Most people in the swimming pool and spa industry know how to measure alkalinity, but they don't actually understand what it does. This episode explains what alkalinity is and how it's measured, why it slows down the change of pH, how pH determines the type of alkalinity present in a pool, and how alkalinity impacts the LSI in particular with something called carbonate alkalinity.
00:00 - Intro
02:27 - Alkalinity buffers against reduction in pH
05:27 - Where should my alkalinity be?
08:33 - How much acid does it take to bring a pool from 8.0 pH to 7.4 pH?
11:16 - What is Buffering Capacity?
14:40 - Sodium Carbonate (Soda Ash) vs Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda)
19:03 - How to pH and Calcium interact?
19:52 - Hot Starts or Zero Alkalinity Startups
21:23 - Why testing your water is important
24:59 - The Orenda LSI Calculator
28:53 - How to run a low alkalinity pool
Articles & Resources:
Connect with Orenda Technologies:
Episode 2_v2_AUDIO.mp3
Eric [00:00:00] Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Rule Your Pool podcast. I'm your host, Eric Knight. And with me is the president of Orenda, Jared Morgan. Jared, thanks for being with me.
Jarred [00:00:10] Let's not use president. Let's say co-host.
Eric [00:00:13] Co-host. You won't be the co-host, OK? My co-host -
Jarred [00:00:16] I'm co-host there we go.
Eric [00:00:17] Alright. Yeah, that sounds better. It sounds a little bit less intimidating to the audience.
Jarred [00:00:22] Yeah, I'm a co-host.
Eric [00:00:23] So in the last episode we did a - I guess Jarred wasn't with me, so I did a 30000 foot overview of Total Alkalinity and pH, because those are two very important aspects of water chemistry. And today I want to dove more into alkalinity. Don't get too excited. Alkalinity is a pretty dry subject, but I'm going to try to focus on just a few takeaways so that you know what's important about alkalinity, because [00:00:50]most people in the industry don't actually understand what it is. They know how to measure it, but they don't actually understand what it does. [5.6s]
Eric [00:00:56] So I have four takeaways. [00:00:59]The first takeaway is that alkalinity is a measurement of dissolved alkali in water and it's measured in parts per million. [8.3s] That's not the same as pH. pH is a scale. The second thing is [00:01:12]buffering capacity. We're going to cover exactly what that actually means and how and why it slows down the change of pH. [6.5s] The third takeaway is that [00:01:22]the pH actually determines the type of alkalinity you're going to be dealing with. [3.2s] And the fourth is [00:01:28]the impact that alkalinity has on the LSI in particular with something called carbonate alkalinity. [6.5s] So without further ado, let's get into episode two of The Rule Your Pool podcast.
INTRO [00:01:47] Welcome to Rule Your Pool, the podcast by Orenda that explains and simplifies pool chemistry so that anybody, regardless of experience, can understand it. I'm your host, Eric Knight, bringing clarity to these subjects so that you can bring clarity to your water. If you're ready to ruel your pool, then let's go.
Eric [00:02:09] All right. So we know that pH is zero to 14 on a scale that tells us how acidic or basic our water is. Alkalinity is a measurement of how much. All right. So if we think about it, people think it's the buffering capacity of water. And it is, but it's a measurement in parts per million. [00:02:27]So one way that I like to think about alkalinity is if you were going to try to change the pH specifically trying to lower the pH, you have to get through alkalinity to do that. [11.2s] It's almost like a bodyguard or a parent helping the pH remain stable. And the reason it does that is because if you are going to lower the pH of your water, what you actually have to do is you have to bring more hydrogens to a given substance. Alkalinity contributes to the buffering capacity. So it slows down the change in pH because alkalinity can actually take hydrogen's and it can give them away. So let's talk about the first takeaway. The first takeaway is [00:03:08]alkalinity is measured as parts per million of all dissolved alkali, [4.0s] and there's a lot of different types, but primarily in the swimming pool. We're going to be dealing with bicarbonate and carbonate alkalinity.
Eric [00:03:20] There are some other things that contribute to the buffering capacity, like Cyanurate alkalinity, which will cover a little bit later, but it's not nearly as impactful as bicarbonate and carbonate. And when you think about the chemicals that you use to raise the pH or raise the alkalinity in your pool, you're really talking about sodium bicarbonate and sodium carbonate, also called soda ash. Well, that makes a lot of sense because you're just putting that alkali into the water. [00:03:51]The purpose of alkalinity is to basically be a buffering so that if you put in a lot of acid in your pool, it doesn't necessarily bottom out your pH. [9.8s] Because pH, as we will discuss in the next episode of how pH actually interacts. pH is logarithmic so it can get out of hand really, really fast. A change in one hole number on pH is a 10 X difference. It's a multiplier of 10. If you go from 8.0 PH down to seven. That's 10 times more acidic. So it's not insignificant. Without alkalinity, if you, let's say, mismeasure the dose of acid, it could get way out of hand and you could actually throw the balance of your water way off. And then you get over corrections in your swimming pool. And that's where a lot of problems occur because, you know, the pH bottoms out, the LSI becomes aggressive - again, we'll discuss LSI in later episodes - and that is when people start fighting their chemistry.
