Purging a new spa

[dlleno]

Hi all (and mods)

I would like to share some important lessons I have learned about purging a spa, especially new spas.

I have a fairly long story during which I learned some very important things -- way too long to post here.  The question I have for the mods here is this:  would it be appropriate to share my story by posting a link to a blog post here?  My blog has only one entry (my spa purge story).  It is hosted by zenfolio , which is my hobby photography site.  I don't use the site for active "blogging", i don't get paid for clicks, I don't sell anything , and there is no benefit to me if people visit the site.  I don't track visitors.  The only blog post I have is to tell my story about spa purging.    I took quite a few photos of my experience, so thats why the blog is hosted by a photography site.   FYI my zenfolio account does not even allow photo purchases and I'm not selling any of my photos.   I just wrote about my spa purging experience to share my story with others.

I will say up front that in my story I describe real and actual test results for five different purge products, and one of them (ahh-some) did significantly outperform the others. It took me thousands of gallons of city water, a lot of time and some personal expense, but the results are important and you will see how I came to the conclusions I did.

Another real important thing I want people to know about  is that my spa was delivered contaminated with biofillms -- something I didn't figure out until a few months after I purchased it.  anyway in the blog post I make several conclusions, the most important of which is that I believe all new spas should be purged before using.

so what say you all?  shall I post the link here or not?

[Jacuzzi Jim]

 What's your story, you obviously put a lot of time on how to purge a spa, but are you selling something, or are you just an overly anal hot tub clean freak?   What ever it is it's getting a bit old.  Sure purging is fine every few years, but you are taking it to another level. Granted it's your right to do what ever you want to your spa,  but in the 16+ years of dealing with and selling spa's,  not once have I ever heard from a customer that got their new spa and it has a water mold issue.  Maybe after the second or third year of using it because they got lazy with their chemicals, and that's about it.   

     You have anything else to add around here to other topics, plenty of things to be answered and you are more than welcome to stay!   Not sure how other long timers here feel about it, but honestly dude give the purge thing a rest. 

[dlleno]

Definitely can rest on that.   My story is in the blog but basically it is that I learned that traditional purge frequencies may not be sufficient , that new spas can arrive contaminated and that biofilms are crazy smart contaminants

[Tman122]

Definitely can rest on that.   My story is in the blog but basically it is that I learned that traditional purge frequencies may not be sufficient , that new spas can arrive contaminated and that biofilms are crazy smart contaminants

Not all new spas arrive contaminated. Not all people need to purge. Everyone's water and how they take care of it requires different care.

Most tubs are never purged and they are fine and healthy.

Your experience applies to you and you alone.

If it is how you want to do it fine. Just not for everyone.

[dlleno]

Definitely can rest on that.   My story is in the blog but basically it is that I learned that traditional purge frequencies may not be sufficient , that new spas can arrive contaminated and that biofilms are crazy smart contaminants

Not all new spas arrive contaminated. Not all people need to purge.

well I was going to rest,  but you are bringing up some points worth discussing.  I can certainly agree with the first part (thats why I used the word, "can"), and I only am advocating a "better safe than sorry" approach.  Purging a new spa is just so easy and cheap that I just find it hard to understand why one would resist this, unless one has a vested interest in perpetuating the myth the biofilms are no big deal.  typically the people who resist this the most are dealers, manufacturers, and those who have never really seen or experienced what biofilms can do, or those who are proud of their water maintenance skills.  I used to be in that category too. 

Everyone's water and how they take care of it requires different care.

by itself, this is true but that statement brings nothing useful to the table.  There is a consistency in the way spas are manufactured, wet tested, and stored, and shipped, and biofilms are no respecter of persons.   the "better safe than sorry" approach is cheep and easy, and those who to purge at some frequency are usually convinced just on the basis of what they remove and what they realize has been lurking.  the best approach is to determine your own purge frequency based on your own results. Those who don't want to see what is hiding in the pipes can use a sanitizer  test procedure instead that doesn't require any work.

in short, I used to be an advocate of purging only as a rescue method or in a reactive response to a problem.  now I use purge as a proactive way to insure that my spa does not contain biofilms, and sharing why. 

