Bob Lowry Explains Why Borates Matter

Borates get talked about like they’re a cure-all for pool problems, but that belief is exactly what gets pool owners and pool pros into trouble. We sit down with industry veteran Bob Lowry to separate hype from real pool water chemistry, and to explain what borates actually do when you add them to a swimming pool. If you’re chasing constant pH rise, fighting recurring algae, or trying to make a saltwater chlorine generator pool easier to manage, this conversation will give you a clearer, calmer plan.

We dig into the non-negotiables first: chlorine still has to be maintained correctly, and cyanuric acid (CYA) still has to be in a sensible range so chlorine isn’t getting crushed by sunlight. Bob explains why low CYA can backfire, why minimum chlorine matters, and how testing accuracy plays into real-world decisions. From there, we tackle the pH buffering tradeoff that surprises people most: borates can slow how fast pH climbs, but once pH finally gets high, it can take significantly more acid to pull it back down, which is why balance before you add.

We also get practical about products and process. Bob walks through why boric acid is the preferred borate source for most pools, how borax-based products can spike pH and total alkalinity, and how that swing can push LSI positive and cloud a pool by dropping calcium out of solution. You’ll hear realistic target ranges like 50 ppm borates, when some pros go higher in salt pools, plus what to do when borate testing options are limited and you need to rely on dosing math. If this helped, subscribe, share it with a pool pro friend, and leave us a quick review so more people can find the show.

We get real about what borates can and can’t do for your pool, and why “add borates and forget it” is the fastest way to get disappointed. We also break down the chemistry details that actually make borates useful, from pH buffering tradeoffs to the right borate level for saltwater pools.
• Borates as a helpful tool, not a magic bullet
• Why chlorine level still needs to track CYA and stay above minimums
• How borates slow pH rise but can require more acid later
• Why pH and alkalinity should be in range before adding borates
• Boric acid vs borax products and why borax can spike pH
• How cloudy water can happen from LSI and calcium precipitation
• Practical borate targets like 50 ppm and when 70 ppm can make sense
• Why saltwater chlorine generator pools often do better with higher CYA
• Testing options for borates and when dosing math is the workaround
• Why borates usually only drop with water loss and need small recharges
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Transcript

Why Borates Come Up So Often

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Welcome to the fullway cash. Google to hear Faularies Void. Edit tweet, I'm going to click on investment Found Lowry. And today I'm going to have an episode where we talk extensively about VorAids and using VoRAIDs in your pool. And are Voreates a way to solve all of your pool problems? Above law, we'll go over this and more. Are you a full service pro looking to take your business to the next level? Join the Fool Guide Coaching Program. Get expert advice, business tips, exclusive content, and get direct support. From me, I'm a 35-year veteran in the industry. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, I've got the tool to help you succeed. Learn more at SummingFoollearning.com. Someone use the Boraids to predate these podcasts at Voblari. I was using Boraids before they were popular. I was adding them in various ways with the 20mm Team Borax. You can get that at Target or Walmart or even your hardware store. Problem with the 20 mule team Borax is it does raise the pH significantly, so you have to lower that down. I've been adding Voids to pools lately with the Boraic Acid Powder, and I get mine from doThedeDiesel.com. And this is a powdered form that you can just broadcast into the pool. And I find this to be the most effective way to add void to the pool. Of course, Bore testing is something that is kind of lacking out there. The Spin Touch by Lamotte will do a Borid test. They also have Void test strips. So of course, you want to be able to test the void

