Hydrogen Peroxide???

[Quickbeam]

My wife and I will soon be buying our first hot tub. We hope to start wet testing in late January or early February. The one problem we have is that my wife has serious chemical sensitivities so we are not able to use things like chlorine or bromine. For anyone who says we need to use these chemicals we simply can’t - it is not an option for us. We have a friend who uses hydrogen peroxide in her tub and says it works fine, and I must say when we went for a soak in her tub it was a totally different experience. It was extremely refreshing without any need for a shower after to get rid of the “chemical smell”. Our skin felt silky smooth after being in this tub. I have talked to a number of dealers and get different information from each one I speak with. One dealer told me using hydrogen peroxide was not a problem - another dealer told me it would void my warranty but when I told him we didn’t have an option he came back and said it should be O.K. and wouldn’t affect the warranty - another dealer told me I would need a vat of hydrogen peroxide as big as the hot tub for it to have any affect, etc., etc. As you can see the information I am receiving is all over the map.

I have a couple of other posts on this forum and have found the information I received to be extremely valuable. I was wondering if anyone had any information they could provide on this topic? Thanks so much.

[Ryan VSO]

got one custumer that has the same issue with chemical and he is using hydrogen peroxide for 4 years now and he is verry happy about it , its illegal in Canada although

[Hottubguy]

It's not a sanitizer so it's not going to kill bacteria. How about spa marvel or aqua finesse?  I believe with each (no so with spa marvel) you just need to shock weekly with chlorine. If you do it at night by the next day the chlorine will dissipate to nearly nothing.

[Mudheadsports]

We were just at a marquis dealer and he had some natural product that was made out of seaweed and some other stuff that he claimed he had 500 people in the area on.  I'll get the info the next time we stop in.....will lyk

[chem geek]

As shown here, Australia approves hydrogen peroxide as a sanitize for spas, but this is not the case in the U.S. for the EPA.  The concentration of hydrogen peroxide needed to kill pathogens quickly (around 50 ppm) is irritating to some.

If you want an EPA approved disinfectant that is not chlorine or bromine, then why not try Nature² (silver ions) with non-chlorine shock (MPS)?  You may need to shock once in a while (a week or so) with chlorine, but you won't have chlorine during your soaking.  It's EPA approved as a fast disinfectant.

So I presume you have a whole house filter to remove the chlorine or you have filters on every drinking water tap, shower and bathtub that is used, correct?  If not, then you might reconsider whether the chemical sensitivity is to chlorine or whether it's to improperly managed pools and spas.

[Dr. Spa™ Ret.]

Here's an interesting article;

http://www.ozonelab.com/articles/008.htm

[Quickbeam]

Thank you so much to all of you for your replies. As I had expected, the replies were all very knowledgeable and I learned from them. In reply to "chemgeek", no we do not have a "whole house filter", but we do have a very good filter for all drinking water in our house. So while I suppose my wife is subjected to trace amounts of chlorine while showering, I don't think it would be anywhere near the concentration that would be found in a hot tub. She has gone through some very major detoxing programs over the last 2 to 3 years and has been on, and continues to be on a very restrictive diet to combat the chemical sensitivities she has. Her sensitivities are extensive and go far beyond chlorine. She is just not prepared to risk all that she has done, and continues to do, by going in a tub with chlorine and quite frankly I support her in this.

Thanks again for all the input.

[Dr. Spa™ Ret.]

It might be interesting if you take some of your tap water and test the chlorine levels. More than likely, the levels will be HIGHER than what you could have in your hot tub when being used.

[chem geek]

The hot tub will have Cyanuric Acid (CYA) in it that significantly moderates chlorine's strength.  CYA is not found in tap water.  Your tap water might be chloraminated in which case it has monochloramine, but if it has chlorine it's probably at least 1 ppm FC, may be 2 ppm FC, and won't be above 4 ppm FC (the EPA limit).

In a hot spa at 104ºF, 2 ppm FC with 40 ppm CYA has the same active chlorine as 0.2 ppm FC with no CYA so no more than 1/5th the amount of active chlorine found in tap water.

I understand that she wants to minimize exposure, but if she's able to shower with chlorine she should be able to go into a properly managed hot tub with chlorine.  Where do you live?  I can try and look up the water quality report to see if they are using chlorine or monochloramine in your area.

[Quickbeam]

Thanks once again for all your help. And I'll be honest, some of the calculations you are doing are over my head, but as for our location, we are in Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

I'm also curious - I can't say I've been in a lot of hot tubs but any time I have been in a hot tub, I come out smelling like chlorine and need to wash out my bathing suit after. Have certainly never had that in a shower or even after a bath. Is there something I'm missing here?

As I mentioned earlier, the only time I was in a hot tub where I didn't come out smelling like chlorine was when the hot tub used hydrogen peroxide. It just made it a totally different experience - for the better.

[Tman122]

Commercial hot tubs and spas are required to maintain a chlorine level of 3-5 PPM (might even be higher) to ensure even after dirty bathers their water is clean and bacteria free. In a private hot tub you can allow the chlorine level to drop to almost 0 then soak. And when your done soaking you can then bring up the chlorine level by adding it to kill the added bacteria. Then it will slowly dissipate back to almost 0 again before your next soak.

[chem geek]

Based on this link it looks like the water district uses chlorine at between 0.5 and 1.0 ppm FC when it gets to the tap.  Commercial hot tubs will have much higher FC levels than that and they don't usually have CYA in the water to moderate chlorine's strength.

[Quickbeam]

Thank you for getting this information for me.