Dealers, what sanitizer do you use?

[Chas]

Oh - an add-on to my last post:

Most manufacturers will not cover damage done by using a floating feeder and Trichlor Tablets. That is not bromine, but many newbies get them confused because they both come in tablets and are dispensed in a floating feeder.

[Steve]

Steve, can you explain the process?  I'm assuming you start out with bromine and to maintain the chemistry you just keep a floater with bromine in the tub?  Does it always stay in the spa?  It sounds easier than everything else I have read.  What are the disadvantages of bromine?  Are you saying that some manufacturers will void the warantee if you use a bromine floater?

The process stays pretty much the same Gomboman. You need to estabish a bromine residual with a granular product and bromine pucks help maintain a 3-5ppm of bromine in the spa. Bromine levels can still fluctuate based on usage and testing periodically is still required. The advantage here is that is will slowly release bromine in the spa without the need for daily additions. Also, if you go away for any length of time, you can dial it down and release less bromine while away.

Some do take the floater out of the spa while in use, but that's when the demand on sanitizer is the greatest. I prefer the inline bromine system where it is mounted in the filter and not bobbing around in the spa itself.

You have to keep in mind that Steve is a heavy drinker, and doesn't alway make sense late at night. Kidding....

I consumed almost 4 cans of coke last night so my head is spinning a bit this morning. Often, I don't make sense in the morning or afternoon either.

Steve

[Lori]

I consumed almost 4 cans of coke last night so my head is spinning a bit this morning. Often, I don't make sense in the morning or afternoon either.

Steve

Do you ever make sense, Steve?

(Kidding!)  You know I love you!!  

[Steve]

What a sweetie!

You're looking lovely today BTW Lori!

[Chas]

Ooh! Is the web cam online again !!???

Nobody ever tells me these things!

[Steve]

Sorry Chas...I did say I'd let you know when it was operational again... :-/

Go to : www.loriisahottie/bedroom.com
www.loriisahottie/kitchen.com
www.loriisahottie/computerroom.com

Can't wait to see her face when she reads this!

Just teasing my dear...The one in the bedroom has worked for months...

Steve

[Lori]

ROTFLMAO!!!!



You guys!!  

[bosco0633]

hey steve, great advice.  what about the other chemicals like ph and alkalinity and all the other jazz.  could you outline maybe a monthly maitenance regimine for us.

[Steve]

hey steve, great advice.  what about the other chemicals like ph and alkalinity and all the other jazz.  could you outline maybe a monthly maitenance regimine for us.

Thanks bosco. Here's my program in a nutshell...

Fresh fill

- Add stain & scale

- Test and adjust alkalinity as required and maintain a 80-120 ppm reading.

- Test and adjust Calcium hardness and adjust to 150-200ppm.

- After 1-2 days I test and adjust pH and maintain 7.4-7.6ppm. Often, people will adjust alkalinity and not let their pH stabilize over a couple of days and this can cause problems. It can take a day or two for pH to settle out after adjusting alkalinity and this is an important step to preventing micromanaging your water.

- Add bromine concentrate to establish a bromine residual. Initial dosage will tend to shock the water (6-8ppm+) and quantities will vary depending on the product and volume of water. I generally wait a couple of days prior to adding my bromine pucks to allow the levels to come back into range (2-4ppm) quicker.

Weekly Maint.

- Shock using an oxidizer (Bioguard Lite) which is a non chlorine shock. I run the pumps on high speed for one cycle (approx 15 minutes) with the cover off to allow gas off.

- Add Stain & Scale product

- Test and adjust pH as needed

- Test and adjust Alk as needed

- Test and adjust bromine as required. Check more often if spa is more heavily used.

- Check my bromine pucks and refill as needed


Monthly Maint.

- Clean my filter with a filter cleaning solution designed to remove oils, minerals, etc.

- Check and adjust Calcium Hardness. This can be done monthly as it tends not to fluctuate a great deal after initial balance.

