drewskie
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Posts posted by drewskie
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sorry if it was asked in the plethora of other postings, but I am wondering if there is a start up procedure for this method. Meaning, I am filling my tub up this weekend after a long hiatus. I ran spa flush, about to do the chlorine shock, and drian. Then on Sat. fill up again. What do I do upon fillig it up? Just start to add the dechlor? Or is there another start up procedure? Thanks.
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I don't think this was asked before, but sorry if it was. I just used the swirl away and drained the tub. Is it o.k to rinse out, fill, and just soak. Or os the swirl away gunk probably still in the lines, requiring another fill and drain? Thanks.
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Sory to post two question in a row, but they are different topics.. I had a concrete slab put in and they did a poor job so it slopes the wrong way underneath the tub. If I hose it down or it rains, water pools up undernath it and stay there. I am wondering how to elevate the tub so that the water does not sit on the bottom of the tub. Will the 2 inch bricks/pavers work? Or is there another way? Thank you.
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I have a 2001 Sundance, with the wooden frame. in some spots, especially on the bottom, some of the wood is cracking, and kind of warped. It seems to sit flat and seems sturdy. I am just wondering if this is a big problem, or not that big a deal?
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Here they are (and they are exactly the same products you get at the pool/spa supply store!
For sanitation it is liquid chlorine (for those of you using bromine this is your oxidizer or shock) AKA sodium hypochlorite AKA plain, unscented laundry bleach--either regular or ultra strength.
Total Alkalinity increaser aka sodium bicarbonate aka sodium hydrogen carbonate aka baking soda
pH increaser aka sodium carbonate aka washing soda ( in the laundry aise) BUT this will also raise your total alkalinity so a better choice for raising pH without having an impact on total alkalinity is:
Sodiium Tetraborate aka borax (the 20 mule team stuff) which is sold by some pool and spa products companies as a 'water enchancer' for a lot of money. When added to a 30-50 ppm concentration it acts as an algaestat, pH buffer, and helps reduce sanitizer demand (YES, it really works--I use it in my pool and my spa!) It is, IMHO, the best choice for raising pH without sending your other water parameters out of whack!
If you water is very soft you might need calcium hardness increaser--here is a little secret. Most of it is made by Dow Chemical and repackaged! Dow sells it as Dowflake and in pellet form and it is often available in hardware stores as a road de icer! It is EXACTLY the same stuff sold for much more money in the pool and supply stores! Just calcium chloride! The Dow website had a page that listed this as the product (along with their pellet form of calcium chloride) that is recommeded for pool and spa use!
You still need to get pH decreaser (dry acid AKA sodium bisulfate) from the supply store or your neighborhood, Home Depot, Walmart, Lowes, Ace Hardware, etc. and if you are using bromine you still need the sodium bromide and possibly bromine tablets if you are doing a 3-step bromine system. If you are using chlorine you might possibly need a small amount of cyanuric acid (stablizer) or you might want to initially chlorinate with dichlor (which contains stabilzier) until a small amount builds up in the water on each refill. This can help prevent the chlorine from burning off in sunlight but too much will prevent the chlorine from being an effective sanitizer! (IMHO, I would NOT let the CYA go above about 20-30 ppm.)
The only other product you might need is a metal sequesterant if your fill water tests positive for metals or if your have very hard water.
You DO NOT NEED algaecides, defoamers, clarifiers, enzymes, or phospahte removers if you are maintaining your water. These products can cover up problems for a while but do not cure them so if you have a regular need for them then you are not properly caring for your water.
Finally there is one product that is an absolute MUST HAVE: A good drop based test kit used weekly. Strips just don't have the precision needed for making water balance adjustments (but are fine for a quick check on a daily basis to see if you need to drag out the test kit). When I say a good drop based kit I mean a kit such as the Taylor K-2006 for chlorine systems and a K-2106 for bromine systems. Many people seem to think that about $60 is too much to spend on a test kit but when you consider the thousands of dollars your spa cost it really isn't and a good kit will make your testing easy and your water care even easier. If you don't believe me just do one chlorine or bromine test with the FAS-DPD test included in the kits above and see if it isn't easier than the standard DPD tests included in most other kits (if you are testing chlorine or bromine with OTO then you have a cheapie kit!) Also you will find that you can read the results and there is no gussing what color on the comparator or test strip it really is!
thanks for the list bear.... now my follow-up to your list is this; would using these store bought chems be better for someone that has chemical allergies or might it be easier some other way...
Bump for sure...need this too.
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You are absolutely correct, Chlorine for example is the #1 cancer causing carcinogen in the world however we overload our pools with it. Sad truth. However I am not going to go into it too much because I think you know how dangerous it is and are more concerned about how to find companies who can help so here you are.
Really? According to the National Cancer Institute 87 percent of lung cancer is caused from smoking. According to the World Health Organization, lung cancer is the #1 cancer worldwide. According to the CDC, the major U.S. government agencies have not classified chlorine as to its human carcinogenicity. Do you have actual scientific sources to back up your claims, or only the slew of websites with a profit incentive to scare people into buying their products?
