Antifreeze and Chlorine

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n240sxguy said:
I used rv antifreeze from walmart. I believe it was the super tech stuff. I have two return lines, two skimmer lines, and a main drain. It took about 4.5 gallons to fill them all. Even if I opened to waste, I would still have over 2 gallons of antifreeze in the pool. I just started everything up, and let it all go in the pool. I didn't notice any excessive chlorine use or any cc's. I don't know if I'm the exception or the norm, but I don't plan to try to suck antifreeze out of my lines.


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How long does it take for the smell to go away from the antifreeze? After two weeks, I can still smell it fairly strongly from over 40' away from the pool.

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Swampwoman said:
Hi guys.

I just want to check something. Both Toofast and Mr. Gunite said they bought "Super Tech" antifreeze from Walmart. Just to confirm, did you use THIS (pink) antifreeze (for RVS) and NOT automotive (blue) right?

(If you used automotive instead, my "googlresearching" would suggest a toxic byproduct that would need to be drained.)
View attachment 36759

ALSO, Chemgeek, there is another thread where the user reported a high chlorine consumption and high ccs...whereby he has started to wonder if antifreeze got in the pool (small size in terms of gallons, ergo perhaps a higher concentration if this is the culprit.)

Just for your research/observation and to assist Fungi (user name, not the substance ;) here is that link: http://www.troublefreepool.com/thre...after-4-days-of-filtering?p=808566#post808566
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That's exactly what I used Swampwoman. Walmart had pallets of it stacked in the aisles all around the store at pool closing time here.
 
After the initial smell when it went in the pool, I don't remember it ever smelling again. I'm sure it did, and then got less noticeable, but I don't remember ever smelling the antifreeze again.


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I don't remember having any smell from the antifreeze. In the past I've just raised the level to normal and started the pump. I think the people who close my pool only use 3-4 gallons of antifreeze.
 
So I got the water testing report back for the pool in Ohio from TFP user "toofast". They do not test for glycols so we don't know how much propylene glycol is left, but they did measure 0.1 mg/L of acetone and the hydroxy acetone should show up as an acetone at least in part. They also show 0.02 mg/L methyl-ethyl ketone and 0.440 mg/L (440 ppb) chloroform.

Given the fairly large volume of propylene glycol that may have entered the pool water, the amounts of acetone and chloroform are not very high though still higher than normally found in swimming pool water. So either the propylene glycol is still mostly there in the pool or it got converted to chloroform that has mostly outgassed or the chemical breakdown pathway is different than I thought. Note that the Henry's constant for propylene glycol (1,2-propanediol) is > 1x105 so is unlikely to outgas. Acetone, on the other hand, has a Henry's constant of around 30 so is much more likely to outgas (I couldn't find a constant for hydroxyacetone though it's probably somewhat less volatile). Chloroform (trihalomethane) has a Henry's constant of 0.25 so is the most volatile of all. By comparison, hypochlorous acid is around 930. The smaller the Henry's constant, the greater the volatility and outgassing.

EPA drinking water standards for Total Trihalomethanes (TTHMs) as described in this link are a maximum of 0.08 mg/L (80 ppb) for TTHMs and a maximum of 0.07 mg/L (70 ppb) for chloroform. Chloroform is the least problematic since it does not follow the linear-dose model for cancer so at these levels is not a carcinogen (not just low risk, but no risk at all). Nevertheless, your 440 ppb is somewhat high and may be at least in part leftover from the propylene glycol. It's still not a problem, but if you want to get rid of it the easiest way is aeration of the pool water or just keeping the pool uncovered if you normally cover it.

We'll have to wait for the other quality report for the pool in New Hampshire from TFP user "mr_gunite" to see about the propylene glycol level since they will also be testing for that.
 
Do EPA drinking water standards ever apply to pools? I know the point of all this is to be safe and to do the least amount of harm to anyone by operating pools in the cleanest way possible. I was just wondering how the EPA standards apply or what other standards apply? Perhaps it's state-by-state which makes it more complicated...

