Borate for Swimming Pool

[sms]

The pool store I go to is always pushing "PoolProof" which is basically borate dissolved in a liquid. I was reading and it seems to confirm the benefits of borate.

Of course anything sold for a pool has an enormous mark-up but borate can be purchased at Walmart as 20 Mule Team Borax. I would need about 30 boxes (76 ounces each, $4) and about eight gallons of acid (about $5 each) to bring the Borate level up to 50ppm and the ph back down. To use PoolProof would cost me about $300 if no acid was necessary (supposedly PoolProof liquid is ph neutral) while pure borate powder raises the ph).

The benefits of a 50 ppm borate level are supposed to be a more stable ph, less algae problems, and the ability to run the pool pump for fewer hours. That last one could really make it pay for itself. Two hours less a day of the pump running would probably save me $75 per month.

Anyone used PoolProof or other form of borate in their pool? I bought all the borax that my local Walmart had in stock (eight boxes) and am going to try it.

[gonjah]

Never heard of it but keep us updated on the results.

[trader_4]

Either you must have a very big pump or your electric rates must be sky high, or both. A 1hp pump is about 1.5KW. Here in NJ we have some of the highest electric rates and it costs about 25c an hour to run. Two hours a day, would be ~$15 a month.

If it's costing that much to run the pump, have you considered switching the motor to one that is dual speed? Running it at half speed for twice as long can cut the electric usage in half. I'm in the process of doing that right now.

[sms]

Also, borate, like cyanuric acid (stabilizer) doesn't evaporate, so you only add it when you fill the pool, and maybe a little extra every year to compensate for splashed out water and overflow.

Started adding it last night. You put it into the skimmer, a little at a time. They warn that if you dump in a lot all at once it won't dissolve right away and can clog the pipe to the pump and that it takes a long time dissolve when that happens.

[gonjah]

I'm going that route when my pump quits, but it's a fairly new pump,

[gonjah]

I might do it if algae becomes an issue. Since I refinished the pool last November I have seen one bit of algae. I think almost all of my algae issues were caused by the black algae firmly embedded in the old plaster. The pool was at least 27 y/o when I bought the house and the pool wasn't maintained very well. The plaster was badly pitted. Last November I basically bought a new pool.

[gonjah]

"haven't"

[trader_4]

Why wait? The new motor only cost $190. All the other stuff to wire it in, etc it's about $225 total. Figure to be saving $30+ a month.

[sms]

I calculated the cost of running the pump 4 hours a day versus 6 hours a day.

I have a one speed, 1.5HP pump rated at 230V/9.3A. It pushes me into the top tier of rates which is 36¢/KWhour. It draws 2.139 KW. So I'm paying

77¢/hour. If I cut cut down the pump time by two hours a day I'd save $46.20 per month. So the $75 was wrong. It will costs about $160 to bring the borate level to 50ppm. So it will take a little less than four months to pay for itself. But the other benefit is being able to have a lower chlorine level so there are also savings in chlorine, probably about $20 per month.

[nestork]

Certainly you should follow those "BBB Method" directions, but I can't see why you can't just leave the borax in your pool's water all summer.

Borates are by far the safest wood preservatives, to mammals at least. In fact in China and other Asian countries, borax is used as a food additive. So swimming in water with a low concentration of borax dissoved in it shouldn't pose any danger, especially if people make a point of not swallowing the pool water.

'Borax - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia'

The FDA has banned Borax as a food additive in the USA, but it's commonly available for a host of other uses.

[ChairMan]

Where the hell do you live that you pay 36/KW?

[trader_4]

it

Why 4 vs 6? If you use run the pump at half speed, it shoule be 3 vs 6. And running at half speed, instead of pulling 9.3A, it would probably pull more like 2 amps. You have to run it twice as long to move the same amount of water, but even so, it winds up using less than half the electricity.

I guess the folks where you live, CA I presume, let the idiot hippies take control. Sadly, at the moment, that's where we're all headed.

It draws 2.139 KW. So I'm paying

And still without regard to the borate, if you;re paying 36c/kwh, a dual speed pump would appear to be at the top of the list. Here in NJ, with

18c kwh rates the new pump I just put in will pay for itself in less than 2 years. And I would think that hippie states might have utility rebates that would make it pay off in a year.