Best Ways To Add Borates

SPEAKER_00 2:32

level in the pool before you add the Void, so when you add the Boids or when you recharge the Boids, that's an important factor. And there isn't a lot of testing methods out there, unfortunately, nor are there a lot of pool stores that carry a Void product. There are some manufactured products like BioGuard Optimizer, but you can buy the Voric acid powder online. Again, I get mine from doodadeesel.com. But Bob Lowry is going to tackle this for us here, and you're going to listen to Bob Lowry talk extensively about Bore Eats and how they can really help your pool care. So I'll let Bob Lowry take it from here. The Bore thing we talk about all the time, and I think one of the things that we have to emphasize is that adding Bore Eats is not a magic pill to your pool or magic bullet. So there's things you have to do still after you add the Borease to the water, like balance the water, check the LSI. And I think the impression that people get is that when they add the bore to the pool, they're done with their pool care at that point.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Well, and I I wrote a technical bulletin about that too, called don't just throw some borates in your pool and think your problems are over. And that's exactly the way I've thought about it is that you know people are saying, well, if puts borates in, then it won't have algae anymore. And that's it just isn't true. You have to still maintain the pool, and there's some things you need to do. And, you know, not the least of which is to keep the right amount of chlorine in the pool. You know, you need to keep the the chlorine level either at 5%. If you're going to use borate and you keep the level of chlorine in at 5% of CYA. So you need to do that. And with a minimum of two parts per million, because people say, well, you know, I'll just keep the chlorine level at or the CYA level at 20. Then I can keep uh you know one part per billion of chlorine in the pool, and that's not the way it works. You still need the uh the minimum still needs to be two.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

And I think you wrote about that as far as your cyanetic acid level. Didn't you write that you know, 30 parts per text, three parts per million, five, fifty parts per million protects?

SPEAKER_01 4:44

You need about what 10 parts

Why Borates Are Not Magic

SPEAKER_01 4:46

per million for each one part per million of chlorine that you're gonna keep in the pool. So if you're gonna put four parts or five parts per million of chlorine in the pool, you need 40 or 50 parts per million of chlorine.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Of cyaneric acid, you mean right?

SPEAKER_01 5:00

I mean of cyanuric acid.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Excuse me. And I've done tests before with my pool where I kept it at 10 or 20 parts per million, and it doesn't hold chlorine for nothing at that level.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

No, it doesn't, and and uh and actually the problem may be the test itself. The manufacturers that I checked with, 20 parts per million is about the bare minimum that they can accurately say it's okay. And even that level is plus or minus 20 percent. You know, when you think about it, you know, if you're measuring 15, it's 20% of that. It may be only 10 or 12 instead of 15, like you think it is. I think keeping a low level of cyanuric acid, the minimum level of cyanuric acid you ever need is 20 and probably 30. But if you're gonna put two to four parts per million of chlorine in the pool, you're gonna need 20 to 40 cyanuric acid.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

And so with the with the bories in the pool, this is a question I get asked a lot. Um, is it harder to lower the pH in alkalinity once you have the bories at 50 parts a million? Are you gonna use more acid to do that? Because it is a buffer.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Well, yes, actually, the pH won't go up as fast or as high, but once it does go high, it'll take you almost twice as much to get it back down. So it it technically doesn't save you any acid, but it does save you the time and the the height that it's gonna go up. That's the advantage to it, is that

Chlorine And CYA Minimums That Work

SPEAKER_01 6:36

instead of the pH going to eight in a week, the pH may go to eight in two weeks. So it doesn't stop it, it slows it down. But then once it gets up there, it's gonna take you twice as much acid as it normally takes to get it back down.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

And I think that's something that they should know about when they add the borate product is that it's a good idea to have the pH and alkalinity in range first, your target ranges first, before you add the borate, because then it's harder to lower it down afterwards. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Well, and understand this too. I I had a couple of calls this week from people saying, I've added a boring to my pool and it clouded my pool. What happened? And the answer is that there are three kinds of boring boring products you can add to the pool. The one that I recommend using is called boric acid. And when you add it to the pool, it will change the pH of the pool by 0.2 pH, which is barely enough to even test for. And the other thing it's going to do is lower alkalinity by about five parts per million, which is also not much that you can check on a test. So essentially, adding boric acid does nothing. When you add the other two products, which are sodium tetraborate pentahydrate and sodium tetraborate decahydrate, which is borax. When you add those two products to the pool, they will increase the pH of the pool to nine, and they will increase total alkalinity by 115 parts per million. To overcome that and get it back to where you started in a 10,000-gallon pool, you will need 2.2 gallons of acid. And so in a 15,000-gallon pool, you need almost three and a half gallons of acid after you've added either of those two products. And this is the reason, the only reason that I recommend boric boric acid. You put it in the pool, you're done. You put boride in the pool, now you've got to put acid in there, and you got to put, it's okay to put the acid in at the same time as the boring. So you don't you won't have to waste any time, but you're gonna need 3.3 gallons in a 15,000-gallon pool if you've added 50 parts per million of sodium tetraborate and hydrate.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Yeah, so the best method would be to have the pH and alkalinity within the target range and then use boric acid.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Right. And the reason that this guy had had a problem was that he had high pH and alkalinity and added the boring product on top of that, and he he literally precipitated out some calcium out of the pool. You know, because his that made his alkalinity about 220 and or 230, and his calcium was already about 400, and his pH was eight, you know, and and if you put that on on an LSI, you're gonna see it's you know like 1.2 or something. It's a big number. So the calcium actually came right out of the water.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

