How do you use fewer chemicals in your swimming pool?

How do you use fewer chemicals in your swimming pool? That’s such a hot topic these days. People really want to use fewer chemicals. They want to have less exposure to chemicals in their swimming pool. There’s actually a really easy way to go about starting this process. Unfortunately, most people start this process by saying, “Hey, I’m looking for an alternative to chlorine because I don’t like chemicals. So, what else you got?” The reality is that chlorine is the thing you want. There are a lot of reasons, a lot of reasons, why we use chlorine. It’s a very complicated discussion if you want to start using something else, an alternative to chlorine. In doing so, you probably won’t reduce your exposure to chemicals. You might even increase your exposure to chemicals, just different chemicals. But I thought you wanted to reduce your exposure to chemicals because there’s a way that you actually can do that.

Filter more water

Every swimming pool can reduce their exposure to chemicals and I’m surprised that more people don’t do this. I’m really surprised this hasn’t caught on more. Filtering your water more will result in less chemical correction needed to your water, black and white. Most people under filter their water by a massive degree. Every single thing that you do not physically remove from the water through filtration, you now need to deal with chemicals. 

How much should you be filtering your water

Well, look at it this way, the minimum amount that anybody should filter their pool water would be three times the volume of your pool every 24 hours. Why is that? Well, if you had a 10,000-gallon pool… Let’s talk about a 10,000-gallon pool example. If you only filtered 10,000 gallons in 24 hours, did you get all of the water in your pool? The answer is no, you didn’t. You got approximately 63% of the water in your pool filtered at least one time. Some of it was filtered more than once, and some of it wasn’t filtered at all. So, the second turnover of your pool, will net you approximately 86% of all of the water in your pool is filtered one time. The third turnover results in approximately 95% of all the water in your pool is filtered at least one time, and three turnovers and 95% kind of represents all of the water in your pool. Even though it’s not all of the water, it’s pretty close. If we go up to a fourth turnover, we can get up to 98% of the water in your pool filtered at least one time. But as you can see, it’s pretty hard to get 100%. In fact, it might be mathematically impossible to guarantee 100% filtration every day.

Your goal should be to filter all of the water and that’s the bare minimum. Most people probably filter their water to the tune of one to two turnovers per day. When in reality, three to four should be the minimum. And if you’re a person who’s saying, “I want less chemical exposure in my swimming pool,” then even three to four turnovers per day isn’t enough. You should be increasing it further past that point. So, if you’re supposed to be up in the five or six turnovers per day minimum if you want less chemical exposure, and in reality, you’re only doing a half or one or perhaps two turnovers per day, you can see how you’re really missing the mark here and you’re not achieving your goal of having a reduced amount of chemical exposure in your pool, where you could just by filtering the water more.