It is not chlorine itself, but disinfection by-products from chlorine (mostly combining with some types of organics) that have some increased risk of cancer as described here, here, and here though the increased risks are much, much smaller than the smoking/cancer relationship or other cancer-causing agents. Note that these studies are for drinking (ingesting) water.
As with other chemicals, concentration makes a huge difference. The rate of creation and in some cases (such as with nitrogen trichloride) the absolute amount of disinfection by-products is roughly proportional to the hypochlorous acid concentration. When Cyanuric Acid (CYA, stabilizer, conditioner) is present in the water, the hypochlorous acid concentration is GREATLY reduced. When the Free Chlorine (FC) level is at roughly 10% of the Cyanuric Acid (CYA) level, then this has a hypochlorous acid concentration equivalent to around 0.1 ppm FC with no CYA. Virtually all of the reports of asthma, respiratory and ocular problems associated with swimming pools are with indoor pools that most likely do not use CYA (they also, of course, do not have UV in sunlight helping to break down some chemicals and also have much worse air circulation). This means that such pools are over-chlorinated -- the "active" chlorine (hypochlorous acid) is too high. So don't generalize this situation to your own residential pools that either already have CYA in them because they are outdoors exposed to sunlight, or could have a small amount (20 ppm) of CYA added to them for indoor pools.
One of the links you gave claimed that copper was a faster disinfectant than chlorine. This is simply not true. The reason copper is not used in commercial/public pools (at least not without some chlorine) is that it does not kill quickly enough to prevent person-to-person transmission of disease nor does it inactivate viruses effectively nor prevent more resistant pathogens from reproducing. It does, however, persist in the water and is only reduced by dilution (including backwashing, splash-out, rain overflow). Roughly speaking, silver has 99% kill rates on the order of 10-20 minutes while copper has 99% kill rates on the order of 40 minutes. Chlorine at typical levels in pools with CYA have 99% kill rates on the order of 30 seconds to one or two minutes. Bacteria have a generation rate (time to double in population) of around 15-60 minutes while for algae it's 3-8 hours so both copper and silver will kill most bacteria faster than they reproduce (since that needs a 50% kill time faster than their generation rate), but these numbers are all for free-floating pathogens, not those in biofilms stuck on surfaces nor in clumps of fecal matter or nasal fluids.
If someone wants to use the minimum amount of chlorine, then they can use an algaecide to prevent algae growth and then a low FC/CYA ratio such as 1-2 ppm FC with 80-100 ppm CYA for a very low chlorine level approaching 0.01-0.02 ppm FC with no CYA or a factor of 100 lower than in most indoor pools.
Of course, you can use an ionization system, but you could also just use a copper-based algaecide which also adds copper to the water. You have to be careful not to overdose or have the pH rise or else you can get copper staining, especially in plaster pools. It's a spectrum of risk and it's your pool and the risk is fairly low to begin with, but scaring people into shying away from chlorine is irresponsible. Giving people facts and education and letting them decide for themselves is more appropriate.
Richard
I need to read this....to the top.
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Believe it or not, with some enzyme systems your water will last up to a year. TDS is much less of an issue with enzymes. Though some users get by without adding chlorine or bromine, a low residual is required in the same way Nature2 or the Frog is used. I have been tempted to try Eco One or The Natural, the two most popular enzyme systems. I don't like the fact that you must rinse your filters weekly and that the pH likes to stay up around 8.2. They also don't come cheap.
ecoOne and The Natural and other enzyme products just make oxidation go faster -- enzymes are catalysts. You still need an oxidizer to do the work. If chlorine is present, then it will likely get used up first so it will probably be very hard to maintain a residual given the high demand in a spa from urea/ammonia from bathers. If MPS is present and used, then it would oxidize these compounds first before chlorine. If neither are present, then oxygen in the water can oxidize them as can an ozonator, but there won't be any chlorine residual in this case.
This link to ecoOne shows that they use "GLB Sanitizing Shock" which I believe is just this product which is Dichlor. The recommended dose of 1-2 teaspoons is 2-4 ppm FC in 350 gallons so not particularly "low" except that it will likely get used up oxidizing urea/ammonia so none will be left to kill bacteria.
So I don't see how one could keep a low chlorine or bromine residual when using an enzyme product. It can be seen as helping actual oxidizers to oxidize organics faster, but you still need an oxidizer to do the work. Perhaps in combination with an ozone system it will help keep water clear better, but without an ozonator I don't see how the 1-2 teaspoons after a soak will be enough to have the spa be sanitary.
If you have to rinse filters weekly, then it sounds like they also have a clarifier product in their system -- perhaps this is the filterOne cartridge filter cleanser.
