Storing Liquid Chlorine

[NLITP]

Hey everyone! I'm coming up on my 3rd season of pool ownership and owe most of its success to this forum.

I've read most of the threads about storing pool chemicals (http://www.troublefreepool.com/thre...store-your-pool-chemicals-(liquid-and-powder)), but I'm not sure I've heard a solution that is "perfect".

Lets talk about storing liquid chlorine, specifically. It says to store it in a cool, dry, well ventilated place. Cool and dry will only happen indoors, but I wouldn't call indoors "well-ventilated". The caps on the liquid chlorine are vented, so is it not a health concern if stored indoors?

I've also heard of people placing jugs of liquid chlorine in a Rubbermaid -type box in the shade outdoors, but it can be well over 100 degrees in the shade here and those boxes are not ventilated. I've read where someone stored their chlorine in their garage (hot and not well-ventilated). They once passed out after entering the garage from the chlorine gas build up. So, I'm guessing that opening a rubbermaid style box after a few days of being closed up with 6 1-gallon jugs of 10% liquid chlorine might also release some chlorine gas build up(?).

I'm sure I'll have to compromise, as I don't believe a cool + dry + well ventilated environment exists here. So, what should my compromise be for storing liquid chlorine? FYI - I have a rubber box thingie on the north side of my house which will be shaded most of the day.

Thanks for any input you may have on this.

 

[The dog]

I store my liquid chlorine in a plastic box in the shade by my pool equipment. I put a piece of wood on top of the box to keep debris out of the box. I don't think I'd want to keep it indoors either.

 

[elwood58]

I store most of mine on the laundry aisle at Walmart. I keep a gallon or two in the bottom cupboard in my garage. Outdoors will not cut it here, as temps can hit 120 degrees.

 

[borjis]

I store mine in a cool place, in the garage, next to the door leading outside.

 

[Texas Splash]

Well, having lived there for several years myself, we know it's a bit warm in the shade too right! It's okay to store bleach/chlorine outside or in shady areas that get warm (i.e. garage), but just remember that the higher concentrations of bleach will deteriorate quicker than 6%. I use regular 8.25% laundry bleach, and like elwood58 above, I try to let the grocery store be my storage bin. By that I mean I keep just enough jugs of bleach at home to last me a week - no more. If I'm concerned about that much bleach, I don't mind scaling it back a bit and only keeping 2-3 jugs in my laundry room. This way I know I always have fresh stuff on hand. Before my pool, I kept bleach there anyways. On occasion, only one may be opened (broken seal) anyways, and I've yet to notice anything odd in my laundry room. In fact, the only thing I store outside at this time is my muriatic acid. I learned my lesson with that the hard way - corrosion.

 

[poolnewbies5874]

We store all ours in the basement and have never had any issues. We have a 30 gallon bin full for our Stenner pump and keep 4-6 gallons on the shelf for the hot tub, misc cleaning, laundry etc.

 

[NLITP]

Thanks, all. Yes, I store MA outside in a shaded area... I've had no problems with that. I thought about putting the chlorine in the deck box outside (shaded most of the day), but I have other items in there... pool umbrellas, etc. and I've read chlorine can corrode metal (not as bad as MA, but still...).

I'd feel better about it being outside (from a health standpoint), but don't have another outdoor, shaded place to store it. A 2nd deck box??

 

[dsmith99]

You ever notice how the laundry aisle absolutely reeks of bleach with those 50+ gallons sitting right there on the shelf, yeah me neither.

I keep mine stored in the basement where it's both cool and dark. I buy 6-8 gallons at a time and pour them into my stenner reservoir just often enough to keep the 15 gallon tank on the full side. The only time I ever even get a whiff of bleach is while I pour it in the tank.

 

[triptyx]

Mine stays up on a shelf in the laundry room. As with posters above, I only keep 4 gallons or less on hand. I've never had a problem with fumes or anything else (though I did have a bottle develop a crack inside its box one time and leak bleach everywhere - even then, the fumes weren't too heavy). The laundry room is nice since it has a ventilation fan I can use if something bad happens.

 

[proavia]

I keep mine in the laundry room also. As I usually buy a crate of 4 gallons at a time, I have at most 4 full gallons on hand. I have NEVER once smelled any chlorine odor/fumes from the jugs. I too had one leak - but the plastic crate contained it (and I transferred the remaining contents to an empty bleach jug I keep just for such occasions). The laundry room is somewhat small and it's easy to get a whiff of any jug that may leak as I go in/out to the garage thru there at least 3 times daily - so monitoring the situation is quite easy.

 

[jpierce]

Buried this 55 gallon drum to store chlorine in. Will soon have my Stenner pump hooked into it.

 

[Aggie_aloha]

Buried this 55 gallon drum to store chlorine in. Will soon have my Stenner pump hooked into it.

Would be interested in hearing more about your set up and how well the CL holds

 

[mguzzy]

I think part of this storage scenario depends on how fast someone goes through chlorine and how much they need in reserve. If you are using liquid chlorine you are going through it pretty fast and I'm guessing storing it outside is not a big deal since its not there for very long.. a four gallon crate will get used up pretty regularly if you are dosing manually every day. My chlorine is stored in the pool (duh, I have a swg). But I keep a jug of 10% in reserve in case there is an unplanned pool party or heat wave and I need to give my pool a "kicker". I store that in the laundry room with the other house hold chems.. seems logical. I already have 5% cl for the laundry in there.. why not the 10% cl for the pool too. If I find I haven't gone through the jug in after a month or so, I'll dump it in the pool and get a fresh one on my next trip to the store.