Decided to post a question I've been wondering about for a while. We have a tub that we use 20 to 30 minutes at a time, a few times a week, mostly to relax after dinner. Just 2 people so not a lot of bather load (500'ish gallon tub).
I'm pretty type-A about my water chemistry and we use the dichlor then bleach method. Once a week on Tuesday nite, I do the weekly "shock" to raise it up to about 12ppm FC and then lower the temp from our normal 101 to 94F because we are usually not in the tub on Wednesday nites due to standing commitments. I usually do the full panel of testing (CH, ALK, pH, CYA along with FC/CC) on Tuesdays about 2x / month. When CYA gets low, I'll use dichlor to bring it back up so it stays in the 20 to 30 range, otherwise it's 7.5% bleach. We go quite a while between purge and refill (usually about 6 months) and we don't have foam except maybe a very tiny bit if my husband's deodorant does it, but it doesn't last, it's gone as soon as jets are off and we also float a scum bug in the water to help. Water is crystal clear, albeit the older it is, it can get more "effervescent" when the jets/air are on but that dissipates quickly. We figure on about 7ppm to cover 1 person hours of soak time and so I take a read before we get in and then add accordingly after. When we're getting in it, it tends to be about 3 or 4 ppm FC and that doesn't bother either of us....
With that all in mind, my question is about soaking in higher FC on (usually) Thursday's because the shock from Tuesday hasn't come down enough. For example, this past Tuesday, I needed to bump the CYA up so we used 0.9oz dichlor for +8ppm from the original 4ppm pre soak - so going to 12ppm FC because of the weekly shock, which also covers our bather load from that nite. We put the temp to 94F. Today I tested and the FC is 5.5. I moved the temp back to 101F in anticipation of a soak tonite but wondering what's realistic for FC levels to be soaking in? And if it so happened that the Tuesday shock wasn't "dissipated" by the next soak - possibly Wednesday, most likely Thursday, can anything be done about it or do you just wait it out until the FC gets used up? I do sometimes smell chlorine in my hair when I hit the shower the next day, but never on our skin or anything even after getting out of the tub, tho I know some people say 3 - 4ppm may be high to soak in and could go at 2ppm pre soak when CYA is in the 20 - 30ppm range.
Thanks for any guidance!
I'm pretty type-A about my water chemistry and we use the dichlor then bleach method. Once a week on Tuesday nite, I do the weekly "shock" to raise it up to about 12ppm FC and then lower the temp from our normal 101 to 94F because we are usually not in the tub on Wednesday nites due to standing commitments. I usually do the full panel of testing (CH, ALK, pH, CYA along with FC/CC) on Tuesdays about 2x / month. When CYA gets low, I'll use dichlor to bring it back up so it stays in the 20 to 30 range, otherwise it's 7.5% bleach. We go quite a while between purge and refill (usually about 6 months) and we don't have foam except maybe a very tiny bit if my husband's deodorant does it, but it doesn't last, it's gone as soon as jets are off and we also float a scum bug in the water to help. Water is crystal clear, albeit the older it is, it can get more "effervescent" when the jets/air are on but that dissipates quickly. We figure on about 7ppm to cover 1 person hours of soak time and so I take a read before we get in and then add accordingly after. When we're getting in it, it tends to be about 3 or 4 ppm FC and that doesn't bother either of us....
With that all in mind, my question is about soaking in higher FC on (usually) Thursday's because the shock from Tuesday hasn't come down enough. For example, this past Tuesday, I needed to bump the CYA up so we used 0.9oz dichlor for +8ppm from the original 4ppm pre soak - so going to 12ppm FC because of the weekly shock, which also covers our bather load from that nite. We put the temp to 94F. Today I tested and the FC is 5.5. I moved the temp back to 101F in anticipation of a soak tonite but wondering what's realistic for FC levels to be soaking in? And if it so happened that the Tuesday shock wasn't "dissipated" by the next soak - possibly Wednesday, most likely Thursday, can anything be done about it or do you just wait it out until the FC gets used up? I do sometimes smell chlorine in my hair when I hit the shower the next day, but never on our skin or anything even after getting out of the tub, tho I know some people say 3 - 4ppm may be high to soak in and could go at 2ppm pre soak when CYA is in the 20 - 30ppm range.
Thanks for any guidance!
