How much do you spend on bleach in a 36,000 gallon pool?

[rvaughn]

I thought I was doing pretty good with the BBB method, but I feel like I'm dumping a lot of chlorine in my pool to keep my chlorine levels up. In the beginning, I had no CYA in my pool, but recently added 20lbs and waiting for CYA Regeant to arrive to retest. Right now I add about 2 of the big jugs of bleach (1.5 gallons) per night ($5 per night). If I decrease the amount of bleach i add, I seem to run into problems again. I'm wondering if spending and adding this much bleach is pretty normal for this size pool? I get full sun all day. My kids swim in it practically every day, my 18month old is in it too , plus we usually have heavy bather loads on the weekends. Just want to know if this is what I should be budgeting for? Thanks so much!

 

[duraleigh]

Your gonna' see your usage decrease quite a bit now that you've put in the CYA...it's impossible to maintain adequate chlorine levels without it.

My situation is similar. 43k pool...full sun....pretty active with swimmers....CYA 40ppm (and I'm gonna' take it up to 50-60 to try to further reduce CL usage)

I use almost exactly one big jug of Clorox daily so it's reasonable to expect you will use that or a little less when your CYA is distributed completely.....cutting your costs in half or less.

 

[JohnT]

20 pounds of CYA should have you near 70ppm, so you shouldn't be going through a lot of chlorine. Chances are you have something consuming the chlorine. Likely culprits are algae and urine.

 

[chem geek]

[EDIT] I wrote this as the previous two posts were being submitted so I apologize for duplicate information. [END-EDIT]

24 cups (1.5 gallons) of 6% bleach will raise the FC level in your 36,000 gallon pool by 2.57 ppm. As to whether that is unusully high, that depends on what your starting target FC level is for your pool. 20 pounds of conditioner (CYA) in your 36,000 gallon pool raises the CYA by 67 ppm which is on the high side, but is fine so long as you maintain sufficiently high FC levels. You would need to maintain a minimum of 5.1 ppm FC in your pool at all times to ensure not getting algae so that means probably targeting 7-8 ppm FC and having a 2-3 ppm FC loss which is not unusual at that FC level in full sun.

So, what is your measured FC level just before you add the chlorine to increase the level by around 2.6 ppm?

If your 96-ounce bleach is costing you $2.50, then you need to find a less expensive source of bleach or chlorinating liquid. Many find that size bottle of bleach selling for about half that price and sometimes for $1 on sale. Even 12.5% chlorinating liquid from the pool store that was less than $6.66 per gallon would be less expensive and I get my chlorinating liquid for $3.50 per gallon.

With your large pool water volume, you will be spending more on chlorine than smaller pools that are half the size, independent of the chlorine source. Probably the best investment you could make would be to purchase a pool cover since that significantly cuts down chlorine losses. Of course, it can be a pain to put on and off unless you get an automatic electric safety cover (that's what I have and my chlorine usage is around 0.5-0.7 per day maintaining a minimum of about 3-4 ppm FC at about 30 ppm CYA and I add chlorine to a target of around 5-6 ppm FC about twice a week).

Richard

 

[duraleigh]

John's take and mine are different because neither of us knows exactly when you put the CYA in your pool. I assumed just now and John has assumed a longer period.

Let us know that important info...if it's been there more than three days, I concur with John.....meaning it may be time to shock.

 

[Rangeball]

At that pool size you are near if not over the point where SWG (with dilligent shopping ) will save you money in the long run.

 

[The Mermaid Queen]

EDIT 6/13/07 TMQ: rvaughn, you posted the same thing twice, and are getting answers in both places, so I copied the next two posts here and deleted the other thread.

PostPosted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:12 pm

I have 36,000 galloon pool. At first of year, had 0 CYA, lots of leafs, tadepoles, green. After clearning it up, and adding CYA, I alternate shocking 3 big jugs of bleach on and four pounds of quick dissolving shock bought from Sams (24 pounds about $50), Each pound treats 10,000 gallons. I have added two doses of CYA , bought from Leslie's, biggest bucket they sell I think it's 8 pound buckets ($40 a bucket annywa).

This is first year I have used bleach, it does seem to work better than big tub of shock that Leslie's sells. Of course, I have started doing my own testing this year. Throw away any test strips and got drop tests. I never got those test strips to work right, but I am have been right on with Leslie's with drop tests.

Two jubs is probably close, have you used bleachcalc program?


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[The Mermaid Queen]

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:30 pm

I use about 3 gallons of bleach a week in my 32,000 gallon pool, but I stock up when it is on sale for about $1.00 a gallon for the 5.25% bleach.


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[kirbinster]

What?

 

[The Mermaid Queen]

Sorry for the confusion, kirb...... I copied your post from a different thread... The OP had double-posted the same question and I combined the answers in this thread. I also forgot to take off part of the header, which may have been the cause of your confusion!

 

[kirbinster]

no problem - but it sure threw me what was going on.