Bleach Allergy

[Smiles79]

Hi all,

This is my second year owning a pool, and I'm hopeful that this year will be better than last (had to replace the pump and liner).

I'm planning on getting more into the pool chemistry side of it this year. Last year I used the test strips, after reading a bunch here I plan on getting the TF-100 kit.

I've also been reading about the different chemicals that can be used to adjust the different parameters, and I have a few questions:

What is the benefit of using bleach over the Dichlor that I can buy at Leslie's?

My wife has a bleach allergy, and her eye will swell shut if she's exposed to enough of it. If I choose to use bleach, will this be a problem for her? Or is the bleach essentially the same as the granular stuff, just in a different form? She didn't have any issues being in the pool all last year.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Texas Splash]

What is the benefit of using bleach over the Dichlor that I can buy at Leslie's?

A couple:
1 - No side effects of increasing your CYA
2 - Much cheaper to buy your own liquid chlorine or regular bleach
3 - Easy to dispense and dose accurately by using the PoolMath tool

My wife has a bleach allergy, and her eye will swell shut if she's exposed to enough of it. If I choose to use bleach, will this be a problem for her? Or is the bleach essentially the same as the granular stuff, just in a different form?

Exactly. Bot of those products, to include salt water generators, have or produce chlorine in the water. What is generally a problem for some people is to ensuring the FC is properly balanced with the CYA (stabilizer). The CYA is a buffering/bonding agent to chlorine. When those tow are balanced properly according to the FC/CYA Levels, the free chlorine is both sanitary and safe.

Obtaining the TF-100 is a great choice. You'll be thrilled you got it.

 

[Smiles79]

Thank

A couple:
1 - No side effects of increasing your CYA
2 - Much cheaper to buy your own liquid chlorine or regular bleach
3 - Easy to dispense and dose accurately by using the PoolMath tool


Exactly. Bot of those products, to include salt water generators, have or produce chlorine in the water. What is generally a problem for some people is to ensuring the FC is properly balanced with the CYA (stabilizer). The CYA is a buffering/bonding agent to chlorine. When those tow are balanced properly according to the FC/CYA Levels, the free chlorine is both sanitary and safe.

Obtaining the TF-100 is a great choice. You'll be thrilled you got it.

Thank you for the info!

 

[Smiles79]

Turns out the wife is still concerned, which I understand. I wish I could find some hard evidence showing that bleach in the pool turns into the same thing as any other chlorine product in the pool.

 

[Texas Splash]

I wish I could find some hard evidence showing that bleach in the pool turns into the same thing as any other chlorine product in the pool.

You can! It's right on the label. Look at any liquid pool chlorine jug (sometimes called liquid shock), and compare that to the label on regular bleach. The main ingredient is Sodium Hypochlorite. The only difference is that regular bleach may be about 6% strength, while pool chlorine may be about 10% strength - a better value at times. Home Depot sells their HDX liquid chlorine in 3-packs for just under $10. Walmart sells their "Pool Essentials which is 10% as well for about $3.30 a gallon. But again, it's all the same ingredient. If you get laundry bleach though, it has to be regular/plain. Never use anything that says splashless, scented or fabric enhancers. We also avoid the Clorox brand for that very reason (polymers for fabric).

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

Curious...has your wife been diagnosed with a bleach allergy or is this just a reaction to swimming in chlorinated pools? Bleach contains the same sanitizing agent found in solids (tablets and granules) and created by a salt water chlorine generator. In bleach, the chlorine is just stabilized in water.

Red eyes can be a sign of excessive combined chloramines (CCs) in a poorly maintained pool.

 

[Smiles79]

I

You can! It's right on the label. Look at any liquid pool chlorine jug (sometimes called liquid shock), and compare that to the label on regular bleach. The main ingredient is Sodium Hypochlorite. The only difference is that regular bleach may be about 6% strength, while pool chlorine may be about 10% strength - a better value at times. Home Depot sells their HDX liquid chlorine in 3-packs for just under $10. Walmart sells their "Pool Essentials which is 10% as well for about $3.30 a gallon. But again, it's all the same ingredient. If you get laundry bleach though, it has to be regular/plain. Never use anything that says splashless, scented or fabric enhancers. We also avoid the Clorox brand for that very reason (polymers for fabric).

