Types Of Pool Testing
The most accurate type of testing for residential pool testing is one that uses drops of liquid reagents applied to a sample of your pool water.;This method is called titration, and while it can feel like you are back in high school chemistry class, it is easy to do and offers the most accurate results of all of the testing types.
Digital testing kits offer the comfort of a digital readout of the test results.;While comforting, these require frequent calibration to provide accurate test results.;
Test strips are the easiest way to test your pool, but are neither precise nor accurate and are not recommended.;
What Is Cya And Why Keep It To A Minimum
CYA, also known as stabilizer or conditioner in the pool industry, protects chlorine from degradation from the ultraviolet rays of the sun. CYA can be very beneficial up to a point, but becomes increasingly detrimental to the pool beyond that. Figure 1 below illustrates this:
Figure 1: The relationship of chlorines staying power and CYA
Figure 1 shows us that roughly 20-30 ppm of CYA is enough to give us 95-98% protection from sunlight in the first hour, assuming this chart is accurate. This chart does not account for non-living organics or nitrogen compounds that chlorine still has to oxidize. Figure 1 just shows the relationship of sunlight, chlorine and CYA after one hour. As you can see, the benefits of CYA yield a diminishing return the higher you go. Granted, more CYA can give your chlorine more protection from sunlight for longer, but at what cost? For that, lets look at the work of the US Centers for Disease Control and their research on CYA.1
Reduce Lippage And Work With The Warpage
Large-format tiles are more susceptible to warping. Luckily, you can use spacers to protect the tiles. Spacers regulate the elevation of each tile; in such a way, one tile piece is higher than another. This helps in preventing lippage. Pool pros advise offsetting the pool tiles by not more than a third of the tile. Remember, you dont want the end of the tile to connect with the highest point of the crown.
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How To Lower Cyanuric Acid Levels
When your cyanuric levels are too high, you have three options:
- Purchase a cyanuric acid reducer
- Drain and refill with new pool water .
For diluting, you dont have to use an exact science, but basically, if your cyanuric acid level is 5% too high, then you need to remove about 5% of the pool water.;
Since the most common form of cyanuric acid is usually as an additive to chlorine tablets, adding it straight to the pool like this is considered a booster.
Diluting Or Draining Your Pool Water
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The Breakdown: Cyanuric Acid And Chlorine
In order to fully understand how cyanuric acid functions in your pool, we first need to cover how chlorine usually reacts in the sun. Warning: were about to throwback to chem class again. When you put chlorine without cyanuric acid in your pool, its chemical makeup transforms to a compound called sodium hypochlorite, which is made up of ions. When ultraviolet rays hit those ions, they break apart and render your chlorine ineffective. In fact, in as little as under twenty minutes of exposure to the sun, your chlorine could be 50% less effective. And it only gets worse from there.
Unless you have an indoor pool that is completely hidden from ultraviolet rays, adding cyanuric acid is absolutely essentialand much cheaper than wasting massive amounts of ineffective chlorine. Its one of the many reasons its important that you choose the right chlorine for your pool and circumstances.;
How To Raise Cyanuric Acid
Cyanuric acid levels are raised by adding pool stabilizer. Its called stabilizer because cyanuric acid stabilizes free chlorine from being evaporated by the sun. For more information, check out The Relationship Between Swimming Pool Chlorine and Cyanuric Acid.
Many chlorine products come with stabilizer already mixed in. Adding a chlorine solution with stabilizer will automatically raise your cyanuric acid levels. However, liquid and granular stabilizer solutions may be purchased and added separately
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Cyanuric Acid Do You Even Lift
For a liquid or granule, cyanuric acid is surprisingly powerful, and can do the heavy lifting chlorine simply cannot achieve on its own. Because unstabilized chlorine is destroyed so quickly by UV rays, outdoor pools without cyanuric acid dont have a fair shot at being properly sanitized. In other words, any swimmers in your pool will be doing laps among microscopic swimmersbacteria that may have the ability to make you sick.;
Since cyanuric acid prevents chlorine from breaking down in your water, it allows it to destroy bacteria three to five times longer as it would without CYA. That means three to five times less of a charge on your chlorine bill, and three to five times less hours of chlorine upkeep required. The math is working out in our favor here.