Jarred [00:04:52] Question: You mentioned earlier that the alkalinity is buffering the hydrogen, correct?
Eric [00:04:59] Well, yeah, it's buffering the change in pH because alkalinity can take and receive a hydrogen, which is actually my second takeaway. So it's kind of a nice Segway, but what's your question?
Jarred [00:05:10] Well, it's going to say because we know what pH stands for, the potenz of hydrogen. Is that why there's a direct correlation between how much alkalinity fluctuates because of that hydrogen exchange? Is that why we're referencing this specifically?
Eric [00:05:24] Well, I reference this because [00:05:27]if you have too much alkalinity, it's actually going to be a source of rising pH. And if you have too little alkalinity, then you're not going to be able to regulate the drop in pH. There's a happy medium. And most textbooks would say you need 80 to 120 alkalinity. We don't necessarily agree with that. It's a good reference point, but it depends on the type of chlorine you have. [21.3s]
Jarred [00:05:49] No, I have have a lot of questions that come in through the Help Desk about where people should keep their alkalinity. And it's a very tricky subject to answer because industry standards say one thing, but it's not always the right way. In my opinion. But we'll cover that, I guess.
Eric [00:06:06] Well, we will, but we can knock that out now because I wasn't really going to dove into that. The reason that the industry standard is not always the right thing is because of the LSI. There are a lot of other factors at play, like water temperature. [00:06:19]Your alkalinity in the winter needs to be different than it is in the summer. [3.1s] And the type of chlorine you use is also different. You don't need 110 - 120 alkalinity, which is the top of the textbook range, which is 80 to 120. You don't need one hundred and twenty alkalinity on a salt chlorine pool because the salt chlorinator is raising the pH constantly. The last thing you need is extra alkalinity because that could lead to further problems. I don't know if that answers the question or just complicates.
Jarred [00:06:48] I guess the main thing is the question that I get is [00:06:51]I'm scared to keep my alkalinity low because that means my pH is going to drift faster. [5.2s] What is that correlation mean exactly?
Eric [00:07:00] Drift as in drift up?
Jarred [00:07:02] Usually it depends what type of surface you have. But generally pH is gonna drift up. But why? Why, [00:07:08]why are people hesitant to maintain, let's say, a 60 or 70 alkalinity? Because they're concerned they're gonna have too much fluctuation in their pH. [8.4s]
Eric [00:07:18] So believe it or not, that's a great question. And I'm sure there's a lot of homeowners listening that that have that same question. Alkalinity actually really primarily buffers the pH from going down. pH is naturally going to go up. So that's a law physics. We'll discuss that in the next episode when we dive into pH. Having a lower alkalinity is not going to make your pH rise any faster unless you have an overcorrection as a result of too much acid that went in the pool. But low alkalinity itself is not the reason for that. Too much acid was. And we can plug in the Orenda app and I can show my screen and I'll show what I mean by that. I know we're going off on a little bit of a tangent, but it's I think it's valuable here. So let's see here. I'm going to share my screen. OK. Can you see my calculator there, Jared?
Jarred [00:08:07] I can.
Eric [00:08:08] OK. So right now we have perfectly balanced water. Seven point four pH. Two hundred and seventy calcium, ninety alkalinity. Now I have no stabilizer and I have just one hundred TDS. Now we can make this more realistic. But right now let's just do the example of 90 alkalinity 7.4 pH. Over the course of a week, that pH is going to rise up to about 8.2. But let's just stick stick with easy math. [00:08:33]Let's go to about 8.0. And the only correction we really want to make to get back to about perfect is 7.5. So in a twenty thousand gallon pool, which is a very common size, how much acid do you think that takes? [13.9s]
Jarred [00:08:49] It's a trick question for me, I know the answers.
Eric [00:08:51] Well, you know the answer, most people say it's about half a gallon.
Jarred [00:08:55] Yeah.
Eric [00:08:56] According to the calculator, it's 31.52 Ounces of muriatic acid. That's about a quart. 32 ounces is a quart. So 31.52 Is almost exactly a quart. Now, check this out. Remember that. That's right around a quart at 90 Alkalinity. The concern is when the alkalinity goes way down. Let's go to 50 alkalinity. Now it's only 17.51 Ounces. That's a little bit more than half of what you had at 90.
