Andrea Unfiltered: The Liver of the Pool (Chemistry That Actually Matters)

In this episode of Talking Pools Podcast, Andrea wraps up her multi-part deep dive into pool chemistry with a no-BS breakdown of what actually matters when it comes to testing, dosing, and not screwing it all up.

And yes… she’s cooking chicken while recording.

🔍 What This Episode Covers

This isn’t textbook chemistry.
 This is real-world, boots-on-the-ground pool service knowledge—the stuff that actually saves you from making expensive mistakes.

📊 Testing Frequency (What You Should Actually Be Doing)

Andrea breaks down what needs to be tested—and how often:

• Weekly: Free chlorine, combined chlorine, pH, total alkalinity 
• Bi-weekly (max): Total alkalinity (don’t push it further) 
• Monthly: Cyanuric acid, calcium hardness, salt 
• As needed: Phosphates, metals, TDS 

And one big reminder:

If you’re not testing combined chlorine… you’re missing half the story. 

⚠️ Test Kit Lies (Yes, They Lie)

Ever get a reading that makes zero sense?

It might not be you.

This episode dives into:

• DPD bleaching → false zero chlorine readings 
• MPS interference → false high readings 
• High chlorine messing with pH tests
• Metals affecting calcium hardness results

👉 Translation:
 Your test results can absolutely betray you if you don’t know what you’re looking at.

🧠 The Dilution Trick (That Most Techs Don’t Use)

When your test maxes out…

You don’t guess.

You dilute.

Andrea explains:

•  How to properly dilute samples 
•  When to multiply results 
•  Why guessing high readings is a mistake 

Including real-world examples of CYA levels hitting 300+ ppm in Florida.

💣 Chemical Dosing (Where People Go Off the Rails)

This is where things get dangerous—and expensive.

Andrea walks through:

•  Proper dosing based on 10,000 gallons 
•  Why dumping “a gallon of acid” is a terrible idea 
•  How to actually adjust pH and alkalinity correctly 

And the reality:

Most chemical mistakes aren’t accidents… they’re impatience.

⚙️ Feeders, Automation & Salt Systems

From manual dosing to full automation, this episode covers:

•  Stenner pumps & peristaltic systems 
•  Tab feeders vs erosion feeders 
•  Ozone, UV, and gas systems 
•  Salt cells and how they actually generate chlorine 

Including a key reminder:

👉 Salt is not the sanitizer
 👉 The cell produces chlorine gas → which becomes hypochlorous acid 

🔥 The Real Problem with the Industry

Andrea calls out a growing issue:

Conflicting information between:

•  CPO materials 
•  Manufacturers 
•  Field experience 

And the result?

👉 Confused techs
 👉 Bad chemistry decisions
 👉 Arguments in comment sections

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Carbonate alkalinity is of course, what is it? It's one third of the stabilizer, cyanuric acid, subtracted from the total alkalinity because total alkalinity, the word total, encompasses, it includes cyanurates, carbonates, bicarbonates, hydroxides. They're like it's like the seven dwarfs over here with the total alkalinity. So check your carbon al carbonate alkalinity just as often as you test total alkalinity, especially if you keep a high stabilizer level. Thought to myself as I hit the record button, wow, something smells really good. What is somebody cooking? It's literally me. I'm literally cooking chicken. And I just started recording and I remembered it. So I'm gonna have to get up and go check it in a second. Hello everyone! Welcome to Talking Pools Show. It's me, I'm Andrea. I am unfiltered, apparently. That's what I'm calling myself. And thank you for joining me. Did I say this was Talking Pools? I think I did. Thank you for joining me on this fine, fine Tuesday. First of all, I'm gonna thank you for listening to my previous two episodes, which are part one and part two of the hopefully only part three that I'm about to talk about. But I just wanted to like apologize for the sound quality. I forgot to check my microphone to make sure that it was this microphone recording my voice, and it was not. It was my laptop microphone. So I did sound like I was talking into a toilet. Well, at least that's what I thought I sounded like before I had to like enhance, enhance the the audio. Okay, enough of that. Now, last couple weeks, we've been talking about chemistry and everything chemistry related, including the chemicals. So we talked about, let's see, we talked about drop size because I said that a hundred times when I went to listen to it back again. I'm sorry. Um, we talked about actual chlorine and all the different chemicals, pH, all those things. I talked about salt systems and why, you know what? I'm glad I remembered that because I did want to address something. Maybe I'll just go ahead and do it now. So I stated correctly that the pH in salt pools raises or is typically very high because of the whole electrolysis process itself, in which there's aeration and there is heat generated. But I was informed by several different salt cell manufacturers that sodium hydroxide is a byproduct in the chlorine generation process, the electrolysis process, and that this raises the pH. Also, both of those things are true. The information that I got came out directly out of the CPO book, and but let's agree on, guys. Let's get everybody together and sit down in a room and say definitively, these are the actual reasons instead of putting it in one book and then you know the manufacturer. It's it's just real com it gets real confusing and it gets really frustrating. So I think salt cell manufacturers, if you're listening, CPO people, if you're listening, let's all let's all get together and let's, you know, let's all let's all match what we say to each other, and then that way we won't have people arguing with me in my comments about it. I appreciate ya. Okay, so let's get on to part three. Hopefully not part four, but you never know what's gonna happen with me talking to myself over here. Um, okay, so I told you last week that I would be talking about testing frequency and some other things, interferences. I will be honest with you, I wrote this outline more than a month ago, so I kind of really can't remember everything that's in here. So let's just go on this journey together, shall we?

