If you’re getting into the pool for a workout, or if you’re swimming on your summer holiday, then you might want to think twice about taking a dip if the pool smells overly of chlorine.
It’s one of life’s small annoyances, chlorine in pool water.
For some, it can be irritating to the eyes or skin, and most of us will certainly recognise the signature smell of the chemical that is in pool water in order to keep it nice and clean.
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However, if you can smell that recognisable smell too much, the pool you’re about to get into on holiday might be anything but.
You see, that ‘pool smell’ that you can probably already imagine in your nostrils right now isn’t actually caused by the chlorine in the water, as that doesn’t tend to produce a really strong smell.
What causes the smell are things called chloramines, and they’re something that you might not want to think about.
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That’s because they’re only really produced when chlorine in water reacts with sweat, natural body oils, and urine of those in the pool.
Therefore, the stronger a pool smells, the more of that there is in the water.
Bet you’re glad you know that, right?
Here’s the science behind it.
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Chlorine reacts with ammonia’s hydrogen ions, with the number of ions dictating what is created.
One ion, you’ll get monochloramine, two produces dichloramine, and three will create trichloramine.
At least that makes sense, right?
Monochloramine is what is sometimes added to pools as a disinfectant, whereas those other two are what produces the ‘chlorine’ type smell you sometimes get in pools, the American Chemistry Council notes.
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So if your pool smells badly like that, it’s actually probably time to put in more chlorine, because there’s not much free chlorine left.
That means you’d be better staying out of the pool in this instance.
The Water Quality and Health Council states: "It is good advice to stay out of the water when a strong chemical smell pervades the air around any type of pool, indoor or outdoor."
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They continue: "It is true that the more urine there is to combine with chlorine, the higher the level of unwanted, smelly chloramines in the pool,
"Following that thread, if chlorine is combining chemically with contaminants like urine, then it is not available to destroy germs in the pool that can make swimmers sick with diarrhoea, swimmer’s ear and various skin infections."
Wonderful.
Don’t say we never give you any useful advice.
Maybe just go for a dip in the sea if you can – at least you won’t have any sensory reminders of how much of that is actually p***.
It’s probably much more diluted anyway, unless someone really had to pee.
Tom Wood