We don't use a clarifier as Spa Lite has a similar agent. I'm not a fan of most clarifiers though they can be a benefit if your water has gone very cloudy as they can speed the process up to restoring clarity. 99% of the time, cloudy water is due to not meeting the chlorine/bromine demand. There are other reasons but this is most often true.

We sparingly use fragrances in the spa though I do like Optimizer Plus by SpaGuard.

This equates to about 10 minutes a week maintenance and almost nothing on a day to day basis. Hope this helps and let me know if you require more details.

Steve

[Soakin]

I have used bromine with a floater for many years along with thousands of our customers. I highly recommend it as a very low maintenence system to fantastic water care. I've never been an advocate of having to spoonfeed a spa daily.

In fact, the crazy people here were the first ones I saw to consistantly recommend a teaspoon of dichlor daily ...

Great question Gomboman!

Based on the usual conversation here and on Doc's site, I would have guessed that the answers would have been 90% dichlor, so to see the responses come in evenly split (actually one more bromine by my count) was very enlightening.

I still like dichlor because of the ease of adjusting doses to match bather load, and being able to manage residuals so that you soak in near zero levels, then disinfect after leaving the tub.  The "Vermonter" dichlor-based system has always worked well for me when I am home regularly, but I always worry when I travel and leave the maintenance to my dear wife or a housesitter, so I added Nature2 for insurance, but that peace of mind comes at added cost.

My dealer and a good buddy have always been bromine proponents, and armed with confidence from all of the dichlor supporters on the web, I had smugly ignored their advice.  Perhaps I owe them an apology, or at least a fair listen the next time they tell me how easy bromine is.  I especially like the Brilliance concept, with no chlorine gas floating under the cover!

[Steve]

I still like dichlor because of the ease of adjusting doses to match bather load, and being able to manage residuals so that you soak in near zero levels, then disinfect after leaving the tub.  

Soakin,

It is possible to adjust bromine in much the same way to compensate for higher bather loads.

The comment of yours above does lend itself to some concern to me. If you ask yourself, when is the demand on your sanitizer the highest, or when is it that body oils, bacteria, body fluids, sweat, etc. are entering your spa, I don't believe that having a near zero sanitizer level is a safe condition for bathers that are in that water for any length of time.

A rule of thumb is that one person in a spa will use up 1ppm of bromine/chlorine every 15 minutes. Now consider that 4 people might be in there for 30 minutes and you've opened up the door for a very unsanitary condition with the probability of foaming and/or cloudy water.

Bathing in a spa with a chlorine or bromine level in the safe, recommended range, will not produce an uncomfortable environment with odors or dry skin to the users.

Steve

[Soakin]

The comment of yours above does lend itself to some concern to me. If you ask yourself, when is the demand on your sanitizer the highest, or when is it that body oils, bacteria, body fluids, sweat, etc. are entering your spa, I don't believe that having a near zero sanitizer level is a safe condition for bathers that are in that water for any length of time.

A rule of thumb is that one person in a spa will use up 1ppm of bromine/chlorine every 15 minutes. Now consider that 4 people might be in there for 30 minutes and you've opened up the door for a very unsanitary condition with the probability of foaming and/or cloudy water.

Steve,  

Thanks for your concern.  Your point is well taken, and if multiple users are going to be in the spa for any length of time (PARTY!!! ), I make sure that sanitizer levels are high enough before we start to keep the tub safe -- or at least kill the first wave of invaders .  Unfortunately, that doesn't happen very often anymore , and it is usually one or two users on a regular basis.

My theory is to get chlorine levels up to about 5 ppm (0.75 tsp dichlor/user in my tub) after leaving the tub, effectively killing whatever was left behind, and let the levels drop to 0.5-1ppm more or less by the next use.  I may be wrong, but I feel comfortable that as long as there is still a measurable residual before I get in, the water is safe.  I see what you are saying about the risk of something coming off a user and growing into a nasty mess in the 30-60 minutes we are in there .  It seems to me that the same contamination risk would be present in a warm bathtub, (probably more given what circulates in the air when a toilet is flushed in the same room), and nobody I know worries about a sanitizer residual in their bath.  I guess ignorance may be bliss, but I like the idea of soaking in almost no sanitizer, while still keeping a clean tub between uses.  It's been working for me.