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Honoring those who don't just have the answers, but teach others how to find them. If someone helped shape your path in this industry, now is the time to return the favor. Visit cpoclass.com. Click on the Talking Pools Podcast Mentor Award tab, and submit your mentor's name up until May 15th, 2026, because behind every Great Pool professional, there's someone who showed them how to think.com.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Okay, so it's for testing frequency. Um, I do get this question quite a bit. Well, I see it quite a bit, even you know, just from new techs, not even from like homeowners or whatever. So your weekly tests should include chlorine, which if you remember from last week, we want to be testing combined chlorine and free chlorine regularly, pH, and total alkalinity. Now, you can get away with testing total alkalinity every other week, but I would not go longer than that. That is my personal recommendation. I should write my own pool book. Um, now also do not forget about total alkalinity. I mean, I'm sorry, do not forget about carbonate alkalinity. Okay, like Dr. Dre, do not forget about either of them. Carbonate alkalinity is of course, what is it? It's one-third of the stabilizer, cyanuric acid, subtracted from the total alkalinity because total alkalinity, the word total, encompasses it includes cyanurates, carbonates, bicarbonates, hydroxides. They're like, it's like the seven dwarves over here with the total alkalinity. So check your carbon al carbonate alkalinity just as often as you test total alkalinity, especially if you keep a high stabilizer level. I do not, but I still keep an eye on my total or the carbonate. I keep saying total, but I mean carbonate. Now, oopsies. In most state and local codes, commercial pools must be tested for chlorine and pH daily at a minimum, some aquatic facilities. These places require hourly testing, and this is important. So the testing and the logging can be done by any person, but only a certified pool operator can make chemical adjustments. So I see that question asked a lot, and I know it is specific in Florida, um, other states. Let me know what your codes are. I'm pretty sure it's all the same for that specific thing where anybody can test it, and for commercial pools, it has to be done every single day. I think the hourly depends just on like bather load and size of pool. I might be wrong on that too. Let me know. Stabilizer or CYA, some of you call it, cyanuric acid. So that and calcium hardness should be tested monthly. You know, if you need to test it more often, you test it more often. If stabilized chlorine is used, cyanuric acid should be tested more frequently. And then also you want to be watching that carbonate alkalinity. Salt should be tested monthly, more frequently if needed. The make sure the levels match. So make sure it's like, I guess, calibrated or whatever. With salt systems, compare the system's reading to something else, whether it be a test strip or the drop tests. Just make sure it's accurate, you know, within range so that you're not relying on something, maybe the salt sensor is bad or something like that, or the flow sensor or whatever. I've had I've checked salt systems at like 6,000 parts per million as salt before because the tech was just, you know, it said add salt, it said low salt, and they just kept adding salt, kept adding salt, and didn't even question like, you know, maybe something's wrong with the thing, or conversely, it's telling you it has salt and it doesn't, and they're wondering why it gets algae. Salt should be tested monthly. Phosphates if you need to, totally if you need to. Phosphates, metals, and total dissolved solids when necessary. Some people test these more frequently, and if you want to, that is totally fine with me. I'm not gonna tell you you can't test your pool for what you want when you want to test it. But what I will say is this if you are going to test for phosphates, please do not just dump in a little bit of phosphate remover, see that it gets cloudy, and go, yep, I got phosphates, and dump the rest in. Just please do not do that. Get yourself a phosphate test kit. You will save money on phosphate remover and you will thank me for that. And then you can send me the difference. I will accept checks and actually no, I accept cash app and Venmo. Okay, no checks. Test interferences. This one is kind of fun because you see something weird going on with your test and you're like, oh, what did I do wrong? Maybe it wasn't you. So what happens with the DPD and the FAS DPD? You will get bleaching from very high chlorine levels. So you'll get a false zero or like a false low reading. They call it flash out. So if you s if you add your reagents that are supposed to turn pink and they turn pink for a second and then all of a sudden they're clear again, or if it slowly fades back to clear after having been pink, that is usually an indication of an extremely high chlorine level, especially if that happens with the FASDPD. That means it's over 30. So the ble that that's the bleaching, is there's just no color. So people don't see the flash of pink sometimes and think that they have a zero chlorine reading and just keep on adding more. And then you end up with chlorine