Liquid Chlorine

[hobbzilla]

Howdy! So trying to do a little math and budgeting and wanted someone to double check my calculations. I currently have a CYA of 60. In order to keep FC at 5, and from what I’ve read an outdoor pool exposed to the sun can burn off 3ppm a day, am I truly going to be adding a half a gallon of sodium hypochlorite each day? That is about 15 Gal a month for $80. The market material says that one Gal liquid is equivalent to 2 3” tabs.

Please let me know if I’m missing something or if all of this sounds right? Thanks!

 

[Burke_B]

It will depend on the strength of your chlorine and how much you lose per day. I have a slightly smaller pool than you and a similar CYA level and I was going through about 1.5 to 2 gallons (give or take) a week during the hottest part of the summer. My last 3 batches, I purchased 10% strength at about $5/gallon. I was previously buying 6-7% at the grocery store for about the same price and was going through a bit more per week.

 

[hobbzilla]

Okay, so I may be off a bit and I guess time will tell. I have been buying the 10% stuff from WMT.

Not sure I will have the appetite for daily FC testing and daily adding of bleach… guess that is why most folks end up with a SWG?

 

[Britali]

I got my SWG for that reason…so I would have an easier time of maintaining FC. I do not have to add anything daily…the thing I use most often is MA maybe once a week because my fill water was high TA so I use MA when pH needs to be lowered.

 

[IceShadow]

Once you get a feel for how much your pool uses you can cut the testing back to every 2-3 days and just add what’s needed every day or two. But yeah, I’m eyeing up a SWCG for the same reason.

 

[JJ_Tex]

If you are close to Pinch a Penny in McKinney (Custer rd) or there is another in Plano on Independence, they have refillable jugs that are 12% so you have to use less.

Also our chlorine demand goes way down in the winter. Usually, I use a floater with tabs in the winter and only refill it 2 or 3 times until the swim season rolls around. With that said, I let my CYA drift down towards the end of the swim season. With a CYA of 60, I'm not sure I would want to use tabs.

 

[HermanTX]

. The market material says that one Gal liquid is equivalent to 2 3” tabs.

If you use the PoolMath app, you can go to the drop down menu for Effects of Adding
Adding 1 gal of 10% LC for 16k gal pool will increase FC by 6.2 ppm
Adding 2 pucks of 3” Trichlor (8oz each so 16 oz) for 16k gal pool will increase FC by 6.9 ppm but also increase CYA by 4.2ppm and lower pH by 0.4. This is also when fully dissolved which may take several days depending on pump run times, etc.

With LC you get almost immediate increase within 30mins with pump running and you have no other effects on CYA or pH.

 

[VinnyinNJ]

I used to run my AG pool with bleach and trichlor tabs. As was said you get a feel for it once you've done it a while and it's not so bad. Trichlor was in a chlorinator only when we went on vacation so maybe for a week or 2. Worked well for us. Something to consider is by going to the pool every day/other day you are able to inspect it and clean out skimmer basket(s). I also found on my pool that since we used a solar cover we didn't lose a lot of chlorine to the sun so it could go 2 or 3 days without adding bleach.

The pool we just bought has a SWG on it but I did it not only for convenience but for the cost. Three years ago bleach was $2.59 gallon and now it's $5.60 for slightly less than a gallon. Walmart and HD didn't really sell liquid chlorine by me so bleach was my go to (always had it in stock at Walmart). I would have also needed to buy trichlor for when we went on vacation ... hopefully the SWG makes that all much easier.

 

[achenx75]

Howdy! So trying to do a little math and budgeting and wanted someone to double check my calculations. I currently have a CYA of 60. In order to keep FC at 5, and from what I’ve read an outdoor pool exposed to the sun can burn off 3ppm a day, am I truly going to be adding a half a gallon of sodium hypochlorite each day? That is about 15 Gal a month for $80. The market material says that one Gal liquid is equivalent to 2 3” tabs.

Please let me know if I’m missing something or if all of this sounds right? Thanks!

Honestly, I'm going to admit to something that will ruffles some TFP feathers lol. I have a 26k gallon pool and add only half a gallon every 2 days and basically never test my FC levels unless I get curious what it is every once in a while. CYA is like 30-40 or something but basically my FC is dropping to nearly minimum before I add half a gallon. By many standards, this is how algae starts forming but my pool has still been crystal clear and no algae.

I just bought the house and first time pool owner so I REALLY did not feel like dropping a pretty dime on chlorine costs every 2 or whatever weeks. But hey, it's worked for me so far lol. If it starts forming algae, then I'll add more chlorine or add it more frequently but I've only got a month or so left before I close it up.