJL. Here's the guidelines I go by:

• Buy only fresh chlorine - check the date lot code and buy only if it less than two weeks old
• Only buy enough for a month - this means that you oldest chlorine will only be at most 6 weeks old
• Store it in a cool place - I keep mine in my basement and it keeps the chlorine at around 64 F

 

[Mojin7]

Concentrated household bleach typically comes in 121 oz. jugs. Ocean State Job lot sells fresh 12.5% LC for $2.99/gallon. I work across the street from an OSJL in Gales Ferry and in a pinch (read: weekends), I'll go to the one on the Berlin Tpke. Using the Price per Ounce Calculator, you are paying $0.28 per oz. of active ingredient when using bleach (plus tax). 12.5% 128 oz. (gallon) jug at $2.99 is less than $0.19 per oz. of active ingredient. OSJL sells cases of 4 for $11.96. Willimantic and Manchester are closest to you. I suggest picking up a case or two and to make sure it is not a wasted trip, swing by Bidwell for some wings on the way home. :tasty: .

Great advice. Thanks. I see I could save a few bucks there. And I'll have to check out Bidwell!

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[Mojin7]

I don't see $1.50 a day as much to pay for the use of a pristine healthy pool. That's just $45/month. In the heat of the summer.

What would you be paying if you were buying pool store potions?

I hear you. This is my first house so money is tight. And it's my first pool ever as well so I don't really know what to expect. I literally opened this pool, my first pool, less than 2 weeks ago. I do agree 45 dollars to have a perfect pool is pretty sweet!

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[Mojin7]

I go to the Enfield store (very high turnover of their chlorine so always fresh) but i guess I could make a case for going to Willimantic if I stop for a bucket or two of wings!

Mojin7 - You best value for chlorine around here is at OSJL. Here's the guidelines I go by:

• Buy only fresh chlorine - check the date lot code and buy only if it less than two week old
• Only buy enough for a month - the means that you oldest chorine will only be at most 6 week old
• Store it in a cool place - I keep mine in my basement and it keeps the chlorine at around 64 F

OSJL It is! Thanks for that as well. I just learned not to over buy. I think I have about 15 jugs of bleach left. I'm sure I could dig in the forums but how long is bleach or the 12.5% at ocean state good for? Or should I say how long is it effective at sanitizing a pool?

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[daleyfolk]

Boise Idaho here. 9 hours of sun on my 17500 gal.pool. CYA 50. I lose at least 3 ppm a day, and add a little more than half a jug per day. $1.50/day...I've stopped fretting about it...it is what it is.

 

[Husky25]

Regardless of the liquid source (LC or concentrated bleach), all sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) breaks down with exposure to light and heat, but my understanding is it is a matter of percentage.

For example, given similar conditions and treatment, it would take the NaClO in Liquid Chlorine the same amount of time to go from 12.5% to 10% concentration as it would the NAClO in Concentrated bleach to go from 8.25% to 6.6%. Less nominal loss, but still 20%. As long as there is some active ingredient remaining in the jug, it will be effective. You just have to use more, so it's not terribly efficient and the cost per ounce of active ingredient increases.

The liquid chlorine at OSJL is pretty fresh. Every case I've bought this year has had a 2015 "born on" date. A case will last me just over a week on average.