Those who read my story carefully note that:
1.  we have scientific evidence that biofilms can be chlorine resistant and self-heal and self-regenerate
2.  nasties can be in there even when you have well-maintained water that looks and you believe is healthy

Most tubs are never purged and they are fine and healthy.

that is partially true -- My first spa was not purged;  not even once.  no one got sick and the traditional shock treatments appeared to work for me as well.   However, clear water does not prove health, and until you perform a sanitizer demand test you cannot prove that a spa is healthy.  On my old spa I never measured sanitizer demand either and I thought all was well too -- and it could have been I just will never know!

If you read my story (new spa) you will see that even when you think the water is healthy you can still have quite a lot of nasties in your water, even with exemplary water maintenance.  I'm only pointing this out to those who are interested 

Your experience applies to you and you alone

  I'll let the readers interpret my experience but I'm afraid your conclusion is dangerous.  to say that my experience cannot apply in any way to anyone else is just, well, not worth commenting further.   

For those who are interested but would rather not purge:  what I do recommend is the sanitizer demand test, which is the single most important piece of evidence of water health. no one can prove that water is healthy without a reliable test indicator, and clear water is not sufficient for this.  But here is a good test indicator:   it works for chlorine and bromine spas and supplemental programs like nature2 that are compatible with a halogen sanitizer.  It does require an accurate drop test capability like a Taylor.

1.  choose a time when there is no bather load and the sanitizer level has stabilized
2.  remove floaters and supplements, i.e. nature2 or anything that automatically dispenses anything, and store safely according to label directions.
3.  set the sanitizer level to some moderately high number like  5 or 10 ppm free chlorine equivalent
4.  wait 24 hours
5.  measure sanitizer level
6.  compare the two numbers

post results here!  would love to see people's numbers.  here is an example -- suppose you measure 8ppm on day 1 and 5ppm after 24 hours.  divide 5/8 and this tells you that your sanitizer level has dropped to 63% over 24 hours.    Tell us if you are running ozone and if you are using bromine or chlorine.  that helps interpret the results

[Tman122]

Those who read my story carefully note that:
1.  we have scientific evidence that biofilms can be chlorine resistant and self-heal and self-regenerate
2.  nasties can be in there even when you have well-maintained water that looks and you believe is healthy

Who is "we" in the scientific evidence?

You started this by saying you did this independently on your own. Our assumption was as such. I think you were asked if your affiliation with a particular product that "you" find better. But now we have a "we"?

If you could first answer this one question, are you affiliated with a particular product? Then we could understand better the statement "we" have scientific evidence that bio-films "can" be chlorine resistant.

And please clarify "nasties" Because bio-film is not necessarily nasty. It's a natural/necessary part of all watersheds.

And those of us who have been around a while know the difference between clear water and "well balanced, sanitized, clean water" Bio-films or not.

By all means if you feel your water needs purging ever or often, do it. But millions of people swim in bio-film every day and they are still alive and healthy.

Please don't rest, we are here to learn and teach. We try not to sell though.

[dlleno]

"we have" is an English construct used to show collective possession, and in this context and placed on this forum, "we" refers everyone who is reading those words.  if it helps, substitute "interested public" for the word "we", but more specifically I said "we have" to refer to all the evidence that is available to the public.     Use of the "we have" construct in this way means that no one "owns" the evidence, as in proprietary ownership of something.  It means that there is a set of people collecting evidence and sharing it with the public.  this forum is part of the public. 

I also said "tell us..."   if you are wondering what that means -- it refers to all of us on this public forum who choose to read the responses.  it means share your data with the public here, so that all of us reading this forum can see your data. 

sorry for the brevity I'm out of time but will comment further tomorrow

[Tman122]

Here's my data,

I live on a lake loaded with bio-film, shoreline, docks, rafts, boats, rocks, trees, weeds, the list is endless. I swim in it almost everyday in the summer and eat fish that come out of it. I've been doing this since I was very young. I'm now 60 and go to the doctor regularly. He never told me to stop swimming in the bio-film and eating fish that swim it.

