Why Shock a Pool?
This is a subject I love to talk about. Why do you shock? When do you shock? Everyone shocks their pool, right? Listen very carefully. Shocking does rid your pool of bacteria, but the main reason to shock is to get rid of your chloramines. This is organic matter floating in the pool that the chlorine is trying to kill or has killed already. When you enter a public pool, especially indoor pools, you’ll probably get that nasty “chlorine “smell. You may think that the pool operator is using too much chlorine when the opposite is true, he’s not using enough. You have these chloramines floating around buring everyone’s eyes and making their skin itch and not enough chlorine to kill them. Get a good DPD, not an OTO test kit, and test for chloramines. If they’re .6-.8 or above, then shock, otherwise, you’re just wasting your money. You may hear someone say to shock if the chloramines are .2. If you have a heavily used indoor pool, it is nearly impossible to keep the chloramines down to 0-.2.