I have no problem with being told I'm wrong (unless it is about ozone indoors ), so if my routine is unsafe... anyone, please feel free to correct me. (Had to put one more smiley in to set a personal record)

Cal

[Bill_Stevenson]

Cal,

Your routine is fine, perfectly safe.  Bacteria need time to mulitply.  The Vermonter's approach is widely followed and he is a qualified water chemist.  Although I am not a water chemist, I am a chemical engineer and my wife is a college professor in biology so we are qualified to state that your program is not a problem at all.  In fact, we also use the Vermonter's strategy.  Mind you, there is nothing wrong with the treatment regime that Steve outlined either.

With respect to the use of bromine vs. chlorine, no one has touched on the key points in this thread.  Both are safe and acceptable for sanitation of spas.  There are trade-offs as follows:  Chlorine is essentially pH neutral, bromine is quite acidic; Chlorine breaks down rapidly at high temperatures, bromine is tolerant of high temperatures such as in a spa; chlorine is not affected by UV from sunlight, bromine is broken down by UV very rapidly.

Some people have commented on skin problems and attributed it to chlorine or bromine.  I seriously doubt that they have identified the true root cause.  As Chas said earlier in this thread, it is very, very important to get total alkalinity up to buffer the water and stabilize pH.  If that is not done, especially if a bromine floater is employed, but really with either product, the water could be quite acidic and this could irritate anybody's skin.  

Put another way, if someone says "my skin was irritated using bromine so I switched to chlorine and have not had any further problems", this might indicate that they should focus on total alkalinity or the problem could crop up again.  

Regards,

Bill  

[Soakin]

... The Vermonter's approach is widely followed and he is a qualified water chemist.  Although I am not a water chemist, I am a chemical engineer and my wife is a college professor in biology ...
With respect to the use of bromine vs. chlorine...

Thanks, Bill.

I really wasn't worried about my program, just hoping to keep the discussion going.  My wife is a clinical laboratory scientist (trained in chemistry and microbiology among other things) and one of my 'many hats" is the owner/operator of a grain farm where I try to control pests using as little chemicals as necessary. Like you, we feel pretty confident in our abilities to address issues like these.

I agree with your assessment of differences between sanitizers, and would only add a few opinions:  

1.  They are both halogens, very aggressive chemicals that I personally like to use only as much as necessary.

2.  Bromine being more stable, is more likely to stay on your body after leaving the spa, and even showering.

3.  Due to the majority of bromine use seeming to be feeder/floater applied, users are more likely to maintain a higher residual, in essence exposing themselves to more chemical on a regular basis.

4.  Since chlorine doesn't persist, and becomes ineffective as a sanitizer in amine form, it requires more attention.  

Back to the original question in this thread, which wasn't even addressed to me (sorry. Gomboman), what to use and why?  Just my opinion, but I see dichlor as appropriate for people who like to manage their water, and minimize chemical use, and bromine for those who prefer to keep it simple and spend less time on water care.  The other tools like ozone, minerals and the like are supplements that have their own benefits and costs, which have been discussed in other threads.  I like the idea of using at least one of them,  to reduce sanitizer requirements and provide another method of keeping the water safe in case there is a problem in sanitizer application.  Pick whichever one or two you like.

My two cents.

p.s.  Isn't Vermonter is a microbiologist, not a chemist?

[Bill_Stevenson]

Cal,

I am not sure if the Vermonter is a biologist or a chemist now that you ask.  Maybe it is Northman who is the chemist.  In either case the Vermonter's business is water treatment, mostly for municipalities and similar large institutions.  He is qualified and his system works.  

Your points about the relative stability of chlorine and bromine are well taken and your inferences are ones that I had not considered before.  Thank you for sharing them.  

One other aspect of the discussion of these two alternatives that might be worth mentioning is that of the two, the more potent in terms of killing bacteria is chlorine by a wide margin.

Regards,

Bill