[Tman122]

Just an opposing view dlleno. I know there are some very bad strains of bio-film. Unlikely in a properly sanitized hot tub but.......

You are allowed to be the doomsday predictor. But some of us don't have to be.

[dlleno]

with apologies again for yesterday's brevity, here is a more thoughtful reply to some great questions.

Those who read my story carefully note that:
1.  we have scientific evidence that biofilms can be chlorine resistant and self-heal and self-regenerate
2.  nasties can be in there even when you have well-maintained water that looks and you believe is healthy

Who is "we" in the scientific evidence?
...

If you could first answer this one question, are you affiliated with a particular product? Then we could understand better the statement "we" have scientific evidence that bio-films "can" be chlorine resistant.

I'm just a guy who learned a lot from my experiences over the past 25-30 years managing my two bromine spas.  Yes, as it turns out I came up with a product that works better than the others, but I don't sell it.  I purchased my jar of the stuff off of Amazon.   Specifically to the chlorine resistance factor I would point you to the citation in the blog itself, which does a better job of explaining this than I can.  The point I am making here is that with this knowledge the need to purge even when water looks good is becoming more evident.  I'm not saying the sky is falling I'm just presenting my data. 

And please clarify "nasties" Because bio-film is not necessarily nasty. It's a natural/necessary part of all watersheds.

Spas are not watersheds and they are not self sustaining ecosystems.  "nasties" here is a quick general reference to the material I released in my spa.  the photographs are there so you can see exactly what I am referring to, and the text describes my opinions as to what the stuff is. 

more specifically, just because nasty looking material is dislodged from equipment and filters doesn't mean it is biofilm, but it could become a food source for biofilms.  Personally, I came to the conclusion that I didn't want that stuff in my spa.

And those of us who have been around a while know the difference between clear water and "well balanced, sanitized, clean water" Bio-films or not.

first, lets leave the term, "balanced" out because that is a separate subject.  for sake of discussion I am talking about water that is "balanced" enough so that it is not part of the problem.  I'm making this distinction because when people say "balanced" they usually refer to the numbers of pH, TA, an CA, and the saturation index.  So this is not about whether that can be negative or positive and if so by how much; it is about the singular contribution of organic contamination to what would otherwise be water that you would soak in and that contains no risk of infection from the various pathogens that are well known to the pool and spa industry and for which specific chlorine kill rates have been established.

By all means if you feel your water needs purging ever or often, do it. But millions of people swim in bio-film every day and they are still alive and healthy.

we should make a distinction between large bodies of water with fish and normal biofilms and other organisms that are part of what we would call a "healthy ecosystem".  when you swim in a lake or a river your bather waste is naturally accommodated by the ecosystem because the bather load is infinitesimally small.  Those are the conditions under which millions of people swim in water in which biofilms have formed on various surfaces where there is a food supply for them to grow.

We don't put chlorine in lakes and rivers because that would upset the natural ecosystem, but in a spa or pool we are trying to do just that.  We are not trying to produce healthy water or a healthy ecosystem, we are trying to produce sanitized water in which no pathogens can survive or be transmitted from one person to the other via the water.

Please don't rest, we are here to learn and teach. We try not to sell though.

I'm glad we are talking about biofilms and organics now and have passed the point where you think I'm trying to sell something. Frankly I'm allergic to selling, as it's about convincing someone to part with their money when they wouldn't otherwise do so.  I can't stand that.   look at my photography site where the blog is posted -- do you see anything for sale?  no, not even my photographs.  Do I post any links to any of the products I tested?  No, I simply described my experiment in great detail and documented every step including photographs. Do I get paid for clicks?  no.  Why do you think a blog post about hot tubs, biofilms, and purging appears on a hobby photography site which I fund myself only to share photographs with friends and family?  Its there only because it was a mechanism to share my experience with others.   I presented the data simply because I'm trying to appeal to those who want data instead of opinions. 

[dlleno]

Just an opposing view dlleno. I know there are some very bad strains of bio-film. Unlikely in a properly sanitized hot tub but.......

You are allowed to be the doomsday predictor. But some of us don't have to be.

