Indoor pool air quality

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bob101290

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Dec 2, 2015
8
Pearland Tx
Hello all, I am a manager of a large heavily used indoor pool. Our air quality is horrendous, the chlorine smell is super strong. From what I have gathered the chlorine smell is CC which makes sense because or CC is pretty high. My question is, how do I get rid of the smell? We have a top of the line HVAC system that was designed for indoor pools. I have tried doing the BPC and it did not work (but upon further research it appears that BPC may be kind of nonsense). It is so bad that when I go home I have a major headache and have mini coughing fits because I am in the air all day. Our pool is heavily used by multiple swim teams, water aerobics, and member lap swimming.

The big pool is 790,000 gallons with a FC of 2.27 and a TC of 2.58 and a PH of 7.6 and a temperature of 80

The small pool is 79,000 gallons with a FC of 5.6 (high I know) and a TC of 6.28 a PH of 7.4 and a temperature of 86

We have a big swim meet coming up on the 12th and I would like to have this resolved ASAP. i also do apologize if this has been asked here before but I did a search and didn't have great luck finding anything.

Thanks so much!
 
If you don't forsee being able to repair the UV in the near future, MPS treatment might be a short term solution but you would have to likely perform this daily to "catch" up on your CC and then have to still perform the treatment periodically to eliminate CCs. Keep in mind, I do not operate and indoor pool and do not have experience dealing with CCs in this situation, this is only based on what I have learned from others on this website, namely, chem geek's informative posts. Including this one: Chemistry of Chloramines - indoor commercial pool
 
MPS will help prevent CC from forming regardless of whether or not you have a UV system.

Also beware that depending on your testing methods, MPS will show up as CC after you add it until it has been consumed. Based on your FC and TC results, it would appear you are using a computer readout type system for the test results. The extra decimal places often "feel good" but are meaningless and usually less accurate than a drop test unless the electronic system is calibrated OFTEN. You'll get better results from a drop-based test kit such as the K-2006 or TF-100.
 
In theory, yes, but in practice not necessarily. It all depends on the source of the CC. MPS oxidizes some chemicals before chlorine gets a chance to form CC, but that's not the case for ammonia and probably not for urea either. So using MPS can be hit or miss. It can certainly be tried. For your test kit, you'll need an MPS interference remover. Taylor has one in the K-2042 that is used with a FAS-DPD test. You'll have to ask Palintest if they have something similar or if the Taylor reagent can be used.

Another option would be the use of enzymes that can break down some bather waste using the dissolved oxygen in the water. Something like the Orenda CV-600.

Yet another option is to physically remove the bather waste via filtration by using HaloSource SeaKlear PRS Stage 1 & 2. In Europe with the DIN 19643 standard they use this approach, but using alum or ferric iron floc. They also use activated carbon filtration, but that removes all chlorine in addition to CC so the chlorine has to be re-added afterwards. With PRS, you won't be removing any chlorine and will just be preventing CC formation if you remove the organic load. That means backwashing/cleaning the filter frequently enough to not have it build up too much material.
 
We have the Sea Klear, but I think they are empty. Will reorder today. Am I right in assuming the CC is the cause for the poor air quality? Also I greatly appreciate the help y'all are giving me! One more question, it seems all of these products are to prevent the formation of CC, how do I get rid of the initial CC?
 

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Use the directed amount on the MPS bottle or instructions. It may or may not help get rid of existing CC. It all depends on what the CC is. Unfortunately, CC can be many different types of chlorinated compounds. If it were monochloramine, then that is most easily removed by chlorine so elevating the chlorine level at night and lowering it in the morning would take care of it though usually it doesn't require that sort of extreme measure. For other slow-to-oxidize but volatile chloramines, elevating chlorine at night AND aerating the water (or at least running the pumps high) and increasing air ventilation can help remove the volatile CC and again one lowers the FC again for the morning -- one can also do this aeration and ventilation without raising the FC but may not remove as much CC that way.

The only downside to MPS, other than cost, is that it will falsely show up as CC in most chlorine tests. So if you go that route, you need to get the MPS interference remover, but I don't know if that works for your test kit. So until you get that sorted out, I wouldn't use the MPS because you may use it and see even higher CC even if it did improve the air quality. If your regs don't allow for higher CC, then you'll be stuck until you can get the interference remover and prove that your CC really isn't high -- it's just a false reading from the MPS itself.
 
It only goes away if there is something in the pool to oxidize. The MPS lasts longer than chlorine if there is nothing to oxidize in the pool. Of course, with reasonable bather load, the MPS should get used up in hours as you say. The problem is that you can never know for sure. However, in your situation with high bather load, you could probably assume that if you don't add MPS for a day then you are getting real chlorine readings. As for whether you can know this is the case after some shorter number of hours, that's harder to say. If you don't use the MPS every day, then it's probably reasonable to just ignore the CC on the days you use it.
 
Thank you for being so helpful. Good news is that next week our pool contractor is coming out to look at the UV, and they may be able to fix it for less than 100k (yay). It will be about 300 dollars for one dose of the MPS for our big pool. Now I read previously that Dupont recommends that a once a week MPS shock is recommended. That seems like alot to me.
 
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