And I'm now subscribed to this thread, very interesting stuff.
 
No they don't, mostly because you aren't drinking pool water, but the EPA does regulate chemical products that are added to pools using standards mostly based on drinking water. So this is why you won't see labels on chlorine products talking about any allowed chlorine level higher than 4 ppm. This 4 ppm is the drinking water limit for chlorine. So EPA regs via FIFRA regulations do affect product labeling and registration of pesticide products.

As for regulation of pool water chemistry, it's state and sometimes local (mostly county, sometimes city) regs that come into play but only for commercial or public pools. For residential pools there are no such regs similar to how commercial kitchens have regulations to maintain sanitary conditions while in your own home you can do whatever you want.
 
Chloroform could also come from chlorine oxidizing other organics so that part isn't definitive, but the unusually high value of it would seem to be from the anti-freeze. For example, chlorine oxidation of citric acid produces mostly chloroform.

I was a bit surprised with the relatively low amount of hydroxy acetone that is left. They said their acetone test should pick that up though it might not be 100% because the test technically is for acetone itself. Most residential pools have chloroform in the 50-150 range, but it depends on whether they are covered and on the bather load.
 

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So I got the test results for the mr_gunite pool and they show < 0.002% propylene glycol and ethylene glycol so that is < 20 ppm. Note that 1 gallon of pure propylene glycol in 26,000 gallon is only 38 ppm.

So the good news is that you don't have high chloroform nor other THMs out of line (bromodichloromethane was 0.6 ppb). The bad news is that there doesn't seem to be anything in the pool indicative of the propylene glycol (except for propylene glycol itself because they don't test that with enough sensitivity). So I'm going to assume that the propylene glycol that got into the pool does indeed create a chlorine demand but that it ends up getting oxidized either to chemicals that we didn't get measured or to chemicals that mostly outgassed from the pool. They are checking their mass spec report since they say their acetone report would not include hydroxyacetone.

So it would seem from the two cases we've seen so far that the worst part of getting propylene glycol into the pool is the increased chlorine demand. It may increase chloroform but appears to not do so to extraordinary levels. Probably aerating the water during the period of time of higher chlorine demand is the best way to remove the volatiles from the pool (hydroxyacetone or chloroform). I'd suggest in the toofast pool that the pool be kept exposed to the air and, if desired, have some increased aeration though that isn't necessary and over time the chloroform level should drop if the pool is kept uncovered.
 
Not that I'm aware of. You could saturate the line with very salty water. This link shows freezing point vs. percentage of salt in a brine solution. I figure that 10 gallons or so of brine isn't going to raise the salt that much in the pool and presumably the PVC won't care about the salt level. However, if you compare that against propylene glycol you'll see that you can get much further depression so protection of colder temperatures which is one reason people use it.

There shouldn't be any problem using it in suction lines since you can start up going to waste to get rid of it, but for return lines if you can figure out a way of capturing the output when starting up then that would be better. Perhaps unplugging one line at a time and opening up the air at the filter would let it drain into a bucket?

Keep in mind that most people have not reported problems, possibly because they don't use as much or possibly because they don't notice the increased chlorine demand since on opening there may be high demand from algae if the pool was "let go" over the winter. The good news is that it looks like the only real side effect is the chlorine demand and that keeping the pool uncovered during that demand will help remove the volatile products.
 
So I was reading toofasts's thread, and ended up here. Very interesting.

Well maybe this explains what I am seeing this year. I have been waiting to see if it is going to change, and was planning to gather all of the data and post about it this weekend. In a nutshell, I have been SLAM-ing for over a month. I have had perfectly clear water, CC consistently at 0.5, none of the typical dead algae debris in the pool, no signs of algae anywhere (no slimy walls, no green or black stuff anywhere) and no need to backwash the DE for weeks. And yet I have continued to experience around 5ppm of FC demand for weeks. I have checked the niches behind the lights, all the trim around the in-wall ladder and steps, ensured there was good flow and no issues in the DE filter, cleaned all around the water line, cleaned out the autocover enclosure, etc, etc, etc, etc. I even dove down under the autocover to inspect the bottom side of the cover to ensure it was clean (it is). I absolutely can not find anything that points to any kind of algae anywhere. And the water looks great. But I am still eating FC. Last year, I had similar issues, but found a few things like black death behind the lights and plugged up stagnant areas in the DE filter, so I attributed it to those things. But this year I avoided those issues, so I am really scratching my head.