I certainly didn't mean to predict doomsday, but it is fair to say that I'm no longer following the old school best practices, primarily because of new information that has come to light in recent years.   In fact, I'm recommending that folks experimentally determine their own purge needs.  For some that may be as simple as measuring the sanitizer demand -- if this is done honestly it is a great indicator of success.   Looking back at the way my first spa behaved, I now believe that I had an unusual sanitizer demand, but I never knew it because I kept up with the demand.  no one got sick, but I will still act on the information I learned and reduce the risks even further. 

Thing is -- we want ZERO organics in our hot tubs. no biofilms, no fish, no algae, no ecosystem. We want everything dead, oxidized, or trapped in our filters so we can get rid of it.    We want to know that pathogens will not survive in the water or in our filters to be transmitted via jet aerosolization. We don't want pathogens to accumulate and hide in our pipes. 

One experimental result I will highlight here is a rather remarkable sequence, at least to me, is that after I slayed the biofilm dragon and enjoyed my spa again, I still found material that had accumulated:

1.  detect unusual sanitizer demand in the new spa, after 2 months of fighting it. 
2.  shock to 50ppm chlorine for 2 hours (attempted decontamination)
3.  still have unusual sanitizer demand
4.  purge.  problem solved
5.  maintain clear, properly balanced sanitized water (low bather load) for six months
6.  2nd purge released lots of material that I don't want in my pipes

#6 opened my eyes.  it didn't matter to me if that material was or contained biofilms;  what mattered to me is that I didn't want that stuff in my pipes and I was thankful to find a product that released it. 

[Tman122]

I used purge products on plenty of used tubs I turned over, over the years. I often wondered if the gunk that came out of the pipes wasn't the purge product itself? Convincing us that it was in our pipes? Something to think about. I've cut plenty of old disposed tubs apart for disposal and looked in the many brittle PVC pipes and tubing. There wasn't anything in them? Huh?

[dlleno]

Are you asking a serious question or just being rhetorical?  no disrespect intended here, but  think this through:  If a purge product deliberately introduced contaminants just for a visual effect, then how would it be possible to run the spa dosed with the product and not show any result?  Why don't you  see contaminants when mixing a separate solution of the product for wiping down surfaces?   No offense to you or your experience here -- clearly you have seen a lot of spas but it sounds like you have never dosed a spa (with a purge product) more than once, and it sounds like you haven't read my article either, where this question is addressed.   

There are two important lessons to learn on this subject:

1.  sometimes it takes more than one purge to complete the job.  In my experiment  it took two (that means 1000 gallons of water down the drain).  I note that there are other examples in life where we wash things twice to get the job done, and no one blames the cleaning agent.   

2.  The purge products I tested don't add contaminants for visual effect.  After purging twice (above) I refilled for the third time, dosed with Ahh-Some, and achieved a perfectly clean spa, running all jets with filters installed into their normal positions with absolutely zero material released.  You can see all of this with photographic evidence if you would just please spend a few minutes to read the article. 

I acknowledge there is plenty of snake oil in the spa business that's for sure -- one only needs to look at the store shelves to see all of the overpriced products all claiming to bring joy and happiness.  So I don't doubt your suspicious nature when it comes to purge products -- i just think it is misplaced.  The snake oil is found in products that don't work worth a hoot.

 You did make one statement that I disagree with. --that not all biofilms are nasty.   That may be true in a sustainable healthy ecosystem but not in a spa.  In a spa any and all biofilms are nasty .  We don't want anything growing in our tubs, and biofilms happen to be rather nefarious.   At best they consume sanitizer like any other organic.   At worst they can provide protection for  pathogens .

One additional conclusion I will highlight is that some purge products DO appear to rely on extraordinary amounts of foam for the visual effect.  One product in particular -- whether the mfg decided to load it up with surfactants just for visual effect, or the surfactants were an attempt to make the product more effective I don't know.  But you can see all the data and photographic evidence in the article.

[frydaddy96]

So where or what is the link?  I'm a new spa owner and am curious about this whole biofilm deal.  Just wanting to be informed about it so as to make my own assumptions and choices.

Thanks.

[BullFrogSpasMN]

so what company does this guy rep for?