at 60 parts per million. I've experienced this myself. Another one, we have combined chlorine levels can give you false DPD and FAS DPD readings. This is another reason why it's really important to check these things. Cassium monopersulfate, or as some people call it, non-chlorine. I hate saying that word so much. I hate it, but that's what it's called. This can oxidize the DPD number three reagent in the FAS DPD test, which is going to interfere with the results. It'll give you a false high. Um, this interference needs to be eliminated before testing. Consult your test kit instructions on how to remove this interference. I know Wayne, I've read Wayne's comments before on how to do it, but I just cannot remember. And I didn't ask him before I wrote this out wine. So tag Wayne and ask him. Tell him I sent you. So for a false pH reading, get if the chlorine is very, very high, you will get a false pH. And what happens is it turns actual purple. And it I don't mean like like a really dark red, like if you have like an 8.0 or higher, you know how it's just like a deep magenta-ish or like a fuchsia, I guess. Those are two different colors, I know. This is actually blue, like the color of this lighter blue, like almost like the calcium test, but like darker. Um, this is called chlorophenol red, and the same thing happens with very high bromine, and then you get bromophenol blue. I've never actually had the chlorophenol red before. I thought I was getting that, I thought I was experiencing it. And then I asked Ms. Mr. Rudy Stankowitz pool man, and he showed me what it actually looks like. And so if it's if it looks like it's the same color, just darker as the normal pH test, then it's not that's it's not that. But if it looks blue, then it's that. So moving on, we have you can get a false total alkalinity reading. Actually, well, no, I should see I wrote false. Not necessarily false, but you get an interference. You have bleaching of the indicator from very high chlorine, and so the the indicator turns blue instead of turning green, and then the endpoint is yellow instead of red. So you go from instead of green to red, you go from blue to yellow. Doesn't really affect the endpoint. Taylor mentions this that it doesn't affect the endpoint, and you can just test it like that. I've never had any weird results from it. I just ignore it and just test it like normal. And I've always had, you know, I've never had any issues from it. If you want, you can add one extra drop of number seven, which is sodium thiosulfate, which is chlorine neutralizer. Do not add more than one drop though, because it does change the pH of the test sample. So if it get if it's higher than that, you need to do a dilution test. Calcium hardness interferences. If there is copper or iron present in the water, determining the titration point, the endpoint, can be difficult. You might see either that the color stays the same after adding the indicator, or that the endpoint color becomes purple instead of blue. It says that there may be a normal color change at first, then the transition does not complete properly. So that would be a problem. So during titration, if you if you see small floating purple dots or clumps, they look like little tiny circles, these may appear in the sample, and this indicates magnesium hydroxide is present and it does not affect the endpoint. It the color stays the same. You just have these little floating suspended purplish bubbles in there, and this is magnesium hydroxide, or it could also be just like a really super duper extra high pH. So, with that first reagent, the 20 drops of number 10 that you're adding, that is raising the pH. Magnesium hydroxide in the calcium hardness, right? Let's move on from that. I already explained it. False cyaneic acid. Now, it's a little bit difficult because there's lots of different ways to do this test, but the results of the test might be affected by lighting conditions and by your individual abilities, your eyesight. All right. So like different people might get different readings because one person might not see as clearly. You have okay, so if the oops, hold on. If the cyanuric acid test result is 100 parts per million or higher, well, I guess you if it yeah, if it's higher, it doesn't have the numbers on there, so you wouldn't really know. And I'm talking about a Taylor test block. You need to dilute the sample and retest. If the I'm sorry, I just read that. When if you're using test strips, high pH levels will cause inaccurate cyanuric acid readings. It says so on the bottle. I did not make that up. You can look for yourself if you need to use glasses because it's very tiny. I promise you it's there though. Now you may be asking, Andrea, how do I dilute my how do I dilute the sample? How do I do this? What's this method? What is it? I have the answer for you. And if you already knew, thank you for being patient and let me explain it to the class. Whenever you have a reading at the very top of the color comparator, the actual chemical level may be higher than what it can measure. So, like I said before, if your pH test is super duper dark and much darker than your test block, it doesn't mean it's like 8.2 or 8.4 because the pH scale does not work that way. It's gonna look, it's gonna be, it's just still at 8.0 because