According to data collected in the U.S. and analyzed by the pool water quality management company, iopool, through its proprietary sensor, 77 per cent of pools are not properly disinfected per the initial sensor measurement.
The issue of pool water quality is not limited to esthetic concerns or the comfort of swimmers; it is also a public health concern. Poorly maintained water can become a breeding ground for bacteria and algae, which are known health hazards. For example, the California Department of Public Health Division of Communicable Disease Control (DCDC) recently issued an alert about neglected pools as vectors for the West Nile Virus (WNV). Without going as far as negligence, even minor maintenance issues can sometimes lead to significant imbalances.
“Even if the water looks blue and crystal clear, it doesn’t mean everything is fine,” says Romain Trigaux, chief operating officer (COO) at iopool. “Often, pool users only worry about maintenance when the water turns green, but the problem could have been detected earlier.”
The primary cause of this lack of disinfection is improper pH balance, which accounts precisely for 58 per cent of cases. However, another sometimes lesser-known cause is overstabilization, which accounts for 24 per cent of cases of poor disinfection.
“To improve the quality of slightly green water, or just to be on the safe side, pool owners often instinctively add chlorine, sometimes a bit blindly,” says Trigaux. “The problem is that most chlorine tablets found in stores are stabilized chlorine tablets. So, the more chlorine you add, the more stabilizer you add. It’s necessary and useful to ensure that chlorine doesn’t evaporate too quickly under the UV rays. But in excessive amounts, stabilizer prevents chlorine from working properly.”
Ultimately, adding chlorine causes the opposite effect, and the pool turns green despite a high chlorine level. Adding chlorine without stabilizer is what the iopool application recommends to pool owners in such situations.
“It is very important to identify this overstabilization on time to adjust the treatment as soon as possible. The risk, if you wait too long, is that the water turns green. At that point, it’s already too late, and the pool owner will have no choice but to drain and refill the pool.”
After using the iopool sensor, the overall rate of improper disinfection drops from 77 per cent (average sensor first measures) to 32 per cent (average sensor latest measures).