My pump pad is a long ways from the pool, so I have very long lines. I put around 40 gallons of RV antifreeze in the lines http://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/traveller-rv-multi-purpose-antifreeze-1-gal. And I made no effort whatsoever to stop any of it from going into the pool when I opened.

For now, I am just going to assume that the antifreeze may be the issue, that it is not presenting any health issues, and continue to SLAM until it eventually goes away.

For next year, I think I will figure out some way to attach fittings to the return lines that will allow me to purge the lines out of the pool to flush the antifreeze somewhere besides into the pool. And I will run the pump to waste when I start to send the antifreeze in the suction lines to waste.
 
bkfamily1 said:
So I was reading toofasts's thread, and ended up here. Very interesting.

For next year, I think I will figure out some way to attach fittings to the return lines that will allow me to purge the lines out of the pool to flush the antifreeze somewhere besides into the pool. And I will run the pump to waste when I start to send the antifreeze in the suction lines to waste.
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If you have a shop vac (they're not very expensive) install a T in your return line near the pump. Its best to install them upstream of isolation valves if you have them.
Connect the shopvac hose to the discharge of the vacuum - its now a high volume blower, connect the hose to the T with duct tape.
Turn the vacuum on and let your returns blow air, install plugs in your return lines one at a time working from the nearest to furthest fitting.

By purging most all of the water from your lines you only need to add fraction of the anti-freeze that you may have in the past. Remember its concentrated so a slight mixing with any residual water should still provide sufficient freeze protection - plus you have air volume in the pipe should it freeze there is expansion room.

The suction lines can be a bit more complicated if you have a dedicated main drain return.
Just lower water level below the skimmer basket, take the cover off your pump screen basket. If you have a check valve installing a T with cap upstream of it will allow air to be pulled into the suction line.
Use the shop vac at the skimmer to suck all the water out put a plug in your skimmer return line and pour anti freeze in at the T near the pump suction line.
 
For what it is worth....I did my best to purge the system of AF prior to opening....yet I am still having a SLIGHT PROBLEM.

I would LOVE for TFP to update the section on Antifreeze to mention that potentially there is a link and I would LOVE to figure out what other "fluids" might be used to eliminate this issue.

Every year I've had this issue and it eventually goes away mid summer and then I go to normal FC consumption....nothing really seems to work, i.e. Traditional SLAMing for example. I guess I could stop using AF, but then it is worth burst pipes, most likely not.
 
Now i am wondering if my excess FC daily loss is due to antifreeze instead of mold or whatever in the pipelines. I normally have the multiport valve in the waste position when i start up the pump at pool opening, so most of it should not have made it into the pool, plus the lines should have been rinsed by continued wasting. I dont add any A/F to return lines or main drain, so the more i think about it, i shouldn't have an A/F problem. oh well. Incidentally, i made an adapter using an old pump basket cover so i can hook up my blower and easily blowout all the lines at closing. very handy.
 
pookiesunshine said:
Now i am wondering if my excess FC daily loss is due to antifreeze instead of mold or whatever in the pipelines. I normally have the multiport valve in the waste position when i start up the pump at pool opening, so most of it should not have made it into the pool, plus the lines should have been rinsed by continued wasting. I dont add any A/F to return lines or main drain, so the more i think about it, i shouldn't have an A/F problem. oh well. Incidentally, i made an adapter using an old pump basket cover so i can hook up my blower and easily blowout all the lines at closing. very handy.
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Yeah I've done something similar, but I still feel the need to add a bit of AF, if I have a cracked pipe, man the work to fix it would be out of control. I am on a quest to find an alternative....
 
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