chlorinated lung burn?

Hi Jim, The numbers that they are referring to is ppm (parts per million as in how many parts per million are chlorine compared to water) generally accepted range in 1.0 to 4.0 ppm (states and disenfectant systems vary so I can't be too specific) but anything over 10.0 would be considered high. In regards to how the pool water is tested, I think someone is full of B.S. and is trying to cover their behind because of the screwup. Just an example of how flawed some of the testing equipment can be. We shut down and superchlorinated a pool one time (after a bio hazard incident) I had the lifeguard test the water to make sure it was safe to reopen, when they added the testing regents the water stayed clear, they came back and told me their was no chlorine in the water, I knew this wasn't the case, we tested again and noticed that when the regent drop hit the sample water their was a second of color then went clear - the problem was our chlorine was high enough that it was bleaching out the coloring test regent so we got a false reading. The system the Y staff is using is only good to see if there is chlorine prersent in the water but really can't tell how much actual chlorine, their is a system that is pretty accurate, it is a titrating system where the water is colored and you add drops of a solution that slowly negates the chlorine therefore reducing the color of the water until eventually it is clear, multiply the number of drops by a preset value and you get your chlorine ppm (even this system has some flaws because long shelf lives reduce the effectiveness of the regents). This probably more than you wanted to know - but the fact is your lungs should not have been burning if the pool was even outsde but near the safe guidelines/parameters to operate (unless your are overly sensitive to chlorine). Ventilation is also a big part of proper pool operation, if they don't have adequate air movement that might have helped in creating the problem. Once again sorry for the long pool chemistry 101 lesson.

Hi Jim, The numbers that they are referring to is ppm (parts per million as in how many parts per million are chlorine compared to water) generally accepted range in 1.0 to 4.0 ppm (states and disenfectant systems vary so I can't be too specific) but anything over 10.0 would be considered high. In regards to how the pool water is tested, I think someone is full of B.S. and is trying to cover their behind because of the screwup. Just an example of how flawed some of the testing equipment can be. We shut down and superchlorinated a pool one time (after a bio hazard incident) I had the lifeguard test the water to make sure it was safe to reopen, when they added the testing regents the water stayed clear, they came back and told me their was no chlorine in the water, I knew this wasn't the case, we tested again and noticed that when the regent drop hit the sample water their was a second of color then went clear - the problem was our chlorine was high enough that it was bleaching out the coloring test regent so we got a false reading. The system the Y staff is using is only good to see if there is chlorine prersent in the water but really can't tell how much actual chlorine, their is a system that is pretty accurate, it is a titrating system where the water is colored and you add drops of a solution that slowly negates the chlorine therefore reducing the color of the water until eventually it is clear, multiply the number of drops by a preset value and you get your chlorine ppm (even this system has some flaws because long shelf lives reduce the effectiveness of the regents). This probably more than you wanted to know - but the fact is your lungs should not have been burning if the pool was even outsde but near the safe guidelines/parameters to operate (unless your are overly sensitive to chlorine). Ventilation is also a big part of proper pool operation, if they don't have adequate air movement that might have helped in creating the problem. Once again sorry for the long pool chemistry 101 lesson.