Eric [00:09:25] [00:09:25]S o the illustration here is when you have much lower alkalinity, it takes a lot less acid to do the same pH Swing. [7.0s] And conversely, if we raise the alkalinity, let's say we go up to 120. Now it's 42.02 Ounces. That's another 10 ounces, that's 30 percent more. [00:09:45]So the higher your alkalinity, the more acid it takes to make a change on the pH. [4.9s] That's what we're really trying to say here. So that illustration shows that the lower your alkalinity, the less acid it takes. But because we're an industry of habits, most people will just stick with the same amount of acid regardless of the alkalinity. And that's the problem, because now you're going to get an overcorrection. If you stay with a quart. And you only have 50 alkalinity. You're now doing almost twice the amount of acid you actually needed. So alkalinity does matter.
Jarred [00:10:22] A lot of it comes with fear of having weekly service and having to manage your pool when you're only there once every seven days. And you're compensating for it. So that is a habit that's hard to break.
Eric [00:10:34] Sure. But, you know, we had Orenda we don't advocate for helicopter parenting a pool if you're if you're touching that pool chemically more than twice a week. We would advise against that unless you had chemical automation. [00:10:47]A good alkalinity level is not necessarily a high one. [3.3s] We can compensate for some of what alkalinity does in terms of water balance, using other factors like calcium hardness, which is a lot more reliable because calcium hardness doesn't move. Alkalinity can move. You put acid in a pool, alkalinity is going to go down. Which brings me to my second take away.
Eric [00:11:09] Alkalinity goes down because it is getting... I'm going to say the term burned up. That's not the technical term, but it's a good visual. [00:11:16]You have to burn through alkalinity to to lower the pH. Buffering capacity is just a measurement of any ions that can both give and receive a hydrogen. [12.0s] And I have a chart that I'm going to explain here and I'm going to share my screen so you can see what this is.
Eric [00:11:36] So for those of you listening to this and not actually watching it, this video will be on YouTube. But [00:11:41]we're looking at a chart here that shows alkalinity in swimming pools. [2.9s] And. At the top. Anything below 4.3 pH is carbonic acid. Did you have a question, Jarred?
Jarred [00:11:55] No, I was just going to say, just to be honest, the first time I saw this chart, I had no idea what I was looking at.
Eric [00:12:00] Well, to be fair, neither did I. So, I mean, we're not chemists in this company. What we're trying to do, our whole M.O. at Orenda is to distill this chemistry and explain it to anybody so they can understand just enough so that they can operate a pool correctly. Would you agree?
Jarred [00:12:18] Absolutely.
Eric [00:12:20] [00:12:20]So this chart isn't something that you're going to be quizzed on, but it helps explain a lot of what's actually going on. [4.9s]
Eric [00:12:28] One of the big takeaways from our next episode is how carbon dioxide corrects or I'm sorry - carbon dioxide determines the pH of water. Well, when carbon dioxide actually goes into water, CO2 binds with H2O, it goes aqueous and it creates this thing called carbonic acid. And if you can see my mouse, carbonic acid is H2CO3. That's carbon dioxide plus water.
Eric [00:12:55] That's not alkalinity yet. And the reason it's not alkalinity yet is because it has two hydrogens. Yeah, it can give up a hydrogen, but it cannot receive another hydrogen. Therefore, because it cannot both give and receive hydrogen, it is not technically alkalinity. That make sense, Jarred? OK. Now, as the pH rises, a hydrogen leaves. And it becomes by carbonate alkalinity, which is just instead of H2 c0 three, it's just H c0 three, a hydrogen left. Now, this is the vast majority of the alkalinity that we're gonna deal with in a swimming pool. On this chart, I have approximately seven to eight is just this line. That's a purple line that says, 'pool chemistry.' This is the ranges we're typically dealing with. Ideally, it's about 7.2 To 8.0, but you can get up to about 8.2 in a pool chemistry. That is the vast majority going to be by carbonate, OK? Very little carbonate so far until you get to over 8.2 And the threshold is actually 8.3. At 8.3, you'll lose another hydrogen, or you start to anyway, and it becomes a carbonate, which is just a CO3. That is carbonate alkalinity. So these are the two primary species of alkalinity. So the higher the pH is, you're going to have a higher percentage of carbonate alkalinity.
Jarred [00:14:24] Well, I know explain why we use sodium bicarbonate to manage the pH or the alkalinity and then why we use sodium carbonate because it has a higher impact on the alkalinity, correct?
Eric [00:14:36] Well, no, actually, you you're thinking correctly, but that's actually backwards. [00:14:40]Sodium carbonate or soda ash has a more direct. It has a more direct impact on pH because it's about twelve hundred times higher in pH. [10.6s] Bicarb, remember, alkalinity? I'm glad I'm so glad you're on the show, you brought this up. I wouldn't have thought of it. Bicarb is used or sodium bicarb is used because alkalinity is measured as 'how much.' It's just parts per million. Well, if it takes one cup of soda ash and that equals several pounds of sodium bicarb, you're going to get more alkalinity from bicarb to do the same pH adjustment. That's because you just needed more of it. And we're measuring parts per million. So bicarbonate alkalinity as sodium bicarb, that's a much faster thing to raise your alkalinity than soda ash. [00:15:30]If you put too much soda ash in, you're gonna have an LSI violation that's going to cloud out your pool. And you're you're not capable of putting enough into really raise your alkalinity substantially without other problems. [10.3s]
Jarred [00:15:41] But you'll raise your pH for sure.