that's that's as high as it can go. So if it were 8.4, 8. you know, 7 or whatever, 14, it's still just gonna look like 8.0 because that's as that's all it can test. When you when you have the high chlorine, that's when it turns the blue color. It's not like you know, a higher pH level. And if the color is weird and it doesn't match, there was some kind of other interference in there, and just do the test over again. I derailed myself. I'm talking about the dilution test. Again, let's go back to the cyanuric acid. If you're above that line where it says 100 parts per million, you can't just be like, oh, it's you know, this much over it, it's like 150, or like where the word CYA is is a little bit underneath that 100. It's like you can't just be like, oh, that's 200. You have to dilute the water sample. In the sample dilution method, the sample is prepared by mixing half pool water and half distilled water, or water that doesn't have the chemical in it that you're testing for. So usually if you're testing for cyanuric acid, you can usually just use like tap water from the hose or whatever, because fresh water doesn't have cyanuric acid in it. But if you're like diluting for chlorine or if you're diluting for any of the other tests, then you need to use you need to use distilled water. So you do half half pool water, half distilled water, you do the test as normal, you follow the directions, you get your reading, you do your whole endpoint, whichever test you're doing, and then you multiply the result by two. You could do a third one to three dilution, I guess it would be. So you have one third pool water and two-thirds distilled water, and the final reading would be multiplied by three. And that is how I have gotten cyaneric acid readings of 350. In Florida, it's not so crazy. It only took like a month or two to get that down to a decent level, just letting the rain water do its job. So dilution can be used with quantitative tests, which are tests that are designed to measure the actual amount of a substance in a water sample. And this method requires adding water that does not contain the chemical being tested. As I said, for instance, pH cannot be measured using dilution because added water brings in its own pH, which changes the sample and makes the result inaccurate. Quantitative tests produce a measurable value that can be counted or calculated. In contrast, qualitative tests describe characteristics or conditions of the water, such as the presence of algae or the level of turbidity, rather than giving a numeric measurement. Because of this, qualitative observations are not determined using the dilution method. So you can't look at it and see that it has algae and then dilute it and then be like, okay, yeah. No, that's that's not it. All right, now we have balancing chemistry, and I'm just gonna give you some general tips. I'm not gonna go into like a whole bunch of crazy stuff except for maybe a little bit later on, apparently, because now I'm looking down. Anyway, balancing chemistry, you have okay, so you have your instructions. Always, always follow the instructions, obviously. And most of these instructions are based on 10,000 gallons of water. Some of them give you a little chart, some of them don't specify, and in that case, you just go with 10,000 gallons. If you do not know how to find the volume of the pool, you can nowadays you can use apps and you can like use your phone. Some some people like go on Google and do it and like Google Earth and look at the pool. But the basic formula for finding the volume of the pool is length times width times average depth times 7.5. And it is possible to use a chemical dose to determine the pool volume, but that is too much math for me to tell you about now. I suggest you go back and listen to, I think Wayne and Steve just did an episode on this, if I remember correctly, like within the last couple of weeks. And then Rudy and I did an episode way, way back on this. You know, I'm not good at math, but if you are, I'm sure you could probably figure it out. It's kind of cool to do it with the chemical dose. Um, and then just like a little tidbit, a little a little tip from me is that no one is ever really gonna know the exact volume. I mean, I guess unless you built the pool and then you measured the exact amount that you put in or something. I don't know. Seriously though, no one's ever gonna know because you know, we don't fill the pools all the way up. So just because the pool is built to want a specific volume doesn't mean that that's the exact amount of water that's in there because there's also that little bit of space between, you know, the skimmer halfway up the skimmer opening and all the way up to the coping. I don't know if they include that in the volume, but that's my point. Like, so you're just everything is just an estimate anyway. And plus when you've been doing it for a really long time and you've gotten to know what the volume looks like, you can kind of see, you can you can kind of tell just just looking at it. So, which I'll just give you an example. My commercial pool was actually I found the volume on the the health department's website, which also you should never really trust that either. Live since I've been doing it for a year and a half, and I've been doing great. Wait.