And so I think the key takeaway is once you add the bories to the pool, lowering the pH in alkalinity will take more muradic acid if that's the one you use, versus before, but then the rise in pH is not gonna be as dramatic. So if you had a pool, like my I'll use my pool as an example. I have a saltwater generator. Before I put the boreates in several years ago, it would be at eight eight all the time, almost every week, even after I added acid a couple days later it would be up at eight again. And now with the boris in there, I'm hovering around 7.6, 7.8 all the time. The magic level of Boreas, this goes back and forth, and I know I mentioned to you before that if you buy a pre-manufactured borie product, the manufacturer has on the label 35 parts per million is their level that they recommend. Um, but that's not the level that you recommend.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

No, and it's not the level that's that's very effective, to be honest with you. I think that 50 parts per million is the effective range. But there is a

pH Buffering And Acid Reality

SPEAKER_01 11:17

an obscure detail from EPA, and they ran a test and and did a bunch of things and produced a you know, 115-page report, and and ultimately it said that that they wouldn't have any problem with 30 parts per million with a uh no level of concern, a MOLA, of 150 percent. So when you take you know 30 parts per million times uh 1.5, you come up with 45. So EPA is saying that it's okay to have 45, but there isn't anything that's gonna measure 45. So they they agreed that 50 was okay. So 50 is what basically EPA is saying is okay. What and that level is still with a level of concern, which is different than the auto, a level of a concern of like uh six times. So you could actually keep a whole lot more in there and not have a problem, any serious problem. People sometimes read that NOLA method and come up and say, well, yeah, okay, then we shouldn't be recommending more than what EPA says. So from a legal standpoint, they're telling you that 35 parts per million is what you need in your pool because that's under the EPA maximum. So, you know, EPA also has a maximum of 100 parts per million on cyanric acid. And you see what we do to that. There is an obscure maximum level of borate in a pool of 50. And I sometimes, with a chlorine generator, recommend a level of 70. And in the original patent that John German got on using borate in water in 19, using it in pools in 1984, his patent says that borate at 50 bars per million is an effective algis test. And he actually went on farther and found that 200 barts per million of borate in the water is an algicide, but they didn't they didn't want to recommend 200 parts per making a borate in the pool as an algicide. So 50 is in there as a preventative, as an algest. At any rate, it's effective, and 50 is is an okay level. And the folks that that you and I both know over at Trouble Free Pools and Richard Fall

Boric Acid Vs Borax Clouding Risk

SPEAKER_01 14:07

have been recommending 50 parts per million of borage for probably almost 15 years. I think Ben Powell and those guys over there at Trouble Free Pools first started mentioning using borids and pools in 2007. That would be 14 years ago. Recommending myself for eight years in my publication.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

And you mentioned 70 parts per million in the saltwater generator pool. Well, what's the reasoning behind that level?

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Well, it's actually just field reports from guys that I I trust their knowledge. You know, the a couple of guys that have attended my classes have said, you know, I'm a service tech. I got 50% of my pools on on uh borates and and chlorine generators, and we're finding that 70 works better than 50. It's just field reports. And obviously, because of the patent and the the data that's behind the patent, because they did a test at a university using borates, and they they did find that at 200 it is an Al-Dicide. So the higher you go, obviously the better it is. It's just how much do you want to put in there until you think it's safe or whatever. So I think 70 is the maximum I would ever recommend, but I think 70 is a good thing for a chlorine generator pool. I also think that 70 parts per million of cyanuric acid is the right level for a chlorine generator pool, too. And the reason is that most of the time, when you have that chlorine generator set on maximum and it's pumping out chlorine, it's making more chlorine than there is cyanuric acid near the point of where it's being made in the cell. And so then you have chlorine that's unattached to cyanuric acid getting back into the pool. And it's being dispensed close to the surface of the pool where sunlight degradation is huge. At the surface of the pool, chlorine degradation is 90% in two hours. So you can lose a significant amount of chlorine if it's being unattached at the level at the at the surface of the pool if it's if you don't have enough cyanuric acid in the water. So we found that 70 is better for cyanuric acid with a chlorine generator pool.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

