Tips and Musings about Living the Clearwater Life
Stop in any Clearwater Pools location before the close of business on July 3rd and get your free 1 pound bag of TurboShock® with every eligible poolife® purchase! Don't forget to bring a water sample and have your water tested! Our ClearCare water tests are the best!
If you have a pool you are no doubt familiar with shock. Not the finger in a socket shock, but the “blast all the gross stuff out of the pool” shock!
Adding chlorine to your pool when you open it is just one step towards getting your pool "swim ready." By adding just chlorine, chloramine is created when chlorine molecules hang on to bacteria and other nasty things in your water. Remember our lesson on Chlorine last month? Chloramines are an indicator that you have too much of the “bad” chlorine or the “dead” chlorine in your water.
Do you SMELL chlorine when you are in or around your pool? Well, you are actually NOT smelling the chlorine you buy and add to the pool. You are smelling the oxidized chlorine or the chloramines. Which means there is some bad bacteria building in your pool water and it is time to shock all of it out of the water!
Clearwater's poolife® TurboShock® shock treatment is a powerful treatment with more of the benefits pool owners look for. With 75% minimum available chlorine, poolife® TurboShock® shock treatment works fast to combat algae and bacteria. It dissolves more quickly and completely and keeps pool water sparkling clean and clear with less work. There is no need to predissolve!
Useful Tips for Shocking Your Pool
For best results always ensure pH is correct before shock treating your pool. Or bring in a water sample and let us ClearCare test your water!
Always shock at dusk or night time. The chlorine works better when it’s not being burned off by the sun.
Don’t shock and add alkalinity on the same day or you will have a “green” pool! It will be clear, but it will be green!
Shock should also be added every week to ensure a clean and algae-free pool.
As with all pool chemicals, keep them stored in a cool, dry place away from the sun and heat.
Here's a video for you to watch and learn more about shocking your pool with poolife® TurboShock®
Just when you think you know all about chlorine, we’re here to let you know there is more to the story than you think...
It was in a small lab in Sweden in 1774 that Carl Scheele, a chemist, discovered chlorine when he mixed manganese dioxide (MnO 2 ) with a solution of hydrochloric acid (HCl). Then, in 1810, another chemist--Sir Humphrey Davy--established Chlorine as an element and named it from the Greek word "Khloros", which means "green".
Chlorine is the most common method of keeping swimming pool and hot tub water free of bacteria and germs, as well as keeping algae under control. It is a disinfection agent that just about all of us can identify at any given sniff. But unlike the jug in your laundry room, the type of chlorine we're talking about is the chlorine for your pool.
Chlorine is either free or combined. Free chlorine is the one that goes to work, eliminating all the bacteria and oxidizing contaminants in your pool or hot tub. So, while it says “Free,” this is actually the type of chlorine you purchase and add to your pool.
Combined chlorine is what happens when free chlorine meets chloramines. Yeah, we’re talking chemistry now…
Chloramines are a combination of ammonia with chlorine. Unlike regular chlorine, chloramines dissipate fairly quickly when exposed to air and remain in the water. But like chlorine, chloramine is a toxic substance and should be treated as such.
Chlorine was used during World War I (1914–1918) as a chemical warfare agent.
Obviously things have come a long way since these days and gas masks are no longer a necessity when adding chlorine to your pool.
Unlike treated water coming from your faucet, swimming pools are open to contamination from the air and all the people swimming in it. That is why the chlorine levels are much higher in a swimming pool than in the water that you drink from the tap. MUCH HIGHER.
You know the expression, "Don't drink the pool water?" Well, that's one good reason--it has a lot of chlorine in it!
Exercise caution and follow these simple safety steps when adding chlorine to your pool or hot tub:
As always, if you're going to use chlorine Clearwater strongly encourages you to use the best chlorination system on the market--Poolife:
If you really want to learn more about how chlorine works in your pool, here is a great resource you and your kids will enjoy:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/science-questions/question652.htm
On Wednesdays the Clearwater Blog will focus on tips and ideas for learning about your pool and hot tub water. From keeping it clear to getting to know your chemicals, check in every Wednesday and get to know your water!
Today we're going to kick things off with a look at a great video about keeping your pool "happy" with proper chemistry. Clearwater carries the complete line of Poolife products and our staff is ready to help you get happy with your pool...
To have your water chemistry analyized, bring a sample into the store and let Clearwater do the rest with our ClearCare analysis system.