SPEAKER_03 23:51

What a motherfucker!

SPEAKER_01 23:57

This is a CPO cheat sheet class. Okay, so we have chemical doses based on 10,000 gallons. Get your pencils ready. Here we go. So for chlorine for your 12% sodium hypochlorite, it is 10.7 fluid ounces, gives you one part per million in 10,000 gallons. For calcium hypochlorite, 67% for two ounces, uh gets you one part per million. There is other percentages of calcium hypochlorite available. I am doing this four time. Okay. Plus it's harder to get the higher percentage anyway. So for trichlor, one and a half ounces gives you one part per million. For dichlor, if you get the 56%, 2.4 ounces gets you one part per million. Um if you want to neutralize chlorine, you use sodium thiosulfate. 2.6 ounces neutralizes one part per million of chlorine in 10,000 gallons. Side note here, sodium bromide should not be used to lower free chlorine. This is not neutralizing the free chlorine level. You are simply converting it to bromine. Okay, so I mean it's getting rid of it on your test, but you're actually just like creating a bromine bank essentially. Different episode. So for pH, you want to use the acid demand reagent to determine the dosing. Manufacturers have instructions on this for your specific test kit. There's usually a little chart. Good luck if you're only using strips. Just kidding. I love my strippers. Okay, I gotta give you guys crap because you guys give everybody else crap. Many test kit manufacturers provide a simple way to determine how much chemical should be added to correct an improper pH level. There are two additional reagents in the drop test kit that are called base demand reagent and acid demand reagent. If the initial pH test shows the pH is higher than the desired level, the acid demand reagent is added one drop at a time until the sample color matches the target pH on the comparator scale. If the initial test shows the pH is lower than desired, the base demand reagent is added drop by drop until the sample color matches the desired pH on the comparator. By counting the number of drops used and referring to the manufacturer's reference chart, the correct amount of pH adjusting chemical can then be determined. And then you get to determine which pH reducing chemical you want to use. I like muriatic acid. Total alkalinity. To increase, you can use sodium bicarb, and for that you would want 1.4 pounds equals 10 parts per million. You can use soda ash, which is sodium carbonate. That is 14 ounces equals 10 parts per million. And now this is the fun one because I think people go nuts with this. To decrease total alkalinity, it takes 26 fluid ounces of muatic acid at 31.4% to lower 10 parts per million. A half a gallon of muatic acid lowers it by 50. So I have come across situations where people have been like, oh, I added a whole gallon of acid. Like you just lowered the pH by a, or I mean the alkalinity by 100 if it was 10,000 gallons. So like I hope it was a bigger pool, and I also hope that the total alkalinity was 400 before you before you did that. Calcium hardness for 77% calcium chloride. You want 1.2 pounds for 10 parts per million. So 1.2 pounds raises 10 parts per million. I said it a little stupid, sorry. Cyanuric acid, 13 ounces gives you 10 parts per million increase. And there you go. So that's your basic chemical doses. Okay, so chemical feed and control. You have the manual addition of chemicals. This is accepted for residential pools. The manual addition of chemicals in commercial pools is only acceptable when the pool or spa is closed to users and sufficient time is given to allow the chemicals to circulate before reopening the pool. Chemicals should be introduced into the system downstream from all equipment. Cyanuric acid, clarifiers, flock, and DE powder are exceptions to this and are usually added through the skimmer or in the collection tanks. Alright, basic rules for adding chemicals. I'm gonna go through these pretty quickly because I feel like if you are listening to this, you probably already know it. And if you do, make sure you tell somebody else who doesn't know. Because Lord knows there are plenty of these. Okay, ready go. Always follow the label instructions. Never add water to chemicals, always add chemicals to water. Never mix any chemicals, even if you think they are the same chemical. Never siphon chemicals by mouth. Looking at you, Sammy. Never flush excess chemicals into any sewer line. Always use clean scoops or dippers. Never use the same scoop for different chemicals. Always keep chemicals in their original containers. Always replace chemical container covers in a proper manner. Always clean up spills immediately. Empty chemical containers or packaging should be discarded properly. And now we have our methods for adding chemicals to pool water. We never add pool water to chemicals, okay? We have broadcasting. This involves spreading the chemical across the water surface as easily as possible. You can pick it up with your hands. With gloves, do