I like the idea, but I believe it is specifically the Sodium Hypochlorite that she is allergic to. I would like to be able to prove that the Dichlor I use now creates the same chemicals in the water as Sodium Hypochlorite, proving that there will be no difference if I start using bleach and not cause her issues.

Curious...has your wife been diagnosed with a bleach allergy or is this just a reaction to swimming in chlorinated pools? Bleach contains the same sanitizing agent found in solids (tablets and granules) and created by a salt water chlorine generator. In bleach, the chlorine is just stabilized in water.

Red eyes can be a sign of excessive combined chloramines (CCs) in a poorly maintained pool.

She had a legitimate allergy. If she is in a room that bleach was used in to clean, she will have issues, and has been as bad as her eyes swelling shut. What specifically is the sanitizing agent? I thought bleach was sodium hypochlorite, and Dichlor and Cal Hypo were slightly different. I would like to find definitive proof that they all create the same chemicals when added to the water, proving that if she doesn't have issues when I use Dichlor (which she doesn't, or at least not bad) that she won't have (major) issues if I use bleach.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Turns out the wife is still concerned, which I understand. I wish I could find some hard evidence showing that bleach in the pool turns into the same thing as any other chlorine product in the pool.

If you want the detailed chemistry of how chlorine reacts with water, see this thread -

Pool Water Chemistry

This thread presents my findings so far on pool water chemistry including the following: More Accurate Calcite Saturation Index (CSI) to replace Langelier Saturation Index (LSI) Calculation of ppm HOCl (disinfecting chlorine) at various levels of Total Free Chlorine (FC) and Cyanuric Acid (CYA)...

www.troublefreepool.com

I doubt your wife had an actual allergy to bleach. What she likely has an allergic reaction to are chloramines which will form when chlorine interacts with mucous membranes. Bleach, in and off itself, emits no chlorine at all. The vapors are carried on the air and will contain a small amount of hypochlorite which then reacts with the mucous lining of the eyes and nose and causes chloramines to form. The most irritating form of chloramine is nitrogen trichloride and that is what likely causes her issues.

The chlorine you add to a pool, no matter what form it is before you add it (hypochlorite, dichlor, trichlor, chlorine gas, etc) immediately reacts with water and forms hypochlorous acid, hypochlorite anion and, if stabilizer is present, chlorine bound to CYA. In fact, when stabilizer is present, over 95% of the chlorine remains bound to CYA where it does not react with anything (that’s how stabilizer works). So, at the end of the day, it does not matter at all HOW you add chlorine to the water, it only matters how much and whether or not your other levels are properly balanced.

 

[tucsontico]

Chlorine is chlorine. The only difference between bleach, dichlor tabs and an SWG is form of chlorine.

Chlorine likes to be a gas at room temperature. Bleach is nothing more than gaseous chlorine dissolved in water with caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) giving us sodium hypochlorite. The problem with bleach is that the chlorine will evaporate out of the solution over time and "old" bleach has less potency than fresh.

Dichlor tabs are a dry, powdered form of chlorine. The only way to make chlorine stable as a powder is to bond it to something else. In the case of pool tablets, chlorine is bonded to dry cyanuric acid (CYA) creating a shelf-stable product. While a convenient way to sanitize, i.e., add chlorine to a pool, tablets also add CYA and eventually will block the chlorine from being effective due to its bonding effect on chlorine.

Salt Water Chlorine Generators (SWG) produce pure chlorine gas by electrically breaking apart salt (NaCl= sodium chloride) into its elemental parts. The pure chlorine gas sanitizes the pool in the same way that bleach and dichlor tablets do: with chlorine! The problem with SWGs is the electrolysis plates wear out and need to be replaced periodically.

