A Shocking Problem

If you have trouble maintaining a proper chlorine level after shocking your pool, it is possible that you have a build-up of chloramines in your pool water. You can eliminate this problem by super-chlorinating, using either liquid or granular shock.

Be advised, that your pool chemistry MUST BE BALANCED for this to work! Have your water tested and balanced at Pool Town before super-chlorinating your pool.

Chloramines, also known as combined chlorine, causes the nasty “chlorine odor” that you may sometimes smell in you pool. This smell usually makes you think that you have too much chlorine in your water when you really don’t. It may also contribute to cloudy water and algae growth by keeping the chlorine from being fully effective.

This is when performing a super-chlorination, or reaching a breakpoint level is necessary to properly break down these contaminates.

To determine how much shock to use to reach the breakpoint level, subtract the free chlorine amount from the total chlorine amount. The result is the combined chlorine level.

That total chlorine level is then used in a formula to determine how much shock is to be used. The usual rule of thumb is to use approximately 10 times more shock as normal.