During our Monday night practice, the chlorine was off the charts high. Several swimmers noticed lung discomfort while working out (we did a 4000 yard practice in 1-hour; necessarily some huffing and puffing.)
That night, I awoke with a burning in my throat and upper windpipe and lungs. It's since moderated a bit.
My questions: has anyone experienced "lung burn" like this? How long before you return to normal? Is there any remedy other than not swimming when the pool chemicals are really out of whack?
Originally posted by jim thornton
A local college pool, Carnegie Mellon, has ceiling fans installed to stir up the layer of chlorine gas that settles directly over the water's surface.
Are you sure that is the reason why those fans are there? That pool (the one built in the mid-90's, not the old dungeon) has a lot of open space, stadium type seating, and huge glass walls with southern exposure. The fans might be more to regulate spectator temperature, rather than improve swimming conditions. (Sorry, feeling a little cynical today...)
Hi Jim,
Ventilation does play a big role in using chlorine (oxidizer) as a disenfectant. Air movement will help the chlorine oxidise and be more effective. Even using regular floorfans would help, anything to create air movement over the water.
Someone who could help you would be an certified AFO (Aquatics Facility Operator) or a CPO (Certified Pool Operator) - the Y should have someone on staff that has this training (chances are with budgets that might not be the case). Good resource to check is if there are any Pool / Spa supply places or cleaning services, they will usually know of someone who is. Another possible resource would be Tom Griffiths at Penn State University (not to famalier with your area, so not sure if he is even close to you- he might be hard to get a hold of but has a lot of Aquatics knowledge). Good luck - if you need anymore help please feel free to contact me.
Jeff--thanks very much for the primer on chlorination. I am amazed at the expertise of USMS swimmers! At least a half dozen of my teammates complained of similar lung burn the next day, so I do wonder if perhaps the chlorine got over the level of 10 ppm and the aquatics director was practicing CYA tactics at denying this.
THis Y is so cheap I doubt we could talk them into installing ceiling fans to break up the supra-superficial chlorine layer. But do you think this would, indeed, help? Again, the CMU pool has such a system, and I am wondering if this is a new trend nationwide. If so, and anyone out there could point me in the direction of some documentation, perhaps I could present this to the powers that be at our Y.
Its not that bad in Arizona. But the masters team here has to practice outdoors in 30 degree weather in early mornings during the winter. Its high here at 2,000 feet and gets colder than California usually does in the weather but not as cold as back east. We could use an indoor pool like Belmont Shores in Southern California has them for their winter competitions. They just closed the year round pools I think there are 4 or 5 of them for three weeks in the winter and one of them doesn't close during that period. There are several summer pools. And most of the pools are from the 1970's to the late 1990's since Tucson growth is more recent. There are no 33 1/3 pools or 50 yard pools like you see back east or in some urban areas of the west coast.
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.
my teammates (who, except for 1 or 2, are all younger than me) all laugh when I ask to have the door opened...but I find that having fresh air helps me breathe. Often during a heavy set I find that my lungs/throat are bursting, and I don't think it's just from the workout - I don't seem to get that reaction when I'm at a similar heartrate while running.