Also, as for how long the water can go between doing a drain/refill, I suspect that the main reason for the 3 month rule (depending on bather load) with regular sanitation using chlorine was due to using Dichlor-only and its associated CYA buildup since that would just lead to more and more problems with the chlorine being less effective for disinfection and most importantly less effective for oxidizing ammonia/urea so monochloramine would build up. It was possible that algae could develop as well turning the water dull and cloudy. So by using Dichlor initially and then switching to bleach, one no longer has these problems and it may be possible to go longer than 3 months without changing the water, though I'm not recommending that yet until we see how things go. The use of 4 ppm FC per day of bleach will add around 200 ppm salt to the water per month (including the 100 ppm salt that comes from using any source of chlorine), but this should not be a problem even after 6 months or more. If one takes a shower before using the tub and makes sure their swimsuits are thoroughly rinsed, then the amount of other organics introduced into the tub will be minimized.
Richard
So, do you think any of these products are worth while? Has anyone had any experience with them? Seems too good to be true.
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I have ben researching trying to find the right chemicals for my tub, bromine, chlorine, etc., and ifound lots of infomation. Some of it is scary. Many claims that bromine and chlorine lead to cancer, lung conditions, especially that they are very bad for the skin and promote aging. I am just wondering if all the chemicals we use, the ph+/-, metal removers, etc. are killing us slowly. I di d a few ads for allnatural spa chemicals, like this one, http://www.carefreespa.com/, that sounds like complete bs. I am curious if there are any natural spa sanitziers and if relaxing in the tub is a dangerous activity. And yes, i do realize that most people would be biased, but I'm sure more knowledgable than anywhere else.
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I was able to get 2 of the bigger ones to come on by twisting them.. all the little ones surrounding the bigger jets are still not coming on at all.
Sounds like the exact same problem i am having. If you just filled the tub, it sounds like it could be airlock. Serach here for how to get rid of it. i think you can just open a bleeder valve, or pump union if the valve isn't available.
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Thanks you very much. The breaker tripped the first two times after I tried to turn on the jet pump. As soon as i pushed the button, the breaker tripped. About 20 mintes after that, i switched the power on at the electrical box and the breaker tripped immediately. I'm confused.
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Ok, here's the deal. I hooked up my 2001 Sundance Altamar yesterday,and almost everything woked except that only one set of jets came on, but both pumps worked. I assumed it was airlock, as i did not fill through the filter like I should have. I opened up the drain plugs on both pumps for 30 seconds or so. Whe I repowered the tub, the jet light was flashing. When i pushed the button to start the jets, the spa tripped. This happened two times. I waited 30 minutes or so and repowerd the tub, it tripped instantly, once again twice. So my questions are, could this have something to do with draining the pumps? Also, is there anything I can try to at least get power to the spa without tripping? I don't know what to do.
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So I di a bit of the research I should have done before posting, and I did not fill through the filter. I think I may have an airlock problem. How do I go about bleeding the pumps? I don't see a air bleeder valve on the pumps.
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I just hooked up my 2002 Sundance Altamar that I received for free. It works, except that only one set of jets (one seat) works very powerfully. The rest of the tub, and other 12 or so jets have very, very little power. I have tried switching the power between jets and still nothing. Could it be that one pump works, and the other doesn't Anything else I can try? Thanks.
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Not sure if it's the same, but on my sundance, the panels just bolt right up to the frame with a bunch of wood screws. check the underneath side of the frame rails.
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Since I'm a noob too, I don't know much, but I do know about the pillows, They are about 30 bucks each and simple to change. also, you will probably need to replace jets, which are around 20-30 buks each, and I think are prety easy to change yourself. Once the compartment door is open, you will see if there is an ozonator in there. As far as how tell if it works, that I don
't know.
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Thanks dave, I know they are real wood, it has a gray finsih on it, that I was told is a soild stain. I am going to re-do the stain i think, but I'm not sure of teh exact steps.
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I think I am going to go with the stain. Just one more question, after I sand it, do i just stain right over that and call it a day, or am I missing some steps? Thanks.
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I'm in the slow process of restoring my free tub. The wood cabinet is looking pretty shabby so I am trying to fix it up. I have started to sand it, but I am unsure of what to do next. I am thinking of primer, and some outdoor spray paint, followed by some weather seal. Will that work? I do'nt need it to look perfect, but I am not sure if spraypaint would work for the wood. Thanks for any help.
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so they must not be very popular......
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I am thinking about buying a used merlin spa by artesian. I have never heard of them until I found the for sale ad. It is a 4 seater, with one pump. I am wondering, is one 3hp pump enough to give adequate power to 18 jets? Is it possible to put in a bigger pump? Also, how is the reliabilty of these spas? i have not heard too much about them. Thank you.
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I am wondering the same thing, but really, how do I clean the wood prior to staining it?? A hose, just wipe it? Thanks.
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I'm looking at a cumberland as well. Anyone have an opinion on them? Is there enough jet power with the small motor?
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I know that a tub with one pump will use less energy than a tub with two or more pumps, but is the difference very significant? Also, does a 110 tub use less energy than the 220? I have heard very different opinions on this.
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So would that be o.k, to run/flush it without the filter?
Chlorine Demand
in Hot Tub Water Chemistry
Posted
So when using the dichlor-bleacik method, it is not really necessary to shock the tub? Just keep the cd up? Is that correct?