Chlorine smell

[sparkwatercleaner]

May Free Chlorine at 2/3 ppm cause light chlorine smell or is it caused by chloramines?

[chem geek]

It's most likely chloramines, but you can get a Taylor K-2006 test kit to tell for sure since its FAS-DPD chlorine test can measure Free Chlorine (FC) and Combined Chlorine (CC) to within 0.2 ppm. Chlorine smells fresh and clean like bleach while monochloramine smells worse and other chloramines smell even worse -- as you'll sometimes smell in an indoor pool that isn't properly chlorinated.

If you are in the water when you smell it, it could just be your sweat combining with the chlorine right away rather than some residual in the water. This is normal, if it's not very strong. If you raise your arm to your nose and you smell it more, then that's probably what's going on.

Richard

[burned]

Im wondering if my chlorine is burning my childrens skin, they have rashes on their skin is it a chemical rash? My son has had a reaction on a few different occasions, as well as my niece...please help. Ive had water tested they say all is good chlorine is high..could it be?

[chem geek]

burned,

Several questions. First, is this an indoor pool or a pool with no Cyanuric Acid (CYA) in it (such pools have MUCH higher "active" chlorine even if the FC is low)? Second, do you know the specific FC and CYA level as well as the pH?

Chlorine allergies are rare, but not unheard of so that's a possibility, but I'd eliminate the other issues first. Get yourself a good test kit -- either the Taylor K-2006 kit you can get at a good online price here or the TF100 test kit from tftestkits(dot)com here with the latter kit having 36% more volume of reagents so is comparably priced "per test". Or at least get multiple tests at different pool stores -- they don't always do tests correctly and you'll be amazed at the variation you'll see.

Richard

[pool kid]

check your ph and alka levels. I have seen pools at levels of 6.2ppm and 30ppm cause children to get rashes. its due to the high acidity of the water.

[paulbest]

Pool smell is due, not to chlorine, but to chloramines, chemical compounds that build up in pool water when it is improperly treated.

You may be surprised to learn that there is no odor to a well-managed pool. Chloramines, which produce pool smell, can be eliminated using chlorine. "Shock treatment" or "superchlorination" is the practice of adding extra chlorine to pools to destroy ammonia and the organic compounds that combine with chlorine to make chloramines. To effectively destroy chloramines through shock treatment, the pool water FAC concentration must be about ten times the CAC.