not be picking up chemicals with your bare hands, people. I only touch bicarb. You've never seen me touch any other chemical. Listen, with gloves, you can pick it up and you can throw it carefully across the surface of the water. Do not throw it into plants or on the sides of houses or whatever. You've never seen me do that either. Or it can be poured evenly into the water in front of the returns, and then you brush it. As I said, never into the wind, never around people, buildings, landscaping. You don't want to destroy stuff, okay? You can dilute the chemicals, which is how I take care how I do um this is how I do my commercial pool. I put the chemicals in the tanks, fill the tanks with water. First, chemicals are added to water in a bucket or large tank and then added to the pool either manually or a controller fed system. My commercial pool has a stunner and a roller chem. I do not have automation, it's just mechanical feeders. Mechanical f mechanical feeder systems. I segue myself like so well, and I don't even realize that I'm doing it. Mechanical feeder systems deliver pool chemicals in a controlled way. Since pool chemicals come in gas, liquid, or solid form, there are mechanical feeder designs made to handle each type. So you have liquid liquid solution feeders. These are what I just said, these are your your stenners and your rollochems. These use a positive displacement pump, or I'm sorry, either a peristaltic pump, which uses a squeeze tube, or a diaphragm, which uses check valves. Peristaltic or diaphragm. So those are the two positive displacement pumps. Steners are peristaltic pumps as well as rolochems. I have never dealt with a diaphragm pump. Liquid chemicals are diluted in a tank with water and fed into the pool. Dry chemicals are diluted in tanks with water to form a slurry and then fed into the pool. Your dry chemical feeders, so your dry chemicals come as granular granules or tablets in a variety of shapes and sizes. Erosion feeders work by directing a stream of water over the dry chemical, which gradually wears it down and dissolves it. This is your tabbed feeder. Mechanical dry feeders operate differently using a mechanical gate or rotating screw to move measured amounts of granules into a water stream where they dissolve before being delivered into the pool. There's three different types of erosion feeders. You have pressure erosion, pressure differential erosion, and spray erosion. And then we have gas feeders. There are three commonly used types of gas. You have chlorine gas, carbon dioxide gas, which is used to lower pH, and you have ozone generators, which are corona discharge ozonators or UV ozone ozonators. You also have ultraviolet uh radiation. Then we have chlorine generators. You have inline, where this is your typical salt system that we're all used to. So you have the where the salt is added to the pool. Different manufacturers of salt systems require different levels of salt concentrations, but usually 3,000, 3,500 parts per million is the standard. Then I had a newer Pentair system that it said that the minimum it needed was 4,500 parts per million. So always check because that lady was upset that her salt cell wasn't working. Well, I mean, I had a problem anyway, but whatever. The salt level wasn't high enough. The salt itself is not the disinfectant. The pool circulation system pushes the water through the inline unit, which is installed in the plumbing. The inline unit is the cell. Inside the cell, we have layers of plates coated in ruthenium that receive an electrical charge from the generator's power supply. As the water passes through, these charged plates convert the dissolved salt into free chlorine through electrolysis. I already talked about what happens during the electrolysis process. I'm going to skip that bullet point. The cell produces chlorine gas, which everybody loved me saying on the internet. This then dissolves into the water and releases hypochlorous acid. The inline chlorine generation is nearly self-sustaining. The chlorine produced by the system eventually converts back into salt and water, allowing it to be regenerated into chlorine again through the process. However, additional salt must be occasionally added to make up for losses caused by backwashing, rainfall, splash out, and water carried away by swimmers. Then you have the brine tank generators, which are extremely not common to me, especially, but I did see one at one of the pool shows and it was fairly interesting, and Rudy tried to break it. Ask him that story. It's hilarious. So in the brine generation method, sodium chlorite is dissolved in water at high concentration high concentration to form a solution known as brine. I wonder if you could do a turkey in there. I'll have to ask him. The brine is then passed through an electrolytic cell where the process produces free chlorine. That was weird to read. Free chlorine at concentrations typically between 4,000 and 8,000 parts per million. Instead, the free chlorine solution that