It’s once again indoor pool season. We may be out of the woods and into a building, but that doesn’t mean we, as pool operators, have any less to do! We still have some of the same worries as caring for an outdoor body of water such as maintaining the equipment, keeping safety equipment up to regulations, cleaning the pool and proper water testing and balance. Proper water chemistry is important in so many ways. It keeps the water sanitized, which helps prevent illness. It helps prevent corrosion and build-up on our equipment and in our vessels.It helps prevent bad air quality. Say what? What could my indoor pool water have anything to do with air quality? Well, we don’t have to worry about this outdoors, but indoors, where we can have thousands of people gathered at a time is quite a different story!
Yes, unbalanced swimming pool water can be a number one offender of illness and irritation to bathers, coaches, staff and spectators. What can we do to help stop bad things from happening? Proper ventilation is one way. We need to make sure “ASHRAE requires a ventilation air volume of 0.48 cfm per sq. foot of pool and wetted deck area plus 0.06 cfm per sq. foot of non-wetted deck area. In addition to this volume, an additional amount is required if the facility has a dedicated spectator area (bleachers). For these facilities, 7.5 cfm per person needs to be introduced in addition to 0.06 cfm per sq. foot of spectator area floor space during the time spectators are present.” -Desert Aire
That’s a lot of confusing info if you ask me, and not a whole lot we can do about it except call a licensed ventilation company and make sure we meet the code for our region. If we don’t, the facility will be shut down until upgrades are made. Being shut down loses money. One of our main goals as pool operators is to prevent anything that costs the facility extra money! But back to the water.
So, why is water balance so important to the air quality? You see, when chlorine bonds with contaminants it converts to a non-killing form of chlorine known as chloramines aka combined chlorine. Chlorine in this state can be irritating to bathers and people around the pool. It can cause asthma attacks, and lung, skin, and eye irritation. Long-term exposure increases the severity of these symptoms. A lot of facilities are adding a UV system to break down contaminants and prevent these chloramines. It is THAT serious. So, if we are being serious about our water quality, we need to catch up with the times and protect our pools from harming people. This upgrade should include not only a UV system but the Pool Shark H2O APP.
We control the condition of the pool water and are responsible for it at all times. This means test, test, test! We need accurate tests and dosing to help ensure the water is safe for swimmers and any breather.
I recommend a proven testing method of the Pool Shark H2O App paired with the LaMotte testing system. All you do is take a syringe of sample water and inject it into a spin disc. You then place the disc into the LaMotte Spin Lab and amazingly enough, accurate test results are sent to ANY device you have the Pool Shark H2O App installed on in just 60 seconds! Trying to keep costs down? No worries! You can manually enter your findings into the Pool Shark H2O App. The great thing about the App is it is customized to YOUR body of water. When you enter results, the APP uses the safest way to balance the water, the Langelier Saturation Index (LSI).
The LSI will tell you if your water is neutral, scale forming or corrosive, with as close as possible to neutral being the goal. It does this by taking the guesswork out of chemical dosing by giving you specific amounts of product to put in. In case someone were to get sick from your facility (either the water or the air) you want to have stellar record keeping. Gone are the ways of old-fashioned paper log books which often go unused, get wet, or are misplaced. The Pool Shark H2O system keeps digital water test logs! And these logs don’t take up box upon box of storage space either! How great is that!
To learn more about the hazards of indoor pool air quality, read here.
See you (indoor) poolside!
