New Pool with Clear Comfort system

[adamcno]

Hah! Well, this is my very first post in this forum. I had a 10.5K gal pool completed in my backyard 4 months ago. It's glorious, perfect timing for the insane summer we had/have here in Austin.

I had the Clear Comfort system installed, by recommendation from my builder. That's how I found this thread...I mentioned Clear Comfort to the folks down at Leslie's the other day and they basically told me that I got sold snake oil.

I was sold the Clear Comfort system under the pretense that it would both lower my pool maintenance burden and allow me to maintain more comfortable, less-chemically water quality. My wife and kid both have sensitive skin, so the idea of less chlorine was appealing. I'm far from an expert in pool maintenance (never had a pool before now) but my initial thoughts on Clear Comfort are, so far so good.

I've had no problems this summer, my water quality has remained super clean, and my chlorine level hasn't been over 1ppm for almost the entire time. Maintenance-wise, I do weekly test strips, and about every other week a trip to Leslie's to get the water tested. I recently switched from chlorine tabs to hypochlorite shock to keep my CYA level in check. Toss a little shock in every week, a little acid from time to time, and occasionally some sodium bicarbonate. When I leave town, I put a bunch of tabs in the chlorinator and they seem to do the job for a week or more.

Anywho, that's my experience thus far, take it with a grain of salt. I haven't turned off the Clear Comfort system so heck, maybe it's making zero difference whatsoever. But just based on research and also from talking to other folks with pools, it seems like my setup is pretty darn low-maintenance.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Welcome to Trouble Free Pools
Yes, we also believe you were sold snake oil. When pool builders push a device, it is usually because they get a hefty kickback from the manufacturer.
These *alternative* devices are not endorsed by Trouble Free Pool. Our method is to use either liquid chlorine or a salt water chlorine generator (SWG). Alternative devices do not protect swimmers from disease transmission, although they often work to avoid algae.

Alternative sanitizers and "chemical free" pools--The Truth!

Pool owners frequently seek out "Chemical Free" alternatives to pool water sanitization. Many claims in favor of these systems and methods have been made (usually by the manufacturers of such systems) often without adequate scientific proof of their efficacy. Let's take a look at them and see...

www.troublefreepool.com

Pool Care Basics

 

[Bperry]

Hah! Well, this is my very first post in this forum. I had a 10.5K gal pool completed in my backyard 4 months ago. It's glorious, perfect timing for the insane summer we had/have here in Austin.

I had the Clear Comfort system installed, by recommendation from my builder. That's how I found this thread...I mentioned Clear Comfort to the folks down at Leslie's the other day and they basically told me that I got sold snake oil.

I was sold the Clear Comfort system under the pretense that it would both lower my pool maintenance burden and allow me to maintain more comfortable, less-chemically water quality. My wife and kid both have sensitive skin, so the idea of less chlorine was appealing. I'm far from an expert in pool maintenance (never had a pool before now) but my initial thoughts on Clear Comfort are, so far so good.

I've had no problems this summer, my water quality has remained super clean, and my chlorine level hasn't been over 1ppm for almost the entire time. Maintenance-wise, I do weekly test strips, and about every other week a trip to Leslie's to get the water tested. I recently switched from chlorine tabs to hypochlorite shock to keep my CYA level in check. Toss a little shock in every week, a little acid from time to time, and occasionally some sodium bicarbonate. When I leave town, I put a bunch of tabs in the chlorinator and they seem to do the job for a week or more.

Anywho, that's my experience thus far, take it with a grain of salt. I haven't turned off the Clear Comfort system so heck, maybe it's making zero difference whatsoever. But just based on research and also from talking to other folks with pools, it seems like my setup is pretty darn low-maintenance.

Hey welcome!

One thing you’ll find after some time is that those test strips aren’t very good at testing, and neither is Leslie’s. It’s sad and hard to believe, but take a stroll through all the threads where people got weird conflicting advice from a pool store water test. Even a few who took the same water sample to a few different stores and got wildly different results.

The TFP method is pretty simple. It’s to know exactly what is in the water and not adding anything that you don’t fully understand what it does. That starts with testing your own water with a known reliable test kit. There’s only two of them recommended by TFP and both are online only type orders.

The other detail to highlight is that the industry hype around “lower chemicals” is sadly pretty bunk. It usually turns out to use lower amounts of chemicals from one source but you have to buy expensive chemicals from this other source, along with some extra chemicals that are even worse than the originals. In this case the chemical chlorine is replaced (or reduced) with the chemical “hydroxyl radicals”. I honestly don’t know what that is, but that’s what the website says. So you’re not using less chemicals, you’re just using a different set of patented expensive “other” chemicals. Some of which have copper and silver in them which will eventually cause staining on pool surfaces and can wreak havoc with blond hair.

TFP has a great section of pool school articles. Reading though them, you’ll find that almost all cases of people being sensitive to chlorine is actually caused by understanitized water that has high “combined chloromine” or CC levels. Those are what result from chlorine doing its job to oxidize bad stuff in the water, and it stinks like chlorine and cause cause skin irritation, but it’s quite easily tested for and removed.

Anyway, have a look around and ask any questions that come to mind.

 

[Newdude]

Hey Adam and Welcome !!!

A properly balanced residential pool's main battle is with the sun. It burns off about 2ppm of chlorine daily in the early/late season and about 4ppm daily mid season. For ridiculously hot climates as yours it may even be 5+ daily loss to the sun.

Unless any devices sold to lower chemical use pop a tent over the pool when you turn them on, they're nothing but blatant manufacturer lies.

 

[SoDel]

It looks like the clear comfort “AOP“ system will at least do no real harm. According to their literature, they rely on hydroxyl radicals formed when UV and ozone react with water as the sanitizer. If I’m reading it right, basically it forms peroxide from water by adding UV photons and oxygen from ozone. There is no practical residual sanitation from the process so some level of chlorine is still required. Apparently wastewater and even drinking water can use AOP for treatment, if all the parameters are closely monitored, etc. I leave it to the experts to say if exposure to these hydroxyl radicals is no more or less “bad” than exposure to chlorine and its byproducts — but the peroxide and then OH stuff ultimately formed by the system is a chemical, just as chlorine is a chemical, plus for proper sanitization chlorine is still required anyway as the residual.

There are many decades of experience and many reams of scientific study to determine how to safely use chlorine to prevent infection and prevent harm from excess. We all bath in and drink chlorinated water every day with no issues at all. Suddenly swimming it it needs a new approach? Is there any way to determine any of the levels of the hydroxyl radicals this thing is supposed to form? What levels are sufficient, what are harmful? Is routine microbiological testing needed to ensure it’s working properly?

If you’ve been able to have it work well for you, I say more power to you! Somebody has to be the pioneer (and thus be willing to possibly take an arrow or two lol). There has been a literal parade of various gizmos over the years that promise to reduce or eliminate the need for chlorine in a pool. So far, they all turn out to be nonsense, and often actually harmful. This Clear Comfort thing may be different, or not. It seems like it’s certainly theoretically possible for the concept of AOP to work just fine in a pool so the question is, does this manufacturer’s implementation actually work adequately. Seems from your experience, so far, so good.

If you decide at some point it’s not all that, a salt pool with SWG is extremely low maintenance and a proven technology. Since you really do need to add and monitor chlorine with the clear comfort system anyway, I’d be looking ahead to going that route at some point.