Chemical
treatment of your pool before winter is
essential to your pool. Most pool owners
sanitize their swimming pools with chemical
chlorine, which disolves into your swimming
pool water and combines with bacteria in
the water on a molecular level to kill off
harmful bacteria. Bromine can also be used
which can be safer for people with sensitive
skin, but is much more expensive to maintain.
The
difference between chlorine and bromine
is that once chlorine combines with bacteria,
most of the chlorine is used up and will
no longer work to sanitize your pool. This
combined chlorine is burned off along with
the bacteria by the weekly shock treatment,
and filtered out of the pool water. Bromine
combines with bacteria in pool water to
neutralize it in the same way that chlorine
does, however a good portion of the bromine
stays active even after combining with the
bacteria. The weekly shock treatment will
burn off the bacteria and harmful contaminants,
and leave the bromine behind in the pool
water to sanitize the pool again. The result
is that the volume of the chemical bromine
needed to sanitize a pool is less than the
volume of chlorine needed to do the same
job. |
