The guy who maintains my swimming pool adds alum weekly. It is really necessary to add alum so often? Most of the time, the water is crystal clear. It becomes cloudy after alum is added. Why adding alum to clear water?
El firo el idioto.
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I assume alum works as a floculant to bind tiny particles together which clears cloudy water. Never had to use one on the pool here. But from what I know about pools, they are typically added only if you have an actual problem. Any history of the pool being cloudy frequently in the past? But then there are all kind of theories out there about how to best manage a pool. Who pays for the alum? If it's not included in the service charge, paid for separately, I'd tell him to stop unless there is an actual problem.
Alum - as in alumINUM????
Not in MY pool, no thanks!
hydrated potassium aluminum sulfate
Alum is Aluminum Sulfate.
Big difference between metallic Aluminum and the various Aluminum compounds. Not that I shun aluminum metal either.
One of the effects of Alum is to remove heavy metals from the pool water. Certainly a good thing.
Alum is also used to treat drinking water. Use too much and you get Hydrogen Sulfide (rotten egg gas). The Hydrogen Sulfide is toxic, but:
Since hydrogen sulfide occurs naturally in the body, the environment and the gut, enzymes exist in the body capable of detoxifying it by oxidation to (harmless) sulfate. Hence, low levels of hydrogen sulfide may be tolerated indefinitely.
I haven't used Alum to treat my pool, but reading how it works, I don't see a problem.
But then, I'm not one of the new breed of humans running around that seem to fear everything.
If you have cloudy water, then you can use it to clean up the water on an as needed basis. I don't think doing it weekly is necessary. After your maintenance guy adds it to the water, does he come back in a couple of hours and vacuum to "Waste"? More info here:
On Wed, 16 Sep 2015 13:39:57 -0400, Dan Espen wrote in
Not all "humans". Just a lot of Americans, Canadians and Europeans. The rest of the world lives normally.
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