I'm not trying to sound pedantic or chastising, but, all three forms listed above use the same chemical to sanitize your pool: chlorine!

 

[Smiles79]

Thank you all for the info! I'm definitely not a chemist.

So you all have explained that all the forms of chlorine, including bleach, creat the same chemicals in the water that sanitizes. I know bleach will not increase CYA or CH like other forms will, but does the bleach create anything other than chlorine that could cause issues?

 

[Griswald]

Bleach can increase the salt that is in your water, but it takes a long time and a lot of bleach before you will ever detect it.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Thank you all for the info! I'm definitely not a chemist.

So you all have explained that all the forms of chlorine, including bleach, creat the same chemicals in the water that sanitizes. I know bleach will not increase CYA or CH like other forms will, but does the bleach create anything other than chlorine that could cause issues?

Bleach is composed of the following chemicals -

Sodium hypochlorite (8-10%)
Sodium hydroxide (<1%)
Sodium chloride (<1%)
Water (balance)

The sodium hydroxide is needed to adjust the pH to around 12-13 so that the hypochlorite remains stable and won’t breakdown into chloride and oxygen gas. Salt in the water is simply part of the manufacturing process as bleach is generated electrochemically from brine water.

Unfortunately Clorox and other bleach manufacturers have been adding polymer agents to their products called “Chloromax Technology” or, in genetic brands, “Fabric Protection Technology”. So using household laundry bleach is not desirable. Getting liquid chlorine from the pool store or Walmart is basically nothing more than bleach without any additives in it. And it even says on the bottle “chlorinating liquid for use in swimming pools”. Even though it’s the same thing as laundry bleach, perhaps seeing that it is manufactured for use in pools might allay your wife’s concerns.

 

[Smiles79]

Talked it over with the wife who is not ok with the idea due to how bad her reactions can get. Are my only options to use either Dichlor or Call Hypo and drain water out when I need to? How long do you figure I could go without having CYA or CH issues?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

You can use trichlor pucks in a chemical floater or cal-hypo for daily chlorination. The amount you use and the time between water draining depends entirely on testing. If you use either dichlor/trichlor (adds CYA) or cal-hypo (adds CH), you should be testing those parameters every week or two. As your CYA increases, you will need to increase your FC to maintain the proper FC/CYA ratio. Once your CYA hits 70ppm or above, you will have to drain water to lower it. Your CH can increase quite a bit over time and, since you don't have a heater or SWG, you can go quite high with it as long as you maintain a balanced CSI. The CSI is a function of pH, TA and CH and so as the CH increases, you'll need to lower the TA and maintain a consistent pH to keep the CSI in check. All of these parameters are calculated in the PoolMath App and so if you use that, you should be able to keep your pool properly chlorinated.

Given your location and pool type, I think using Cal-hypo makes the most sense. Cal-hypo does tend to raise the pH strongly so you will also need to use muriatic acid to lower the pH before or after adding cal-hypo.

 

[Smiles79]

You can use trichlor pucks in a chemical floater or cal-hypo for daily chlorination. The amount you use and the time between water draining depends entirely on testing. If you use either dichlor/trichlor (adds CYA) or cal-hypo (adds CH), you should be testing those parameters every week or two. As your CYA increases, you will need to increase your FC to maintain the proper FC/CYA ratio. Once your CYA hits 70ppm or above, you will have to drain water to lower it. Your CH can increase quite a bit over time and, since you don't have a heater or SWG, you can go quite high with it as long as you maintain a balanced CSI. The CSI is a function of pH, TA and CH and so as the CH increases, you'll need to lower the TA and maintain a consistent pH to keep the CSI in check. All of these parameters are calculated in the PoolMath App and so if you use that, you should be able to keep your pool properly chlorinated.

Given your location and pool type, I think using Cal-hypo makes the most sense. Cal-hypo does tend to raise the pH strongly so you will also need to use muriatic acid to lower the pH before or after adding cal-hypo.

Thank you for all the help!