Bromine back to Chlorine pool. Issues!

[moore887]

Customer states that his wife went to the local pool store complaining of eye irritation in their 10k gallon in ground plaster pool here in South West Florida. Store employee tells her to stop using chlorine and fill the 3 inch chlorine tab feeder with bromine tabs and put several bags of salt into the pool (there is no salt system present). All is well for a month until the pool gets brown stains on the shell.
The call me and we decided that it should be a Chlorine pool with borates. The customer will not drain and refill with trucked in water (house is on well). I asks the customer to create some makeshift water features to cause turbulence, and do a 30% water exchange using their well water.
BR 2
pH 8.2
ALK 120
HARD 200
I add half a gallon of muriatic acid and return three days later to a greenish looking pool.

Chlorine 0
pH 8.4
Alk 150
HARD 200
CYA 50

Liquid chlorine 2.5 gallons and half a gallon of acid and I return the next day to a white but cloudy pool. Filter runs 24/7 and by day 3 of SLAM, pool is clear.

Day 4 Total chlorine is 5, Free chlorine is 2. pH 7.6 Alk 90, CYA 50, Hardness 200. 1 Gallon of Chlorine added.

My tech goes on day 10. Chlorine is 0 and pH 8. He adds 1.5 gallons of Chlorine and half a gallon of SULPHURIC low fume acid.

Day 16 (yesterday) client calls and says the floor of the pool is yellow, test strip says Chlorine is 0 and pH is extremely high.

I'm thinking that first of all, the pool was always in demand and I know these people were dying to swim in their pool so didn't give it a break. I also think the sulphuric may have reacted with whatever bromine was in the pool and caused the yellow. I'm hoping that when my tech gets up there and drops the pH with muriatic acid and adds liquid chlorine the yellow will disappear.

We have had unprecedented heavy rain over the last few weeks which, although cleans me out of chemicals, it gives me a TDS reset on the pools I service. I'm hoping for another round of downpours next week as far as this pool is concerned. I may consider increasing my threshold of CYA to 70 to allow me to use slow dissolving trichlor tabs in an effort to maintain chlorine but I WILL leave liquid chlorine there for the customer to put in as and when his test strip starts to show lower chlorine.

What say you?

 

[Bperry]

What say you?

You must know by now.

Test strips and pool store advice really hosed that customer. So test the water with a reliable test kit and start the SLAM process. The SLAM process requires testing the water multiple times per day and replenishing chlorine multiple times per day. There’s no way around it.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Test the yellow-brown stains with vitamin C. If it goes away, you have iron to deal with.

The problem with that pool is that it will not be a chlorine pool until all the pool water is replaced. The bromide is constantly reacting with the chlorine you add forming an active bromine sanitizer. That bromine has no stabilization against UV loss and so it’s a lot like a chlorine pool with no CYA - the bromine has a half life of about 45mins or so.

Drain and refill.

 

[JamesW]

BR 2
pH 8.2
ALK 120
HARD 200
I add half a gallon of muriatic acid and return three days later to a greenish looking pool.

Chlorine 0
pH 8.4
Alk 150
HARD 200
CYA 50

How did the TA go up after adding acid?

All is well for a month until the pool gets brown stains on the shell.

Test for iron.

The customer will not drain and refill with trucked in water (house is on well).

Sometimes you have to walk away from a customer if they will not allow you to do what you feel is the best course of action.

If they are going to fight you on everything and then blame you when things are not perfect, then you are in a losing battle and it is not worth the aggravation.

That type of customer is usually the one who never pays their bill because they say that you didn't fix the problems.

So, you spend a lot of time and money only to get ripped off by the customer refusing to pay.

Just like some service people stink, some customers stink and they are not worth dealing with.

 

[moore887]

How did the TA go up after adding acid?

Test for iron.

Sometimes you have to walk away from a customer if they will not allow you to do what you feel is the best course of action.

If they are going to fight you on everything and then blame you when things are not perfect, then you are in a losing battle and it is not worth the aggravation.

That type of customer is usually the one who never pays their bill because they say that you didn't fix the problems.

We have been there on more than one occasion. I held it because it was potentially an easy pool on a street that I take care of a number of other pools. However, this may be a "red alert" customer and obviously with the additional chemicals and visits, we are a couple of months away from profit.

 

[JamesW]

we are a couple of months away from profit.

You should be profitable from day 1.

Do work --> Get Paid.

Why are you losing money?

 

[moore887]

The reality of it is that when we take on a pool, more often than not, we're going into a mess. Not necessarily a green pool but we would most likely have to start with substantially low cya, hardness and of course, borates. I'm quite sure that I have a higher cost per pool compared to other service providers around me but I run a very tight route so I'm not driving all over the city.

 

[JamesW]

The reality of it is that when we take on a pool, more often than not, we're going into a mess.

Ok, so why can't you get paid?

Do visit, get paid.

 

[Newdude]

The reality of it is that when we take on a pool, more often than not, we're going into a mess

Anyone I've ever hired charged me to straighten out the mess they didn't create, if there was one.