Even the best-kept swimming pools can change and lose control of the balanced chemistry during the dog days of summer when temperatures go sky-high and everybody wants cool off in your pool water. Once this happens chlorine that normally takes care of business can revert to a less effective chemical called Combined Chlorine. Can you swim in a pool with combined chlorine?
Combined chlorine or Chloramines an ineffective form of sanitizer recognized by an unpleasant sour chlorine smell irritating the eyes and skin of swimmers that are in the pool water close to the surface, prolonged exposure to combined chlorine can lead to asthma, allergies, and other health issues.
Specifically, it takes 25 parts of combined chlorine to do the work of just one part of free chlorine. Once you know the level of combined chlorine in your pool, you will have to add about 10 times that amount of free chlorine to neutralize it.
Can You Swim in a Pool with Combined Chlorine
When chlorine acts in the water, it comes in contact with dirt particles from different sources: dust from the air, particles blown into the pool by the wind, the sweat of bathers, skin oils, and worse. This combination is what we call combined chlorine, also known as Chloramines.Once combined chlorine has formed, its capacity to disinfect is limited. Combined chlorine has already been used to sanitize the water and attaches to contaminates to create chlorinated contaminates. These contaminants are hard to kill off in your pool.
This can be going on unnoticed and most likely there are swimmers in your pool while Combined Chlorine is developing before you can catch it.
In addition to causing discomfort and ineffective sanitization, prolonged exposure to combined chlorine can lead to asthma, allergies, and other health issues. Total chlorine is simply the sum of the free and combined chlorine in the swimming pool water.
How Do You Lower Combined Chlorine?
When you measure the water in your swimming pool, the amount of combined chlorine in the water should be less than 0.5 PPM. If the numbers are higher, the pool may need to be shocked to get rid of the odor……………………………………read more
Combined Chlorine is the portion of chlorine in the water that has reacted and combined with ammonia, such as nitrogen-containing contaminants, and other organics that come from a swimmer’s ……………………………………………read more
Combined Chlorine Calculator
Knowing the pool volume is extremely important in calculating the number of chemicals needed to add to the water when adjusting the pool chlorine, pH, stabilizer, alkalinity, salt, or any other chemical levels.
Read more below on using the pool calculator to help balance and maintain safe clean pool water. The pool gallon calculation will automatically be saved and entered into the other calculators.
Chlorine is the most popular disinfectant for swimming pools. There are three main measurements for chlorine, Free Chlorine (FC), Combined Chlorine (CC), and Total Chlorine (TC). Free Chlorine is most commonly tested because it represents the amount of chlorine-free in the water for disinfecting.
Pool Free Chlorine Calculator A Swimming Pool Chemical Calculator
Use this easy tool-adjust slider to calculate the amount of bleach or chlorine to raise free chlorine levels in the pool.
How do you Lower Free chlorine?
- Let filter run
- Pull pool tablets from floaters
- Scrub the sides of walls with a long handle brush to agitate pool H2O
- Add a Chlorine Neutralizer like
Sodium Thiosulfate or Hydrogen Peroxide - Add H2O to dilute the pool
- CL levels of 6 ppm or higher are unsafe. ……………………………………………… Read more
JimGalloway Author/Editor
