bleach or chlorine?

[EmilyOTR]

I posted this in the spring but never got a lot of answers. It didn't matter too much because I have an SWG. well my SWG just died, I think. I have to check the fuse but it's 5 years old. anyway, I have to chlorinate my pool for another 3 weeks. So, in years past, everyone here recommended bleach, but since the spring, everyone talks about liquid chlorine. I never see bleach even mentioned. why is that?? what changed over last winter?

 

[Jimrahbe]

Emily,

Back in the day, the only difference between bleach and Liquid chlorine was the strength percentage.. Now, most all household bleach has all kinds of additives which is not what you want to add to your pool.. If you can find regular bleach, with no additives, it will still work just fine..

Notice also that most bleach you can buy today is 6%, back in the day it was 8.25%. Most liquid chlorine is now 10 or 12.5%

Thanks,

Jim R,

 

[Darin]

For pools, bleach and liquid chlorine can be synonyms. If you can find the plain (non-additive) house bleach and look at the ingredients you will see Sodium Hypochlorite (NaOCl) at x.x%. Similarly, if you go to the hardware store you will find in the pool products area liquid pool shock, liquid pool bleach, liquid bleach, whatever they call it in your area. It is also sodium hypochlorite and likely is a higher % of sodium hypochlorite.

Here in the Midwest I can go to Menards and get plain household bleach at 6% or walk over to the pool section at get liquid “pool shock” at 12.5%. Same stuff, different concentration.

 

[EmilyOTR]

it just seems so odd that last summer everyone used bleach. so bleach became more diluted this year?

 

[Mdragger88]

it just seems so odd that last summer everyone used bleach. so bleach became more diluted this year?

The suppliers/manufacturers concentrated on producing their top selling products to keep up with demand quickly - splashless & w/ fabric enhancers (also this sells for more) & left plain ole bleach out if the mix. Sadly i think it may be phased out of the grocery store completely soon. Cheap & cheerful isn’t as profitable unfortunately.

 

[Darin]

A large chlorine manufacturer had a fire August 2020 down in Louisiana. Hurricane. Complete loss. This coupled with covid, home pool boom, and the Texas freeze up caused a manufacturing /supply line problem. It is not really a problem with what companies like P&G are making for consumers, i.e. splashless & w/ fabric enhancers because you can always find the discount household bleach without additives. It has just been an expensive year buying bleach, which caused many to switch to SWG which caused price increases in them. What a strange time.
What I normally buy at Menards pre-2021 was liquid 12.5% for $1.99 this year on sale was $3.54.