That's interesting. I you know, I think you mentioned that before, and explaining it like that again, I think it makes a lot of sense that the way it generates it is the reason why you want to have a higher cyaneric acid level.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

You want all of the chlorine that's being made to be attached to cyanuric acid before it gets to the pool.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

And then the borate tests, testing for borates is one of the probably the biggest hurdles that people face. Um currently, there's the test strips that you can get, and then there is the spin touch, they have a disc that does borates also. But besides that, I haven't heard of many other tests for borates in the water.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

There there isn't. There is a method that I researched and found, a method, but nobody ever commercialized it. There was a method that was created, but it wasn't very easy to do. And nobody thought that that they needed borate done that much, so it didn't become a priority with any of the test

Target Borate Levels And EPA Limits

SPEAKER_01 17:41

companies. But the technology for making a test strip was there, and it's easier to make the strip now because practically every manufacturer already makes a strip.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

And then mathematically, though, you can pretty much calculate how much borate's in the water based on the gallons of the pool and how much you add. Is that kind of correct?

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Yeah, that's you know, we that's how we recommend adding it, is you know, we we list the amount of ounces you need for the part per million of borate that you want in the pool. You know, it's like 7.6 uh parts per million of uh ounces for for each one part per million of borate in 10,000 gallons. So you just multiply 7.6 times 50, and that gives you the parts per uh the amount you need in a 10,000 gallon pool. And then you can multiply that times whatever gallons you have in your pool. So the numbers are pretty easy to come up with. You need nine ounces for sodium tetraborate an hydrate and 11 ounces for for the decahydrate.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

So it's and how do you remember all this stuff off the top of your head? Because you're not gonna need those right now.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

My mind works like a computer. Once the information goes in, it's it stays there. It's I don't have an idactic memory, but I I think it's probably close. I just remember things like that because I remember numbers and amounts, and you know, they just float around for me.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

I wonder if you go to Vegas, you can count cards at blackjack.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

You know, I looked into doing that once. But but then they, I don't know, I guess with facial recognition, they can see your eyes rolling back and show that you're counting something.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Yeah, like the MIT guys that had the little calculator in their shoe, you know, they were able to count the cards. Um, you do it all in your head, which is pretty amazing. I think one thing we should emphasize too is that once you add the bories to the pool, it's kind of like cyaneric acid where it doesn't evaporate out of there or salt when you add the salt to the pool. And so the following season, you don't need to add, you know, 20 or 30 pounds of the boric acid again because most of that should still be in the water, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Yeah, it only, as I said before, it only reduces when there's a water loss. So it only reduces when you've got a leak,

Salt Pools Need Higher CYA

SPEAKER_01 20:07

splice out, drag out, you know, something like that, because it doesn't evaporate, so it stays there. So it may go down five or ten ppm over a whole season.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Which is not a lot because then you can just recharge it the following season. And I think I tell Pool Pros those all the time when you when you sell this to your customers, make sure you let them know that this is not a yearly thing that's gonna have to be added every year. In most cases, you just have to add a maintenance dose. So at that point, it's an easy sell once you tell the customer that it's not a yearly kind of thing. So I'm all for Borease. I think that you know, although they're not a magic pill, not you know, they're not magic in any way.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

And people ask me, well, what does it do? And basically it does two things it prevents algae and it keeps the pH from going up so fast and so high. And that's all it does. And if you're expecting it to do more, it doesn't do anything.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

I guess one last thing it can do is add a little sparkle to the water.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

It it does do that. We have reports of people saying the water feels silkier, it sparkles more, it looks bluer. I've got a video that John Stankis

Testing Dosing And Seasonal Top Off

SPEAKER_01 21:18

did that shows him putting the bore it in the pool, and on his video, you can see the water look different.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

If you're looking for more podcasts, you can go to my website, swingforlearning.com, on the banner, on the there's a podcast icon. Click on that. It'll be over 1900 podcasts for you to download and listen at your leisure. And if you're interested in the coaching program there, can learn more at poolguetcoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have a good stay week, and God bless.