Testing Pool Water Free Chlorine

What exactly is free chlorine.

Testing pool water free chlorine.

Free chlorine is the amount of chlorine that has not yet combined with chlorinated water to sanitize contaminants. Methods to test free chlorine in the field in developing countries. Testing pool chlorine is an important part of keeping the pool water sanitized and clean and for health and safety of swimmers. Most people when they test their pool water chemistry they make sure they look at the chlorine level in the pool.

When chlorine is first added to pool or spa water it is called free chlorine this is pure chlorine that is available to disinfect the pool as free chlorine reacts with organic matter in the pool such as swimmer s sweat body oils or urine it chemically changes and becomes chloramine also called combined chlorine these chloramines create the odor most of us associate with chlorine. Having any combined chlorine in your pool water means that the free chlorine is currently breaking down some contaminants in the water. This type of chlorine is what you test for in your pool. In effect free chlorine is the amount of chlorine that is free to kill harmful microorganisms in your swimming pool s water.

There are three main methods to test free chlorine residual in drinking water in the field in developing countries. Test for free chlorine and residual chlorine. They often don t pay any attention to free chlorine at all. 1 to the column for testing chlorine.

Add five drops of solution no. Test kits often come in a small box that contains a guide to pool chemistry a testing tube to take the water sample a saturation index tool and reagents to add to the water to measure a chemical such as free chlorine. Combined available chlorine cac. 1 pool test kits 2 color wheel test kits and 3 digital colorimeters.

As a matter of fact some test kits do not even test for free chlorine. This is a normal reading. However if your free chlorine reading is different than your total chlorine reading then there s a problem. Proper pool water sanitation minimizes microorganism growth in the pool water.

This is not good for several reasons. A clean and fully disinfected pool will have combined chlorine content of zero. Free available chlorine fac. In this kit the chlorine indicator solution happens to be ortho tolidin.

Free chlorine is unused and available like invisible magic dust floating around just waiting to sanitize your swimming pool water. Free chlorine is the most important type of chlorine to monitor because it is. Some test kits use dissolving tablets rather than a liquid testing solution. Total chlorine is the amount of chlorine used or not in your water.

If you keep the right amount of free chlorine in your pool at all times you should rarely have combined chlorine in the pool water. This is the used up chlorine that has already done its job disinfecting your pool.