Want to use chlorinating liquid exclusively but...

09659

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In The Industry
Feb 7, 2013
138
Pool Country
I want to use chlorinating liquid exclusively but my customers have no automatic feeders and I can service the locations only once a week in the summer and biweekly in the winter.

I'm tired of high CYA levels caused by trichlor tabs. Some of my customers have CYA levels as high as 500 ppm but they refuse to drain the pool more than once every 5 years.

How can I make this work?
 
I know some pool companies that hit with a heavy dose of liquid only once per week. I will not promise it is effective, but one of my friends has not had any problems with it.

The other method would reduce the need for you, got to salt water chlorine generation.
 
Some services down here do that, but with chlorine gas rather than liquid. They keep CYA at 100 or so, and pump the FC up to 15 or 20 each week. It works OK. One of my coworkers had their service and still got algae.
 
I would be interested to hear the answer to this question. It seems like that would be a lot of liquid to transport unless you got a really concentrated form of liquid chlorine. It seems like most people around here are willing to take the gamble with pucks and only drain when they absolutely have to.
 
Back when I had the pool service down here, they were switching to coming every 2 weeks even in the summer ... in-laws still have them. They had my CYA up around 300 ppm and would dose with gas and hope it did not drop too low by the time they came back.

Pool went green 1-2 times, like when they did not realize I had solar so my water warmed up faster (at least that was their excuse). I just did not like the huge fluctuations in the FC that would happen over 2 weeks and occasionally our skin was irritated.

I think their only goal is to have the water stay clear enough that no one complains ... that is not to say it is "safe" or "comfortable".

No problems since taking over for myself ... hoping to go SWG soon to make it even easier.
 

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In my experience, all they do is come out and blast away with more chlorine gas. No refund due to lost use, backwash/refill water, etc. As long as the water turns clear again, I think they are happy.

Problem is the services here are pretty cheap ... like $40/mo ... which is pretty competitive to buying your own chemicals. Just I do not think the water is consistently as nice and balanced.
 
That far South is gonna' be tough to stay with liquid chlorine and a once-a-week dose. If your clients won't spring for an SWG, then you can get them involved by having them add XXX amount of chlorine (Clorox) in between your visits. If you bump FC up above max on the FC/CYA chart, you will probably have enough residual FC to prevent algae
 
Problem is ... if their CYA is 500 ppm ... you are WAY off the chart. Using the poolcalculator, the NORMAL FC range is 38-53ppm. So, you have to stay above 38ppm of FC to prevent algae from growing ... and forget about testing the pH once you get FC > 10ppm.

CYA that high is just not manageable.
 
The only thing I feel you can do is to tell your customers they must drain and refill to get the CYA level normal. They don't want to? OK, ask them if when they wash their clothes if adding a gallon of detergent cleans the clothes better than the recommended amout on the package. Hopefully, they will say that would be crazy.....perhaps in that lesson you can wise them up enough to realize their pool with 500ppm of CYA is the same as a gallon of laundry detergent in the washer.

Your part in this, in conjuction with the above realization, give them that schedule (add one gallon a day) to keep the pool good until you can return. I would have that number figured out when you advise them that their high CYA is unworkable.

On the lighter side, if you could get an empty 55 gallon drum, wheel that up next to the pool along with two one gallon bottles of bleach. When they ask what the heck is going on, tell them until they drain and refill in order to keep algae for cropping up, you need to add two 55 gallon drums of bleach in the pool....OR, they can drain and refill then around two gallons of bleach should do it a day.......

You are really stuck between a rock and a hard place here because customers are money in pocket, but what to do when the customer who is always right is way off base? Perhaps you can sell them on a SWG system selling it on "no more pucks"........

Bob E.
 
I'd sell them a Peristaltic pump. I've had great success in Florida using the pump with CL 10.5% sodium hypochlorite. Pool is 17,200 g, exposed quartz aggregate finish. Some Peristaltic pumps can be paired with controllers so that the CL level is automatically maintained if the homeowner doesn't want to do frequent testing.
 
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