Eric demonstrates why column-pouring undiluted acid into a pool is a bad idea. Food coloring and muriatic acid show the acid going straight to the floor.
00:00 - Introduction
03:25 - Column-pouring video in Eric's Pool
06:51 - Explanation
08:26 - Wrap up
138. The case against column-pouring acid
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[00:00:00] Eric Knight: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Rule Your Pool podcast. I'm your host, Eric Knight with Orenda and HASA. This is one that I'm going to be doing alone. This is episode 138, and the reason I'm doing this one alone. We've just finished our trade show season. Really nice to actually be home. I realized that in the year 2024, I have not yet had three consecutive office days home. Like not three in a row. The whole year.
[00:00:26] So I hope to get a lot more content out. I'm sorry that we haven't been able to get these podcasts out as regularly, but when you're traveling as much as we have been, that's been a problem. The other side to that is there have been a lot of you who have been calling our hotline and it has been going to voicemail.
[00:00:41] That is not our intention. We are trying to get to them, but you can't answer a phone call on a flight. You can't answer a phone call on a trade show floor. Or with customers, and we've all been just moving fast. So the best way to reach us is not to call our phone number. It's just not. Because those get backed up and lost.
[00:00:59] And as I said in the last episode, we have an issue with our email, where if you leave a voicemail for me on the hotline, it goes through an email system which has been quarantined for some reason. We're trying to resolve that. So I have no way of getting back to you because I don't know who you are. And I apologize for that. I just know that that's happening. I was just brought to my attention.
[00:01:18] The best way to reach us is to go to our help center, ask, that's ASK.orendatech.com. And then at the top, if you don't see your question answered, hopefully it's, since it's already answered in there. Um, It says, submit your question.
[00:01:32] You can also do this in the updated version of the app, which should be coming out pretty soon, or maybe it's already out by the time this episode goes live. So you should be able to ask a question that goes into our system so that our entire team can see it. Not just me in my inbox where we just have emails coming in all day. So we do want to help you out, but please reach out to us in a way that we can see it.
[00:01:53] Anyway. This is episode 138, the case against column pouring acid. And I made a promise when I first bought this house that I'm in right now. I'm going to destroy this pool. The reason for buying the house seemed like a good idea at the time was the pool was in terrible shape. I mean the whole landscaping was terrible.
[00:02:11] The equipment is awful. It's got four or five different brands on there. The heater was falling apart, literally about to tip off. The concrete pad, except you realize it's not a concrete pad. It's just dirt with loose bricks. And everything about it is, for lack of a better word, um, sketchy. Yeah, it's not good.
[00:02:31] Inch and a half plumbing on a 24,000 gallon pool. It's just not great. And so I thought, wow, it would be a really good opportunity to renovate this pool. But before I do that, destroy it. Destroy it and show you what not to do. And the main idea that I had was to put food, coloring into some acid and column pour it. Because this is a big practice that people do. And even if you don't just slug acid in one spot, one of the main things that we hear from pool pros is they just pour acid around the perimeter.
[00:02:59] Okay. You know, it's better than pouring into one spot, but it's still not sufficient because muriatic acid is 18% denser than water. So this morning in my backyard pool. I did exactly that. I filmed it. I put food coloring in it and we're going to show you the video on here. If you are watching on YouTube. And I will describe what you're seeing pretty soon, but let's go through the intro and let's talk about what column pouring is and why we should not do it. Let's go.
Backyard column-pouring video
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[00:03:25] Eric Knight: All right. First things first, let's start with the video.
[00:03:49] So here we go. Pour it on, in. Now acid, as you can see. It doesn't spread very much. It starts sinking. That's what it looks like.
Explanation
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[00:06:51] Eric Knight: Okay. So you get the idea. When you call and pour acid, it goes to the bottom. Now my question. I guess the wrong question would be, what do you suppose the pH is at the bottom of that pool? Maybe two at the most? Because muriatic acid is just less than one. So it's very, very, very, very, very acidic.
[00:07:09] But that's not really the right question when we're talking about a concrete surface. The real question is what is the LSI at the bottom of the pool? And the answer to that, if you're using the Orenda app is going to be dead red. Really, really, really low. So it's an obvious LSI violation. And then you can watch the main drain did not actually pull it in visibly as much as I was hoping it would, but it definitely went somewhere. And you know, that was about 40 minutes ago.
[00:07:34] There's no more dye in my pool. So clearly it went somewhere, either dissipated through the pool, but most likely it went right through the main drain.
[00:07:41] If you were listening to this and you did not see the video. In short the acid just does exactly what we described. It goes straight down to the bottom. It starts pluming out. It spreads around and you could see the dye very clearly at the bottom of the pool. And it just kind of festers there. And that's pretty eyeopening if you ask me.
[00:07:59] If you're a pool pro listening to this, or even a homeowner. And you just pour acid directly in the pool, there's a really easy solution to this. Dilute your acid first. If you dilute your acid in a bucket of water, it's not going to do that.
[00:08:11] You'll still get the same amount in assuming you're measuring it. But it changes the density so that it actually matriculates through the water and dissolves alkali before it gets to the floor. That's the goal. We want to make sure that by the time it gets to the floor, it is not acid.
Wrap up
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[00:08:26] Eric Knight: So, anyway, I know this is a very short episode, but I'm hoping you get some value out of it and be able to take this into the field.
[00:08:33] And we will also post this on social media and on our website as well. We will have it in the app that way you have a reason to make sure that you always dilute your acid.
[00:08:43] Anyway, that's our case for not column pouring acid. I'm your host Eric Knight with Orenda, a short episode today, but a worthwhile one because acid abuse is the number one bad habit that we see in the pool business.
[00:08:54] I hope this helps you. If you have questions or you have ideas for us to cover on this podcast, please let me know. The email is podcast@orendatech.com. I receive a bunch of requests. It is awesome. You are the reason we do this.
[00:09:08] We are so grateful for you. So Thank you so much for continuing to listen to this. And if you have a chance, please share this podcast with someone who may have never heard of it. It's a good chance to get information out to them. Because if we do our job. A lot less people will be slugging acid, and a lot less people will be ruining their pools and they'll be ruling their pools.
[00:09:27] Anyway. Thanks so much. Take care.