I'm cleaning and refilling my hot tub for the season and decided to switch from chlorine to bromine for sanitizer. Anything in particular I need to look out for? (Beyond the usual water testing, etc.)
Thanks in advance, Jo Ann
Some people (like me) get a weird rash from bromine, but not chlorine. If you switch, I'm not coming over. Seriously, if anyone gets itchy, and it lasts two weeks, that'll probably be the reason.
That sounds more like a PH issue, which is unconnected to which sanitizer is used.
CWM.
I don't know - I'm not a pool expert. But, a few years back, I was travelling a lot, and it happened in at least 30 different pools & hot tubs. That's a lot of bad pH situations. Is it that difficult to maintain correctly? Maybe more likely in hotels?
It's not difficult at all, but you can be very sure I would NEVER use a hot tub in a commercial establishment!
CWM
Rash from hotel hot tubs is likely from tubs that are cleaned and sanitized improperly or infrequently. Google "hot tub rash" and you will find lots of information, including warnings from the CDC, about problems with poorly maintained public hot tubs.
It's not hard to maintain a hot tub properly, but most hotels use chlorine, since they have it on hand for pool maintenance, and chlorine does not maintain its sanitizing properties well at high temperatures. It has to be carefully monitored -- more carefully than the average hotel maintenance staff usually does.
Jo Ann
JoeSpareBedroom wrote:
Why is it so implausable that the guy is allergic to something in the bromine sanitation system? He says he's had a rash 30 times from hotel/public hot tubs. I've never had one from a hotel, yet I've been in them a lot over the years. Yet, you think this is a problem with incorrect sanitation as opposed to being allergic?
Why would he assume that hotels use bromine?
FWIW, bromine tabs typically contain chlorine also as I understand it.
Bob
You believe it to be plausible that someone is allergic to Bromine rather than making the assumption that a hot tub or pool with a large amount of different people in it has inadequate sanitization?
There's nothing radically different about bromine to suggest allergies.
Nothing radically different? Do you even understand allergies? Some people have allergies to a wide variety of chemicals and foods that others can tolerate with no problems at all. A simple peanut can kill some people. Is a peanut a "radically" different food? Latex is widely used, yet some people are allergic to it. The chemicals used in bromine treated spas are different that chlorine systems, that's the whole point of them being used. It's perfectly reasonable to think that someone who reports having a rash 30 times from hotel/public hot tubs is sensitive to some chemical being used and isn't some nut case. And if it were a rash caused by bacteria due to improper treatment, why is it that this person has had it happen 30 times, while others, like myself, have never had it happen? Geez...
I won't argue it with you, as you appear to be beyond that stage in your life. I base my opinion after reading about it from numerous sources, none of which support allegies, all of which support bacterial infection. Feel free to make your own conclusions from your own sources though.
All sensible, except I can swim all day long in OUTDOOR pools treated with either bromine or chlorine, with no effect at all. Two dermatologists have scratched their heads and said "I really don't know".
It's possible that you are allergic to something particular to spas that isn't used in pools. Products used to eliminate foam for example, which are commonly used in spas, but not in pools. Apparently your 2 dermatologists don't know as much as Eigenvector, who says this is obviously a bacterial infection and not an allergy, even though you say it's happened to you 30 times. The possibility of that many skin infections from a spa is remote. If spas were that bad, they'd all be closed long ago. Plus the rash from hot tub folliculitis is fairly distinctive.
It is probably just the quantity of bromine in a commercial spa. There are more lawyers than licensed pool operators in a hotel chain and they assume if 3.0 PPM is good to kill germs 30.0 PPM is ten times better. They essentally run in "shock" levels most of the time.
Most commercial Hot tubs are maintained with a far higher amount of sanitizer than a home hot tub. This also leads to improper PH, which isn't cared for as carefully in a commercial Hot Tub, becauase it requires thinking. Some people's skin is more sensitive than others, so while it may not bother you, it might bother Eigenvector. I think it is far more likely the cause of his rash than the fact that Bromine, rather than Clorine is in use. When you hear hoofbeats, look for horses before you look for zebras.
CWM
A swimming pool is a vastly larger volume of water. It's a lot harder to get that much water so screwed up that it needs to be replaced. Here's an experiment: pour a cup of liquid bleach into a five gallon pail. Now pour five gallons of bleach into a cup...
CWM
To my thinking, this would rule out both chlorine and bromine allergy. Since chlorine is a poor sanitizer at high temperatures (i.e., hot tub temperatures), and chlorine is the most commonly used sanitizer in commercial hot tubs, again, this argues for a hot tub folliculitis -- an inflammatory rash caused by organisms in haphazardly maintained hot tubs (typically Pseudomonas).
Jo Ann
JoeSpareBedroom wrote:
Maybe. Probably. It's disgusting to think that this organism exists in so many hot tubs.
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