I am 47years old and have returned to swimming as a fitness choice. I get 3 workouts of 2500yds/week and feel great. I also have an inground pool that my family enjoys in the summer months. My question relates to the long term consequences of chlorine exposure. Do studies exist that show whether swimmers have an increased health risk to cancers? Has anyone looked at pool chlorine exposure as a health risk in any way? The pools I swim in all use chlorine as a sanitizer and I would hate to think my exercise regimen may be doing me more harm than good!
Parents
Former Member
Okay some thought from a pool person and swimmer.
The use of Ozone as a disenfectant in pools is only partially true (at least in Oregon) we have an ozone system (about the size used for a small waste water treatment plant yet our pool is a 25meter by 25 yard pool). We are required to keep a trace amount of disenfectant (chlorine in our case, but could be bromine or something else) the reason being is all of the ozone disenfecting is done in the backroom, the ozone is injected into the water lines and then filtered out later before the water returns back to the pool. When we fill our small toddler pool after a scrub down, the incoming tap water is cloudier then what our lap pool is - something to be said about our pool treated water versus our tap water.
How much disenfectant you use in a pool depends on what you are using and the pool pH. For chlorine the pH controls how volutile (for better words) it will be, you will actually have better disenfection with a pool that has .4ppm (parts per million)chlorine and a pH of 7.2 than a pool with 4.0ppm and a pH of 7.6. As for the smell, burning eyes things like that has to do with your combined chlorine or chlorimines - this is what happens after your chlorine does its job disenfecting, a high combined chlorine results in bad water (smell & burning eyes). Going back to Ozone, ozone actually destroys combined chlorine - so how good is this - we play water polo for 1-2 hours and do not have burning eyes or halo's around lights when we are done. Lastly as for pool chemist schools there are several organizations that teach pool chemistry the biggest two certifications tend to AFO (Aquatics Facility Operator) or CPO (Certified Pool OPerator).
This is probably more than you wanted to know about pool stuff, have fun swimming.
Jeff
Reply
Former Member
Okay some thought from a pool person and swimmer.
The use of Ozone as a disenfectant in pools is only partially true (at least in Oregon) we have an ozone system (about the size used for a small waste water treatment plant yet our pool is a 25meter by 25 yard pool). We are required to keep a trace amount of disenfectant (chlorine in our case, but could be bromine or something else) the reason being is all of the ozone disenfecting is done in the backroom, the ozone is injected into the water lines and then filtered out later before the water returns back to the pool. When we fill our small toddler pool after a scrub down, the incoming tap water is cloudier then what our lap pool is - something to be said about our pool treated water versus our tap water.
How much disenfectant you use in a pool depends on what you are using and the pool pH. For chlorine the pH controls how volutile (for better words) it will be, you will actually have better disenfection with a pool that has .4ppm (parts per million)chlorine and a pH of 7.2 than a pool with 4.0ppm and a pH of 7.6. As for the smell, burning eyes things like that has to do with your combined chlorine or chlorimines - this is what happens after your chlorine does its job disenfecting, a high combined chlorine results in bad water (smell & burning eyes). Going back to Ozone, ozone actually destroys combined chlorine - so how good is this - we play water polo for 1-2 hours and do not have burning eyes or halo's around lights when we are done. Lastly as for pool chemist schools there are several organizations that teach pool chemistry the biggest two certifications tend to AFO (Aquatics Facility Operator) or CPO (Certified Pool OPerator).
This is probably more than you wanted to know about pool stuff, have fun swimming.
Jeff