[gonjah]

Too many other pans in the fryer right now. You don't want to ask.

[sms]

Northern California.

There are four tiers (rounded to whole numbers): Tier 1 is 351KWH at 13¢ each Tier 2 is 105KWH at 15¢ each Tier 3 is 246KWH at 32¢ each Tier 4 is anything over tiers 1-3 at 37¢/KWH (These tiers were on my March bill)

We almost never run our A/C since the weather is so mild (most houses don't even have A/C in our neighborhood), and our water heater, furnace, and clothes dryer run on natural gas. Our biggest use of electricity is the pool pump.

I do have a two speed pump that I am going to install but I was waiting for the current pump to break. The two-speed, and variable speed, pumps have a much shorter service life than the older one-speed pumps according to the pool store (I don't know why they would admit this when they are trying to sell $1200 variable speed pumps!).

One other issue I have is that it's an older pool, built when they built deep pools so you could have a diving board. The deep end is 13' deep, and the shallow end is very small. So the volume of water is very large, probably 35-40K gallons. So that's a lot of pumping to filter the water.

I tried just filling the shallow end of the pool, and leaving the deep end empty, but I couldn't get that to work.

So the claimed benefits of borate are:

1. Allows you to maintain the chlorine level at a lower PPM saving on sanitizer cost.
2. Allows you to run the pump for fewer hours per day saving on electricity.
3. Reduces the need for algaecide saving the cost of algaecide.
4. Stabilizes the ph so there is less need for acid.
5. Does not raise the alkalinity when used to raise the ph.
6. Makes the water "sparkle."

The downsides are:

1. Initial cost
2. Animals should not drink water from the pool.

We'll see. I'm always leery of stuff the pool store tries to sell me, but I did not buy the borate there anyway.

[nestork]

I expect your high electricity rates are the result of your electric utility burning coal to generate steam to produce electricity, which is an expensive way to do things. Either that, or you use wind to produce electric power.

Here in Manitoba we have more hydro electric potential than we need. In fact, if you were to build dams on all of the places where hydro electric power could be economically generated in Manitoba, we could provide all of Canada's needs. Unfortunately, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland are just as well off when it comes to hydro electric power potential, so we have no customers for our electricity right now except Minnesota and North Dakota.

Our electric utility, Manitoba Hydro, is a publically owned company, and Manitobans pay 6.83 cents per kilowatt hour.

When electric cars start replacing gasoline powered cars, Manitoba is going to be the next Saudi Arabia.

[sms]

No coal. Natural gas, oil, and hydro-electric (though this year there won't be a lot of hydro-electric due to the drought).

[Ed Pawlowski]

Jumping in late here.

So these rates are cumulative for the month?

If I'm reading this right, my highest bill for last year was 1239 KWH so the first 351 is costing $45.63, the next 105 is $15.75, then 246 @ $78.72 and finally, 536 @ .37 = $213.12.

I thought we had high rates. I paid $194.47 that month but your rate would be $353.22? OMG, that would change the way we do things in this house!

[nestork]

Regardless. Burning any kind of fossil fuel to produce electricity is expensive and results in people having to pay high electric bills. Eventually, when electric cars become common, people are going to find out how much hydroelectric power potential Manitoba has.

There is a electricity producing station in East Selkirk, Manitoba that uses either coal or natural gas to produce electricity. Manitoba Hydro only runs that facility when they need additional power during peak demand periods, or so we're being told. I grew up in West Selkirk (across the Red River from East Selkirk), and we could see the smoke stacks of that electrical generating station from West Selkirk, and I never remember seeing smoke come out of those stacks. All of our electrical needs come from falling water, which is free.

[sms]

Yes.

Most people have gas dryers, water heaters, and furnaces since they are much cheaper to operate. So the major use of electricity is A/C (which is only common starting in central San Jose and further south, and pool pumps, which also aren't that common until San Jose. If we didn't have a pool we'd rarely get beyond tier 2.

[Ed Pawlowski]

We have electric dryer and the lightest month last year was about 600 KWH. Gas is not available here, but we use propane to cook oil to heat. We do use AC in the summer though and that would be expensive. Gas AC used to be decent, but I don't even know if residential units are still practical..