Well, whether he thinks so or not, his chlorine "briquets" are combined with something else. It may be calcium, CYA, or copper. This is because chlorine is too unstable in its elemental form. As a solid, it must be combined with something and on this forum, we know what those somethings are.
As duraleigh said, these things do matter and without these things pools would be, oh, I don't know, pick any or all: dirty, damaged, unsafe, smelly, gross appearing, broken, condemned, evening news fodder, or money pits. Rarely are they perfect on their own and if they are, it's luck, or it's because they haven't operating long enough to have a problem.
If these things don't matter to him, then what does it matter at all really? So he says that his chlorine is maintained at 1 ppm. I wonder how he knows this and if his solution is perfect anyway, why would he even test the water? What is he testing it for if chemical components don't matter?
I would invite you to read the articles in Pool School. There, you can see the problems listed that can occur when pool water is out of balance, when pH is high or low, when CYA is high, low or absent, when chlorine is high, low, or absent, and when hardness issues lack their due attention. There is too much to list in the course of one thread. And these aren't opinions. These are scientific facts and can be ignored at anyone's peril or expense.
This forum exists largely because the members arrived here looking for answers to a problem. Many came here thinking they thought they had all of the answers too, only to learn that they were sorely mistaken. Many ended up here because year after year, they went to the pool store and plunked down hundreds of dollars per trip on "chlorine briquets", dutifully added them to their pool, and couldn't understand why 2 years later, even when they followed the 18 year-old pool store "expert's" advice to the tee, they have a green pool, calcium scale on the plaster and clogging up their pipes, and chronic swimmer's ear.
Time will tell whether your friend does or does not have problems with his pool. Sooner or later, things tend to catch up with you when you don't pay the attention to details that is due. Kind of like buying a new car. You can say that your car never has problems. You just put gas in it and it goes. It's been going great for 3 or 4 years. Who needs to change the oil or transmission fluid? Tell me if that makes sense.
I will tell you that if you are having a pool installed and you are looking for information on how to care for it, you have come to the right place. Here, you will learn how to take care of it the right way and it will be a beautiful, sparkling oasis as long as you learn some basic water parameters and use a good test kit. The information within this forum is not quackery or some sort of way-out-there-in-left-field approach. It's just basic science combined with thousands and thousands of hours of combined experience. We know it saves us money and we know it works 100% of the time. The best part is that we are happy to share it with you, free of charge. Gratis!
Your friend no doubt knows a bit about wastewater treatment. The thing about that though is that once wastewater is treated, it leaves the facility. It doesn't stick around for months or years to cause scale or corrosion, or any of those things. Treating wastewater and managing a pool are two completely different things. Chlorine is involved, yes. But that is about the only similarity that exists between the two.