is produced is collected and stored in a separate tank, which is the thing that Rudy tried to break. Many of those systems use chemical sensors and controllers to monitor the pool's water chemistry. When needed, the controller activates a pump to deliver disinfectant from the storage tank and then shuts the pump off once the proper level has been reached. And then we have feeder automation, which, as I said, I don't currently have on my commercial pool now. I have dealt with um Hayward Systems and CES, I believe it is the brand. They're out of uh Florida. So you have two chemical conditions in water that tend to change quickly, which we know. These are pH and the disinfectant level. And this is especially true, and and most of this is kind of more for commercial. Well, I wouldn't say most of it, but some of it is more like commercial focused, especially with the automation. Residential pools typically tend to not have automation unless it's a salt cell. So anyway, maintaining proper chemistry becomes more challenging as the pool size decreases, the bather load increases, or the intensity of sunlight becomes greater. So we're talking about spas and bigger commercial pools here. So you have several states that require spas to be equipped with some type of automatic chemical control system to regulate both pH and disinfectant levels. Florida's one of those states, spas require automation. Pools do not, which is why I don't have it, because I don't have a spa. Chemical probes and controllers help ensure that disinfectant is not fed in amounts that are too low or too high. They also allow the system to react quickly to changes in water conditions by adding chemicals whenever they are needed, except that in my experience, they just shut off when the chemicals are off. They definitely don't when the pH is high, it shuts off. It definitely doesn't start adding more acid. But I think it's because there's supposed to be a person that assesses the situation. I I believe it's maybe like a fail-safe. Let me know. But in automated controllers, the chemical factor or parameter to be controlled is measured. This is done using a sensor known as a probe. The probe sends signals to a controller, which then operates the feeders that add sanitizer and pH adjusting chemicals to the water. A chemical controller operates using a microprocessor. Some units are fairly simple and designed to only regulate pH and disinfectant levels. There's a lot more advanced ones, especially nowadays. Um especially nowadays. Back in my day, we only had dura glass pumps and intermatic timers. Excuse me. These newer features may include remote communication, data logging, and the ability to monitor and control additional water chemistry factors. In some cases, a single controller can manage multiple pools or spas. All chemical feed systems, whether manual or automatic, must be designed to shut off if water circulation to the pool or spa stop. Most controller manufacturers provide a range of available alarm options, which are convenient for everyone. Just of course I'm kidding. They're very convenient and totally not annoying. So you have an alarm if, I'm just gonna go through this list real quick, okay? So here's what triggers alarms. Chemical supply that empty, chemical being fed for extended time, pH too high and not correcting with chemical feed, pH too low and not correcting with chemical feed, disinfectant too high, disinfectant too low, low circulation flow to the probes or pool. Operators can receive alerts about problems whether they are on site at the pool or located far away. Some modern systems even connect to online platforms. Imagine that, allowing the pool to be monitored and controlled remotely. Did can you tell I wrote this? I got this info from an old book. Okay, that is quite literally everything you need to know about the liver of the pool, which is the chemicals and the feeder systems. So thank you everyone for listening to me. Um I actually I feel like I just feel like I've been talking about chemicals for such a long time, for the entire time that I've been alive, actually. So if you want to continue the conversation with me, you can email me at andrea.talkingpools at gmail.com. You can also just email Rudy at talkingpools at gmail.com, or you can hit me up on the socials. If you're listening to this, you probably already know who I am. If not, that's you just find me with my name. Or Adventures of the Pool Girl on Instagram. I have a Facebook page by that name, and then I am Andrea PoolPro on TikTok. And then if you're not already following the Talking Pools podcast, I don't know why you're not, you should go do that so that you can keep getting episodes like mine and all of the other wonderful, beautiful, lovely, well spoken, smart hosts that talk about other pool stuff every single day, except Sunday. So that's it. Um just share it. Share it, like it, follow it, do all that. And that's it. I hope everybody has a great Easter and upcoming summer season. That's it. Bye.