Ozonators And Pool Chemistry.

[slyguy]

Do ozonators really work? We had a chlorine pool in a previous house and didn't like the smell and all the other bad effects of chlorine. We are considering an ozonator to reduce the chlorine necessary, but do they work?

We are considering an automatic chemistry systems called Blue I Prizma, which tests the water several times a day and dispenses appropriate chlorine/acid to maintain chemistry. We weren't always very good at maintaining pool chemistry levels in the past.

We were originally considering a salt pool, but I was told that its critical to maintain pool chemistry in a salt pool.

[chem geek]

Ozonators work well in high bather-load situations so work well in spas/hot-tubs that are used every day or two. They also work well in commercial/public pools that are high bather-load. They don't do much good in outdoor residential pools because the bather-load is so low. One person-hour in a 10,000 gallon pool only needs 0.11 ppm FC to oxidize the bather waste so is hardly noticeable compared to the multiple ppm chlorine loss from sunlight during the day. Ozone depletes chlorine so when there's little bather-load ozone isn't very helpful. It will not save chlorine. If you want to prevent algae growth, there are other ways of doing that such as using a minimum FC/CYA ratio or using an algaecide or phosphate remover.

Maintaining proper pool water chemistry is what is required not only for proper disinfection but also to protect pool surfaces (e.g. plaster or vinyl) and to prevent irritation or damage to pool equipment. A saltwater chlorine generator would dose chlorine for you but you are still responsible for setting its % ontime appropriately and for maintaining other aspects of water chemistry including pH, TA, CH (for plaster pools), and CYA levels. Of these, it's pH that changes the fastest especially in SWG pools though there are ways to minimize its rate of change.

Blue I Prizma will do measurements and dosing for you for chlorine and pH management. There are many such systems such as Hayward Sense and Dispense though that uses ORP that may be flakier than Prizma which uses test strips (assuming they use them properly). You are still responsible for maintaining TA, CH, and CYA yourself though these do not change as frequently. If the chlorine dosing uses chlorinating liquid, then you would still need to buy that and refill the chlorine tank.

And then there's brushing of the pool which is important to do, just like brushing your teeth.

If you aren't up for maintenance, then maybe you should look at using a pool service to do all of it for you.