How to Shock Your Swimming Pool

Опубликовал Admin
7-06-2019, 20:00
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Updated: March 29, 2019 Shocking is also known as super chlorinating. It's a way to keep pool water safe and clean by adding three to five times the normal amount of chlorine or other chemical sanitizer to the pool water to drastically raise the chlorine level for a short time. This will help to remove ineffective chlorine amounts, kills bacteria and anything organic in the pool, and boosts the availability of effective chlorine. Shocking the pool is an important regular maintenance step with which every pool owner should be familiar.

Timing the Shocking

  1. Shock the pool regularly. What determines "regular" will depend on a number of swimmers using the pool and the temperature of the pool water. The best indicator is to monitor the results of home chlorine tests; when the test results show that combined available chlorine and free available chlorine are below their recommended ranges, then it's time to shock the pool.
    • Pool experts recommend shocking a pool at a minimum of once a month. If the water is warm (such as for a spa pool), twice a month minimum is recommended. However, some pool experts recommend shocking pools once a week, or more frequently, if the pool is used heavily, after large amounts of rain, or during extended periods of hot, sunny weather.
  2. Shock after the sun has gone down. This will prevent the sun's UV rays from affecting the chlorine or other chemical and ensures that the majority of the chemical is available to shock the pool.

Pre-Shocking Preparation

  1. Dissolve the pool shock chemicals. This must be done before adding the pool shock chemicals to the swimming pool. All forms of pool shock chemicals are granular and should dissolve relatively quickly.
    • Fill a 5-gallon/19 liter (5.0 US gal) bucket with water from the pool.
    • Slowly pour the granular pool shock into the bucket of water.
    • Never add water to a chemical; always add chemicals to water.
  2. Stir the bucket well. Agitate the water for one minute or more to dissolve the pool shock chemicals.

Adding the Pool Shock Chemicals

  1. With the filtration system running, slowly pour the bucket of dissolved shock directly in front of a return line fitting. You will see the water being carried out into the pool by the jet of water coming from the return line.
    • Pour slowly enough that all of the water from your bucket is carried out into the pool and does not settle to the pool floor. Pouring slowly is also vital to prevent splashing on your skin, clothes and any surfaces, which can injure or stain, depending on what the splashes land on.
    • Pour as close to the water's surface as possible.
  2. Refill with water. When you are pouring and get near the bottom of the bucket of dissolved shock water (down to about 1/4 left in the bucket), fill the bucket back up with water.
    • Stir the bucket of water again for one minute or more, to dissolve left over shock granules at the bottom of the bucket, which did not dissolve the first time.
    • Continue pouring until all the contents are used.
    • If undissolved granules reach the pool floor bottom, stir them up with a pool cleaner.
  3. Do readings before re-entering the pool water. Swimming in water with too much chlorine is very dangerous. Wait until the water reads 3ppm or less.

Tips

  • If you have a vinyl liner in your swimming pool, you cannot allow un-dissolved pool shock to settle to the floor, because this may bleach or stain your pool liner.
  • Shock chemicals can also be released by a floating chemical dispenser or a mechanical feeder, rather than doing the shocking manually. Mechanical feeders require very exact proportions and only the chemicals the manufacturer says are suitable.
  • Chlorine shock is simply un-stabilized chlorine which is exactly what chlorine bleach is that you buy from the supermarket. You can use this instead by working out the amounts for your pool (approx 4L of 5% hypochlorite chlorine bleach per 10000L of pool water) Make sure you buy unfragranced chlorine bleach, you want just pure hypochlorite.
  • Check the pH range before shocking. It needs to be within the normal range before shocking, otherwise the extra chlorine can oxidize copper parts in the pool. If this happens, black stains will appear on the water surface.
  • Bear in mind that it is better to add shock chemicals in small amounts at multiple locations across the pool rather than dumping in a large quantity and hoping it will disperse evenly.

Warnings

  • Always add chemicals to water. Do not add water to chemicals.
  • The manufacturers of pool shock products suggest that you wear protective goggles and other safety equipment to prevent injury. Follow the manufacturer's instructions on the packaging closely.
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