The Increased Demand For Automatic Spa Covers
Several states make it compulsory for all pool owners to have safety covers. Consequently, almost every pool owner is familiar with automatic pool covers. Once spa owners see how this feature works well, theyll always want to purchase one for their spa. Allan Horwood of Pool Patrol in British Columbia concurs, and he states, Before, using safety covers in spas was quite odd. However, it is now common to protect your spa using a cover.
There has been a steady rise in demand for automatic pool and spa covers in the United States.
VP of sales for Automatic Pool Covers, Mike Shadoan
Nonetheless, Shadoan says that automatic pool and spa covers are costly. But people are always willing to buy products that offer value for money. Theres, therefore, a golden opportunity for pool professionals who wish to sell these safety features.
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Lowering Cyanuric Acid In Your Swimming Pool
Cyanuric Acid is also known as stabilizer and conditioner for your swimming pool. It is a chemical that is necessary to help retain chlorine in your swimming pool. However, as much as it is important, what happens when the levels get too high? In this blog post, we want to analyze what CYA does and what you should do if the levels get too high! Please note, most pool professionals will recommend draining your swimming pool and starting over but at Pure Water Industries we dont agree with that and want to show you why using The Puripool Process on your swimming pool water is a much better solution.
At this point, most pool professionals will recommend a full or partial drain of the water in your swimming pool to lower Cyanuric Acid levels. Although they are correct in the need to lower the levels of CYA we dont recommend a drain and refill. First and foremost, our fill water is extremely hard in the San Diego area. It is loaded with calcium, magnesium and other hardness minerals which defeat the purpose of putting good water back in your pool. Thats why we want to introduce you to our mobile filtration trailer that comes to your residential or commercial swimming pool. Its equipped with Reverse Osmosis filtration that lowers Calcium Hardness, Total Dissolved Solids , Cyanuric Acid , and so much more without draining the swimming pool. Just this past week we filtered a 25,660-gallon swimming pool that was dealing with high levels of CYA.
Initial Chemistry
Why Do You Need Cyanuric Acid
What all this means is that in order to keep your pool clean, you would need to add almost ten times as much chlorine as normal during the sunny times of the year.
And isnt that, in fact, when we swim the most?
This not only gets expensive, but its also a huge time-waster.
You could be testing your pool levels;every couple of hours and adding more chlorine, or you could simply add some CYA and go back to testing normally.
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How Can I Lower Cyanuric Acid Level In Swimming Pool
Well, in this post, I would be walking you through some of the best ways to lower the level of Cyanuric Acid in your pool.
Frankly speaking, all the steps that well be mentioning in this post are newbie-friendly and you can expedite them without any hassle.
Many of the newbies wouldnt be aware of the fact that Cyanuric Acid is popularly known as a pool stabilizer.
It goes without saying that Cyanuric Acid plays a crucial role in maintaining the proper health of your swimming pool.
Well, lets understand it the other way round, that is, what will happen if there is a fluctuation in the CYA level.
Useless rendering of chlorine can happen if the cyanuric level gets too high.
So, enough of the introduction, lets have a quick at what all we would be learning in this comprehensive guide.
First and foremost, we would be learning about the optimal CYA levels.
Secondly, how can we test the Cyanuric acid level in our swimming pool effortlessly?
Lastly, I would be throwing light on some of the important ways of lowering the CYA level.
So, without any further ado, lets begin
Do I Need To Add Stabilizer To My Pool
If you have an indoor pool that is fully shaded from the sun you do not need to add cyanuric acid to your pool. The free chlorine in the water will stay active longer than an outdoor pool because there is no UV light to dissipate the chlorine.
If you have a salt water outdoor pool you will need to manually add stabilizer to the pool. The salt chlorinator will produce chlorine when the pump is running. But without stabilizer the chlorine will evaporate and dissipate quickly.
If you have a fresh water pool you will need to add chlorine and stabilizer. You can add them separately or use a stabilized chlorine product that contains cyanuric acid.
Note: The danger with stabilized chlorine products is that you can overdose the pool with too much stabilizer. This will reduce the effectiveness of chlorine. Always test your water to ensure you have the correct chemical levels.
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The Effect Of Natural Calamities On Fiberglass Resin Shortage
This year, the winter storm in Texas disoriented a broad spectrum of activities in the pool industry. The freezing weather conditions forced the chemical manufacturing plants in Houston to shut down. Moreover, the storm forced Hexion Inc and Olin Corp., the biggest epoxy producers, to stop operating.
