Yup, that's the sort of system he is referring to. Indoor pools have a harder time with chloramines due to a lack of UV light and often poor air circulation relative to outdoor pools.
Jeff, I'm sorry nothing worked for you. The one bucket test must have been a fluke or could have still been smelly (since that wasn't tried) even with the zero CC you reported in that one test.
The approaches that have been tried for handling chloramines in indoor pools are UV, non-chlorine shock (MPS) and enzymes. The latter two work by oxidizing organics and ammonia before chlorine has a chance to combine with them but are preventative and won't usually fix a problem once it's been created (as you found out since you tried Oxy-Brite). The UV works by breaking down some chloramines. Unfortunately, since we don't know what kind of chloramine you've got that is causing you to cough, we don't know if UV will help or not. If you had a UV lamp (like a "black" lamp), you could see if that makes any difference even with a large bucket test though this time making sure you smell it since that's the key factor here. Nitrogen trichloride is very susceptible to UV, but some other chloramines are not so UV isn't necessarily a cure-all.
The main downside with a UV system, even if it were to work to get rid of what is causing you to cough, is that it also breaks down chlorine itself so you'll end up needing to add more.
Water replacement (dilution) will clearly remove whatever is in the water causing the problem, but since we don't know what caused the problem in the first place, it could happen again over time. I've been going over your posts and find the following history (just seeing if there are any clues here):
From this post, the pool is new as of Thanksgiving weekend, 2007. It's a large 60,000 gallon pool with integrated spa. Initially you were using Trichlor tabs and had CYA in the water.
From this post in May 2008, you added salt to your pool to get to around 1500 ppm. Still had CYA in the water but are using bleach.
From this post in May, 2008 you first reported sore eyes. You also are using a Stenner pump and also added Borates. Zero measured CC. You had invited kids over in the pool to aerate it. Spa was foamy. Subsequently, water was sparkly.
From this post in Jun, 2008 you reported some haze, but no CCs.
Now in Nov, 2008 you reported the smell and cough problem and also have measured significant CC.
So something seemed to happen between June and November, 2008 to have the CC increase so dramatically. In a very large pool, it would take very large amounts of organic substances or ammonia to create that amount of persistent CC (1 ppm CC is 0.2 ppm N for monochloramine which in 60,000 gallons is equivalent to 12 gallons of sweat or 1 gallon of urine). The non-chlorine shock (Oxy-Brite) will measure as CC, but it sounds like the initial pool store measurement showed CC before you used the Oxy-Brite and you've continued to measure CC long after using the non-chlorine shock. Can you think of anything that got added to the pool between June and November? Any chemicals accidentally dumped in? Any large pool parties, either with lots of (potentially urinating) children or people with lots of makeup or sunscreen (unusual for an indoor pool)?
Richard
Jeff, I'm sorry nothing worked for you. The one bucket test must have been a fluke or could have still been smelly (since that wasn't tried) even with the zero CC you reported in that one test.
The approaches that have been tried for handling chloramines in indoor pools are UV, non-chlorine shock (MPS) and enzymes. The latter two work by oxidizing organics and ammonia before chlorine has a chance to combine with them but are preventative and won't usually fix a problem once it's been created (as you found out since you tried Oxy-Brite). The UV works by breaking down some chloramines. Unfortunately, since we don't know what kind of chloramine you've got that is causing you to cough, we don't know if UV will help or not. If you had a UV lamp (like a "black" lamp), you could see if that makes any difference even with a large bucket test though this time making sure you smell it since that's the key factor here. Nitrogen trichloride is very susceptible to UV, but some other chloramines are not so UV isn't necessarily a cure-all.
The main downside with a UV system, even if it were to work to get rid of what is causing you to cough, is that it also breaks down chlorine itself so you'll end up needing to add more.
Water replacement (dilution) will clearly remove whatever is in the water causing the problem, but since we don't know what caused the problem in the first place, it could happen again over time. I've been going over your posts and find the following history (just seeing if there are any clues here):
From this post, the pool is new as of Thanksgiving weekend, 2007. It's a large 60,000 gallon pool with integrated spa. Initially you were using Trichlor tabs and had CYA in the water.
From this post in May 2008, you added salt to your pool to get to around 1500 ppm. Still had CYA in the water but are using bleach.
From this post in May, 2008 you first reported sore eyes. You also are using a Stenner pump and also added Borates. Zero measured CC. You had invited kids over in the pool to aerate it. Spa was foamy. Subsequently, water was sparkly.
From this post in Jun, 2008 you reported some haze, but no CCs.
Now in Nov, 2008 you reported the smell and cough problem and also have measured significant CC.
So something seemed to happen between June and November, 2008 to have the CC increase so dramatically. In a very large pool, it would take very large amounts of organic substances or ammonia to create that amount of persistent CC (1 ppm CC is 0.2 ppm N for monochloramine which in 60,000 gallons is equivalent to 12 gallons of sweat or 1 gallon of urine). The non-chlorine shock (Oxy-Brite) will measure as CC, but it sounds like the initial pool store measurement showed CC before you used the Oxy-Brite and you've continued to measure CC long after using the non-chlorine shock. Can you think of anything that got added to the pool between June and November? Any chemicals accidentally dumped in? Any large pool parties, either with lots of (potentially urinating) children or people with lots of makeup or sunscreen (unusual for an indoor pool)?
Richard