Too Much Free Chlorine In Salt Water Pool

In effect free chlorine is the amount of chlorine that is free to kill harmful microorganisms in your swimming pool s water.

Too much free chlorine in salt water pool.

One advantage of saltwater swimming pool over non saltwater is that you don t need to measure free chlorine level fcl frequently and adjust it by adding harsh chlorine manually. There are many occurrences that cause chlorine in a pool to be used up at a higher rate. If it s above the ideal range of 7 2 to 7 8 chlorine levels are likely to remain low even if the chlorinator is working overtime. Saltwater pools require free chlorine to kill harmful bacteria that could make swimmers sick.

The effectiveness of chlorine decreases dramatically with rising ph. Free chlorine degrades when exposed to ultraviolet light so the solution may be as simple as halting the addition of chlorine to the water and leaving your pool uncovered and unused on a sunny day. Free chlorine is the most important type of chlorine to monitor because it is responsible for actively sanitizing your pool. Could cause irritation for certain swimmers.

Not a good solution if your chlorine levels are too high above normal. An ideal chlorine level is 3 ppm. If you regularly add external chlorine to your pool to help maintain your free chlorine levels then you need to be aware of your stabilizer levels cya cyanuric acid. The cya level in your pool when maintained at 30 to 50 parts per million serves to provide protection for your chlorine from uv degradation.

Things that cause low free chlorine levels are excessive sunlight high bather loads and improper water chemistry. So for the most accuracy test your pool water with either test strips or a liquid test kit. When you test the salt concentration in the pool which should be at least once a week you should also test the ph. Too much chlorine can also be a problem as it can damage pool equipment and bleach hair and swimwear.

However there is one potential issue of high or low free chlorine levels in saltwater pools especially for the new users of saltwater chlorine generators. The pool and hot tub alliance recommends keeping free chlorine levels between 2 0 and 4 0 parts per million ppm. Not having enough chlorine in your swimming pool will also cause the little bit of chlorine that s in there to be used up faster too. Aim for a free chlorine reading of 1 0 to 3 0 ppm.

The whole point of chlorine is to sanitize your pool water so adding contaminants no not your friends to the water might do the trick. In fact when you can smell chlorine in your pool it means that most of it is used up. On average your saltwater pool should have a free chlorine reading of 1 0 to 3 0 ppm. If you have high free chlorine level in your saltwater pool means the percentage setting in chlorine generator is too high the higher you set the percentage setting in your chlorine generator the higher the production level of chlorine.

And what you re actually smelling are chloramines used up chlorine particles.