Manufacturers report that once they finally get a truckload of resin, it doesnt stick around very long. Its already earmarked for a back-order. In fact, in most instances, all the resin coming in has already been pre-sold. This has been the situation for the past few months.
Test Your Pool Regularly
Whether you use CYA or not, testing your pool is the most important thing you can do for the health of your water.
We recommend doing this at least once a week, but under certain conditions, you may need to do it more.
For example, if you have a larger amount of swimmers than usual, your pH levels can become quickly unbalanced. Or if you get a lot of rain, it can dilute your pool and alter the chemicals.
Cyanuric acid levels dont change much unless your pool does get diluted with a lot of rain. So keep in mind that youll probably only have to add it once or twice a year. But your other chemicals can change a lot over the course of a week.
And if you keep your CYA at around 50 ppm, youll need to make sure you keep your free chlorine at around 3 ppm to help them work together optimally.
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How Do Cya Levels Get So High
Usually, elevated levels of CYA are just a consequence of habits.;Sometimes high CYA happens without realizing it. For example, trichlor adds CYA every time you use it. It seems like stabilized chlorine use is the main reason for high levels of CYA. As water evaporates, CYA stays behind, just like calcium and salt. If you are using a stabilized chlorine like trichlor or dichlor, CYA accumulates…fast.; One pound of trichlor in 10,000 gallons of water will add 6 ppm of CYA. That adds up quickly.
The purpose of this article is to inform people about CYA, its benefits and its drawbacks. We are writing this because we speak to pool professionals nationwide who either do not know about CYA’s impact on chlorine efficacy, or do not realize how serious it is. We hope this article helps.
Cyanuric Acid: Friend Or Foe Of Swimming Pools
Nick Rancis
A common pool service household name, cyanuric acid is now in the toolbox of most residential and commercial pool service professionals who are servicing outdoor pools.
Since its invention in 1829, cyanuric acid has been revered as magical, invaluable and essential to keeping chlorinated pools clean and sanitary. At the same time it is labeled as misused, misrepresented, controversial and dangerous. To illustrate this contradiction, some health inspectors insist on the use of cyanuric acid and some health inspectors restrict its presence in public pools.
How can this be the case among so many experts? Lets take a deeper dive on the benefits and misconceptions of cyanuric acid.
Cyanuric acid, as its name suggests, is an acid. ;Albeit a weak acid, it is commonly sold as white crystalline powder, which is able to dissolve in water and has little overall effect on a pools pH. ;It is commonly referred to as a chlorine stabilizer or conditioner, forming a weak and temporary bond with chlorine. This means it will chemically hold onto free chlorine in the water and protect it from the suns UV rays until the chlorine is consumed for oxidation or disinfection of material in the pool.
The primary benefit of cyanuric acid in pools
Consequences of a high cyanuric acid level
Chlorines potential to oxidize, often measured as oxidation reduction potential , is a good indicator of the effectiveness of chlorine to oxidize and sanitize swimming pool water.
Moving forward
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Do My Pool Need Cyanuric Acid
Definitely, your pool needs a certain amount of cyanuric acid for the proper functioning of chlorine as well as reducing its disintegration in presence of sunlight.
So, if you own an outdoor pool that is exposed to sunlight then definitely you need CYA.
In fact, cyanuric acid saves you a lot of time and money.
You dont need to spend a good lump-sum amount on a chlorine testing kit.
Moreover, you can reduce the time that you spend on testing and balancing chlorine every day, a weekly test would do the trick for you.
Since CYA helps chlorine to function in a proper and effective way so the algae outbreak is kept under control in spite of you spending less time on maintenance.
On the other hand, you dont need to use CYA for your indoor pool until and unless it receives direct sunlight which may be possible if youve got lots of windows or open areas in the vicinity of your indoor pool.
Before we move further, please let me know, if were on the same page or NOT.
Inaccurate And Poor Alkalinity Readings
Your pool can register inaccurate and false alkalinity readings due to high CYA. This is because it can falsely send a supply to your carbonate alkalinity which makes up all of the alkalinity.
You should balance your water according to the Langelier Saturation Index. This will allow you to know exactly where the waters chemical levels should be.;
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Why Too Much Cyanuric Acid Is A Bad Thing
When cyanuric acid levels get too high, it can cause something referred to as chlorine lock, which basically means your chlorine has been rendered useless.
Youll know it has happened when your chlorine test shows very or little chlorine even right after youve added it to the pool. ;
When your chlorine isnt working, bacteria and algae are not being treated!
