Using High pH in pools

Jump to latest Follow Reply
This came up before towards the end of this topic. Briefly, when Ben did that write up the relationship between PH, TA, and CO2 outgassing was not understood. With that new understanding we can get the same results Ben was getting while using lower PH targets than he was using.
 
He doesn't mention swimmer comfort anywhere in the article. The first thing Bioguard ever "taught" me was that "the pH of the human eye is 7.5" which is why they push 7.4-7.6. Obviously you can adjust your CSI and chlorine level to suit a higher pH, but you can't mandate goggles. Is the eye pH thing oversold or would that be a problem in this situation?
 
spishex said:
He doesn't mention swimmer comfort anywhere in the article. The first thing Bioguard ever "taught" me was that "the pH of the human eye is 7.5" which is why they push 7.4-7.6. Obviously you can adjust your CSI and chlorine level to suit a higher pH, but you can't mandate goggles. Is the eye pH thing oversold or would that be a problem in this situation?
Click to expand...
I don't know about this situation, and the following is very qualitative, and at best one data point, but my experience is that the pH matters a great deal for eye comfort. Since I took over my pool I starting logging everything that went into the pool, and I also test way too much. Just saying that I think my data is reasonably good.

My humaniform pH test strip (i.e., my 10-year old) seems to be quite reliable. He won't set foot in any pool but ours without goggles, and the aversion to ours was also true in the "Service by Pool Fool" days. I monitored eye complaints and readings and found out fairly quickly that if I had it at 7.5 the goggles were thrown on the deck. 7.4-7.6 wasn't bad, but outside that range I got complaints. I've since been checking that daily and adjusting to stay in the 7.4-7.6 range, and as close to 7.5 as I can get.

BTW, I didn't know about the pH of the eye being 7.5 before reading the post from spishex, but this is FWIW only.

Cheers, Gary
 
Good reading.

Way back on PF, I thought I remembered reading that 7.8 pH was normal for humans.

Does anyone know if it varies from person to person?

Actually, I know some folks whose personalites are about 5.8 pH but I'm not sure about their eyes. :shock:
 
From what I have seen, the amount of eye irritation is not symmetric around a PH of 7.5. That is to say that many people are comfortable at a PH of 8.0, while fewer people are comfortable at a PH of 7.0.
 
I hope I'm not "hijacking", but the post from spishex had some resonance with my experience, so I couldn't resist.

JasonLion's question about the symmetry of the response is something I can't address. I haven't let it vary that much, and probably won't.

Concerning Duraleigh's question about person-to-person variability, I was (as usual) being a little facetious talking about the 10-year old "test strip". My 16-year old stepson and I have had similar responses. But that might be genetics at work, or autosuggestion (?), as the psychologists might say. Again, just FWIW.

Finally, concerning,
duraleigh said:
Actually, I know some folks whose personalites are about 5.8 pH but I'm not sure about their eyes. :shock:
Click to expand...
I can't remember who came back with this line first, but "I resemble that!"

Cheers, Gary
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply