By popular request from listeners, we are begrudgingly talking about Orenda products today. Specifically how to purge a pool with CV-600 or CV-700, and others. There will be follow-up episodes for each specific product and how they are used.
00:00 - Intro
01:23 - What is an Orenda purge? It is a deliberately strong initial dose of enzymes and phosphate remover (and sometimes chelant) to reset your water. It gives your water the most reduced chlorine demand possible.
03:58 - The entire purpose of an Orenda Purge is remove chlorine-resistant contaminants.
07:45 - SC-1000 chelates metals and prevents oxidation and staining, but most pools do not need it every year. It will stay in for a very long time.
09:00 - PR-10,000 is a fast-acting, one-and-done product. It leaves behind no residual. And it works very well in tandem with enzymes.
10:42 - Every Orenda purge is based on CV-600 or CV-700 enzymes. Enzymes are the foundation of the purge.
12:51 - Oils and organics float, while dust falls. So if you are trying to clear the pool after using PR-10,000, use enzymes so that oils do not keep the dust suspended in the water.
17:01 - CV-600/700 and SC-1000 purge doses are the exact same amount: one quart per 10,000 gallons.
21:13 - Summary. Thanks for listening!
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63. How to do an Orenda Purge, and Why
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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, doing this one alone. And the reason I'm doing this alone is because nobody else in the company really wants to talk about this stuff... or at least I don't think they do because I know I don't. But, those of you who have been requesting things on podcast@orendatech.com email, thank you for that. We do receive those and we do write them down.
[00:00:26] And many of you have been requesting this very topic and the subsequent episodes. So here's what we're going to do. I don't want to do it. We don't like talking about ourselves, but we're just going to knock them out. They're going to be shorter episodes. This one might be a little longer.
[00:00:39] But the next few episodes are going to go through how to actually use each of our products. So, with that being said, This is episode number 63. This is about the Orenda purge.
[00:00:53] How to do an Orenda purge. And more importantly, why. This is the Rule Your Pool Podcast. Let's go.
[00:01:02] All right. First, let's talk about what the Orenda purge actually is. Our purge is a deliberately strong dose that resets your water. And it does this by removing factors that contribute to chlorine demand and other chemistry problems.
[00:01:39] So a quick overview of them. The enzymes CV-600 and CV-700, break down and remove non-living organics and oils, uh, bather waste, natural organic waste, like tannins, etc.. These are the major contributors to chlorine's oxidant demand in the pool. And chlorine is not very efficient at getting rid of them. If it were, you would never have these issues like scum lines and cloudy, dull, greasy water and fouled up filters. Chlorine is not made to get rid of it, but enzymes are.
[00:02:10] Now our phosphate remover, PR-10,000, is going to react with phosphates of all kinds on contact. And it's going to cause them to precipitate out of solution so that you can actually vacuum or filter them out of the pool. That's the only way that we know of to remove phosphates because chlorine does not oxidize, or interact at all, with phosphates directly. So removing them will improve chlorine efficiency and it removes another common contributor to bigger problems.
[00:02:36] The next one is SC-1000, our chelating agent. This binds to metals and minerals to prevent oxidation and staining [for metals like iron copper, cobalt, manganese, et cetera]. And it also inhibits scale formation by chelating calcium so that it doesn't get carbonated.
[00:02:54] And I guess we'll do a little bonus here. Our spa scrub, SPA-500, you wouldn't use this in a pool, but it does a deep clean on the spa system. Goes through, cleans out the pipes. But this is a much more aggressive way. This is not intended for use with bathers. It should only be used right before you drain, rinse out the system, and refill a hot tub.
[00:03:14] So that's kind of the overview. Basically. I call the Orenda purge our deep herbal cleanse. We're going to clean out the system. We're going to clean out what's lurking in your pool that you probably don't even see.
[00:03:28] I'm talking about the inside of the filter, the inside of the plumbing. Those 90 degree PVC elbows, where water is rushing through there, and grease gets trapped on where the pieces of PVC are glued together.
[00:03:40] When people cut out pipes, if you look inside those 90's, they're gross. They're filled with grease and oily stuff. It's disgusting. But that stuff is common in swimming pools. And just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not in there. So we'd like to ask the question, what is lurking in your water?
[00:03:58] The entire purpose of purging the pool is to achieve a hard reset. We want to break the water. We want to level the playing field so that you can have the purest water possible. With the least amount of chlorine demand in it. We want to get your season off to a good start.
[00:04:17] Purges are also used to remediate issues like green pools. Or just generally cloudy, murky water that just won't seem to clear up. But this is just a chemical treatment, so it's not going to fix a filter issue or a circulation deficiency. So just keep that in mind that this is a chemical remedy.
[00:04:37] And what I just described, the green pool, the murky water, that's all reactive treatments. What I'm talking about with this purge is generally a proactive treatment.
[00:04:47] Now it's the same dose typically. It's strong enough to conquer just about anything that we've ever encountered. One exception would be the whitefly in Florida, where it's actually a double purge of enzymes and PR. And that conquers it. That demand is insanely high and we have a procedure for that. So if you just go on our website or in our app, go to procedures and type in white fly. You will find it. But that's really a South Florida thing.
[00:05:13] Um, But in terms of like common bather loads, tannins, things getting in the pool, things that almost everybody experiences? These contaminants are getting into your pool. Almost everybody has phosphates in their drinking water now. Ever since Flint, Michigan.
[00:05:28] And especially in rural areas where they're fertilizing and stuff like that. So it's very common that you're going to have phosphates in your water. Non-living organics. That's a given. Now it does depend on your bather load. Many pools will have a lot more than others. Like commercial swim schools and water parks are going to have way more non-living organics than a typical backyard pool that hardly gets used.
[00:05:50] Of course, it's going to have way more. I'm doing an overview of the general concept of what we're doing. You need to adapt it into your own world. And if you want help with that, reach out to us. Podcast@orendatech.com, or call our hotline. We talk to people every day about this.
[00:06:06] Okay. Zero out the water. A deep herbal cleanse. The purpose of doing that is actually to create an enzyme residual. Phosphate remover does not have a residual. It's a one and done treatment.
[00:06:21] SC-1000, It stays in your water, but it's bound to metals and minerals. So it's not really a residual because it never actually lets go. Those metals are spoken for. The reason you would maintain with that is to address new metals or new minerals that get introduced. Like if you're adding calcium chloride, or you have well water. But again, we're going to go in a lot more detail about each of these products in their subsequent episodes.
[00:06:45] So phosphate remover, one-and-done, quick fallout. That'll be talked about in our next episode, episode 64.
[00:06:52] SC-1000 is going to be talked about in two episodes from now, episode 65. Look at me, I'm actually planning out episodes. This is great.
[00:07:02] CV-600 and CV-700 enzymes will be in episode 66.
[00:07:07] We might do an episode on SPA-500. I haven't really decided yet. If we do, that would probably be 68. Because we would do CE-Clarifier before that. But, I don't know. At this point, I'm spit balling. I'm off the rails, everybody, I'm trying to do this in one take.
[00:07:24] Now let's talk a little bit about what your pool might need. If you're going to do a total purge, you might use all three of these products. The enzymes, the phosphate remover, and the chelating agent. Like if you're opening up for the season, that's sometimes recommended, depending on where you are. But not all pools need all three.
[00:07:45] Most pools are not going to actually need SC-1000 every season. Because it stays in the water for so long. It is biodegradable, but that would require bacteria breaking it down. So if you drain your pool and it goes into the watershed, SC-1000, NSF certified, it's going to be biodegradable. Cause bacteria will break it down.
[00:08:04] But bacteria are hopefully not surviving in your chlorinated swimming pool. So it has a lot of staying power and that's a very good thing. You don't necessarily have to re-purge every single year. It depends on how much tap water you have and how much metals you have in it. So if your pool is on well water and you have high metal content, or you're in the great lakes area where everyone's got orange and brown staining in their sinks and tubs and toilets, because there's so much iron in the water. Yeah, you should probably purge each year with SC-1000. You've got a lot of metal in your tap, and those are the cards you're dealt. You just need to deal with them. So talking to you, Midwestern states, you know who you are.
[00:08:47] Most pools at the beginning of the season, a normal purge is not going to involve SC-1000. It's going to be enzymes, always. Anytime you're purging you want to use enzymes, and I'll explain in a moment.
[00:09:00] Moving on to PR-10,000. We do recommend this with every single purge, but not everyone has to. And a lot of them will just purge with enzymes and still have success. Because maybe phosphates aren't a big issue where you are. I know they certainly weren't 10, 15 years ago. But ever since Flint, Michigan, almost everybody has phosphates in their tap water now.
[00:09:22] And if you're using sequestering agents that are phosphate based, that's going to get in there as well. If you have fertilizers and gardeners and you're near a country club that has a golf course or something like that, phosphates could be introduced. And you might not realize how much they accumulate over time.
[00:09:39] But PR-10,000 does more than just remove phosphates. There are some properties that even we don't understand. We just know that it works very, very well in tandem with CV-600 or CV-700. These two products, with the combination of PR-10,000, clean things out. We don't exactly know all of the chemistry of why they do that, but we do know that they work extremely well together. It's a great 1-2 punch. And if you're cleaning up a pool, the 1-2-3 punch would be with a chlorine shock. Depending on what you have.
[00:10:11] The typical purge dose of PR-10,000, when you're starting your season or whatever, is eight ounces per 10,000 gallons, unless you have much higher phosphates than that.
[00:10:23] In some cases you need to add more or you can add more. You just don't want to overwhelm yourself and overwhelm your filter. But if you're purging and you already have a problem? The water's so murky, you can't see the main drain, or it's turning green on you, or something like that. You're going to need to hit it harder than just eight ounces per 10,000 gallons.
[00:10:42] Now I talked about SC-1000 for some, PR-10,000 for most. But every single purge should involve CV-600 or CV-700. Most people actually refer to this as our enzyme purge. And there's a reason for that. It's the most important part of it.
[00:11:00] Non-living organics and oils. They lurk through the entire system. As I made mention earlier, they're in your pipes, they're in your filter. They're stuck in the 90 degree elbows. They're just... gross. And they stick to things. And if chlorine could really get rid of this, you wouldn't have scum lines. Filters would never get fouled. Water would never look greasy or clouded up.
[00:11:20] But chlorine is not designed to get rid of non-living organics and oils. Enzymes are. And when we look at what an oxidant demand is, for those of you who have taken our four pillars, pillar number two.
[00:11:33] When we look at the oxidant demand, we've got three categories of oxidants. Metals, which should be a very small percentage. Nitrogen compounds. Which, in a commercial pool, it can be a bigger percentage, but it's still pretty minor. And that would be like combined chlorine, et cetera. But the vast majority, the lion's share of oxidant demand is non-living organics. It's this stuff that chlorine is not good at getting rid of.
[00:12:01] Enzymes target that. That's all they do. They go after carbon chain, non-living organic waste. Grease. Body butter. Tannins.
[00:12:13] The Mac daddy of them all is sunscreen. But lotions, deodorants, soap scum on your skin. And all this stuff, accumulates in a pool and enzymes break it down. And they, in a way they metabolize it. A very similar process to what happens in your stomach. Now these are non-living enzymes. They're not alive. They're just amino acids, that catalyze reactions, and they lower the energy level for chlorine to oxidize the byproducts out of the water efficiently.
[00:12:40] The difference in water clarity is astounding. But if you've got a lot of oils in your water, grease, organics, whatever you want to call them. Those things tend to float.
[00:12:51] If you remember, if you put oil in water, the oil floats. This is why your scum line is always at your waterline. It's not like all over the wall. It's that your water line. Because organics float. But dirt and debris fall. And since organics are sticky, if oils and organics are floating, when you put in, say, PR-10,000, and the dust precipitates and it tries to fall, if it gets stuck to oils, it's not going to fall very fast.
[00:13:18] And a lot of people will call us and say, "Hey, I added PR-10,000, the pool's still cloudy. Three days later." Did you add enzymes?
[00:13:27] By the way, most pools, like most backyard pools are not used heavily enough for this to be a factor. But if you have a commercial pool or a pool with a lot of trees around it, that drop seed pods and berries in the water. You've got a lot of organics in there.
[00:13:41] Yeah, it could be cloudy after a week. And that's because the oils are bound up to that, dust and it's not able to sink. Because the oils are trying to rise, and the dust of trying to fall.
[00:13:55] And so it holds things in suspension. But when you use these products in tandem, you use enzymes and PR-10,000, the oils release. They come to the surface, they turn into carbon dioxide and they leave the pool. And the dust falls. It's a much faster, much more efficient way to clean a pool by using both together. Like I said, these two are a wonderful 1-2 punch.
[00:14:17] Just think about that before you pour a bunch of PR-10,000 in a murky pool with nothing else. There's a really good chance the bigger issue is non-living organics, not phosphates. Okay.
[00:14:28] Uh, let's see. The purge for enzymes is one quart per 10,000 gallons, which is 32 ounces per 10,000 gallons. And we have seen that purge handle pretty much every bather load we've ever dealt with. From commercial waterparks and swim schools, which are insanely busy compared to residential pools. Uh, you got to keep in mind, these enzymes were not made for pools. These were made for industrial wastewater. Sewage plants. I think we can handle your pool.
[00:14:59] So by putting this in, you're doing two things. You're going to wipe out and address that entire oxidant load. Or the organic load, I should say.
[00:15:10] And you're also going to leave behind a residual. The enzymes will have a residual, unlike PR-10,000, which is one and done.
[00:15:21] That residual will get used up over time. The more organic material you have, the faster it gets used up. Now a lot of pools don't have the bather demand to require a weekly enzyme addition from CV-600 or 700. But if you do, they go to work. Okay.
[00:15:42] So we made the CE-Clarifier product as a supplement to a CV-600 or 700 purge. So if your pool is not getting used up much, you don't necessarily have to add enzymes every week. CV-600 is in CE-Clarifier. A small amount of it. And so you can actually get the surface particles bound together because it's chitosan, And also take care of the surface oils and organics with that little bit of CV-600 re-upping your residual that you got from the purge.
[00:16:11] You don't purge with CE-Clarifier. You may have an initial dose of I think it's four ounces per 10,000 gallons. But that is nothing close to the purge of CV-600 or 700. Always, always start with an enzyme purge if you're going to use enzymes at all.
[00:16:30] You've got to get yourself started correctly with that residual and then maintain it. And it totally depends on your organic demand. A waterpark is going to use a lot more each week than a backyard pool.
[00:16:43] Most pools are going to be like 2-5 ounces. And again, we'll get into the details of these in a later episode. They're like two to five ounces a week. Commercial pools are 10 to 15. Waterparks are 15 to 20 ounces a week per 10,000 gallons. So it totally depends on how fast the enzymes are getting used up.
[00:17:01] Now. That's the enzyme purge one quart per 10,000 gallons. And it creates a residual.
[00:17:07] SC-1000 is the exact same purge dose. One quart per 10,000 gallons. And you don't have to do this every single year because it stays in your water for a long time.
[00:17:17] So if you purged last year, the SC-1000 didn't go anywhere. As long as it activated before the water got too cold, it's still bound to those metals. So use that to your advantage. Just resume maintenance the next year. Okay, you might want to build it up a little bit if you add a lot of calcium, you want to chelate that before it goes in.
[00:17:40] Or, you know, if you know, you have a lot of metals in your tap water. Maybe do some heavier weekly doses to get your season started, but you don't necessarily have to purge again. One should be sufficient. Okay. And again, it depends on where you are. If you are in the great lakes area and you have a ton of iron, you might want to purge, it's an insurance policy. It's a pretty cheap insurance policy to address the metals. Just to have them, you know, Just to have it in there as a defense. So just keep that in mind.
[00:18:11] Now, both of these products should be added directly into circulation. So SC-1000 and enzymes could be poured directly into the skimmer or gutter. And if you have a commercial pool, Um, pour it into the search tank.
[00:18:26] You know, if you, if you have one. Now enzymes weekly should be added before the filter. So, like I said, pour it into your skimmer or something, and if you're a commercial pool, you can tap it. Either into the surge tank or something just before the filter. Because most of your organics, most of your crud is going to be in that filter.
[00:18:44] But really you can add them anywhere. SC-1000 is a little different on a commercial pool. You want it to be the last thing in series. So it would be the last thing on the return line, going back to the pool.
[00:18:57] When you're doing maintenance doses, you can put it right in the skimmer. You could put SC-1000, right in the skimmer. Measure it, drop it in. No dilution necessary. You can also put enzymes, some people put it in a sprayer bottle, spray it around, spritz it. That's what they'll do with CE-Clarifier.
[00:19:12] But it doesn't really matter how you get enzymes in. We just recommend getting into circulation as soon as you can.
[00:19:20] Um, PR-10,000 should never be added to the skimmer. This phosphate remover reacts on contact. You want to put it arm's length out and pour it around the perimeter of the pool. Okay. No dilution necessary, but pour it into the pool so that it does its work in the pool, not concentrated in your filter. Don't do that.
[00:19:42] I know other phosphate removers are instructed to put it into the skimmer, not ours. Do not put PR-10,000 directly into the skimmer.
[00:19:51] And, uh, I actually have it in my notes here for SPA-500, follow the instructions on the bottle. And we're going to cover that process in, I guess was episode 68, episode 68, probably. When we talk about SPA-500. That is not used with bathers in the water. Right before a drain only.
[00:20:10] Okay. Let's see here. Um, I just want to touch again that. If you're going to hit the pool hard with PR-10,000, do it with enzymes. And if you're already maintaining on enzymes, you don't have to purge again. Because if you've been maintaining your purge, you have the same amount in there. At least you should. It'll work just fine.
[00:20:29] But if you have never added enzymes, purge with enzymes too. Bite the bullet, get it done right so that the water actually clears. Because otherwise you're going to kind of create a conflict in there. Uh, not with our chemicals, but the fact that oils rise and debris and dust fall, so it can suspend out. We actually see this all the time. A lot of people call us on our hotline because they only use PR-10,000.
[00:20:51] Oh, it works. It clouds up like crazy, but it takes time for it to clear. It should take like 12 hours. But what happens if it's three or four days? The next question we're going to ask is, did you use enzymes? If you didn't. That's probably why. You have a lot of organics that have slowed that down, but I think I've beat that dead horse enough.
[00:21:13] So let's, let's wrap this up. In summary, our purge is like a deep herbal cleanse. We are getting the crud out, especially the crud that you can't see. And what chlorine cannot directly address.
[00:21:31] Somebody asked me the other day. How can you like summarize what Orenda is all about? And, first thing that came to my mind was "we get things out of the water." That's what we do. We get stuff out of your water. Stuff that you cannot otherwise easily get out. We want your water to be minimalist. We want it to be simplified. We want it to be clean, clear, pure. We don't want it to be a chemical cocktail of stuff that you've accumulated season after season.
[00:22:00] Chlorine can't oxidize phosphates. It is not good at getting rid of non-living organics. And while SC-1000 does not remove metals, it can be used in conjunction with metal filters and metal removers. It will chelate them and make them inert, so to speak. It will make them not able to be oxidized. So they're out of the equation, even though they're still in your water.
[00:22:24] There are very few contaminant loads that our purge will not overcome. Provided you have decent filtration and circulation. Remember, that's the Trinity of pool care, circulation, filtration, and chemistry.
[00:22:37] You need all three. But if you have them, those of you listening, who have done an Orenda purge. You know. You know what it does. And there's a reason people do it every year. It works. It's that simple.
[00:22:52] If you have questions, reach out to us. Call our hotline, email us: podcast@orendatech.com if you want it to go to me. info@orendatech.com if you want it to go to all of us.
[00:23:02] So thank you for listening to this episode. I don't really like talking about ourselves, but again, a lot of people requested this. So we're grateful for you. Stick in there. We're going to get through these next few episodes together. Take it easy everyone! Thanks.