Eric [00:15:43] Oh, yeah. Yeah, you will. Don't mistake those two chemicals. Soda ash is about twelve hundred times more concentrated than bicarb.
Eric [00:15:51] So anyway, I only show this to illustrate that the higher the pH, it changes. But look at these substances. There's always a CO3. That's a carbonate. It's just a matter of did it take or receive a hydrogen? So if I have a pH of 8.2, most of what I have there is bicarbonate alkalinity. Almost 100 percent. In order to lower the pH, I have to put more hydrogen on that. And therefore, it slows down that acid to create more carbonic acid, which lowers the pH of the water. I have to burn through that extra alkalinity to lower the pH. Back to the calculator. I had to take almost twice the amount of acid at 90 alkalinity than I did at 50 because you simply have less to burn through so you don't need as much acid to lower the pH. Now, on the other end of the spectrum, low alkalinity does not really stop your pH from climbing. High alkalinity doesn't stop it from climbing, in fact, high alkalinity is a source for a higher climbing pH. If you have a higher level of carbonate alkalinity in your pool, your ceiling is going to be higher and we'll get into what the ceiling means in the next episode.
Eric [00:17:06] So does this make sense to you, Jared?
Eric [00:17:10] OK. And so for those of you listening, [00:17:12]you can find this chart on Orendatech.com in our blog. It's in just there's a search bar, just type in alkalinity. We have like seven articles. It's in all of them. [8.6s] And it's just an equilibrium showing that [00:17:25]no matter where you are on pH, whether it's 90 percent carbonic acid and 10 percent bicarbonate or 50, 50 or 70, 30, it's an equilibrium. So it's always going to be an exact ratio of alkalinity. [14.8s] As you raise it higher and higher on the page. So that was a little bit of a blend into the third takeaway, which is the pH determines the species of alkalinity. I probably should've said that before we got into the chart. But having you on the show actually gets me to get ahead of myself. So kudos to you. Hopefully we're not confusing the audience at home.
Jarred [00:18:03] No, no. Gotta keep moving.
Eric [00:18:05] We gotta keep it moving. Yeah.
[00:18:06] So, again, the higher the pH, the more likely it's gonna be carbonate alkalinity. This we will talk a lot more about in future episodes about the LSI.
[00:18:17] But I want to make one quick example. When you're pH gets over this 8.2 or 8.3 and you have carbonate alkalinity start to become present. If you look at that chart, it's CO3 -2 as a valence, meaning it has two negative, I suppose, electrons on it. Calcium has two positives on it. They bind together really, really fast, really well, perfectly. And what you get is CaCO3. That's calcium carbonate. That's the same substance as plaster dust. Scale winter dust on even carbonation. A lot of modeling is calcium carbonate. Winter crystals are calcite. That's calcium carbonate. [00:19:03]So any time that you get over that threshold of 8.2 or 8.3, again, depending on what your alkalinity is, you're going to have carbonate alkalinity that appears and it's going to look for calcium and it's going to bind to it and it's going to turn white. It's going to precipitate out a solution and you're going to start having scale because now you have an LSI violation. You're over that threshold. It's very, very hard to keep calcium in solution over 8.3, pH. Very, very difficult. You've probably experienced this in the field Jarred. [33.8s]
Jarred [00:19:37] Oh, yes. I use this chart a lot to explain the meaning of the word zero alkaline startup, which I don't think is part of this episode. But, man, is it a good chart.
Eric [00:19:49] Well, it is. It is. And I can briefly touch on that. [00:19:52]When you do a hot start or zero ALK treatment or even a low ALK treatment on a plaster finished pool, they put a whole bunch of acid in the pool. The whole objective is to get below 4.3. And if you look at this chart, four point three happens to be where by carbon starts to appear. Everything under that, there is zero alkalinity in your water. [20.5s] That is pretty significant. That's going to etch the walls pretty uniformly. It's gonna take a lot of stuff out of those walls. So, yeah, if you're doing a zero ALK startup, you're tanking the pH below 4.3. And that's what we don't agree with the practice, honestly, but it's a very common practice in the plaster business to clean up issues on a plaster finish. So does that properly address that?
Jarred [00:20:44] Absolutely it does. And definitely not something we agree with. But,.
Eric [00:20:47] Yeah, for sure. All right. So I'm gonna stop sharing here and the last takeaway that I have for this episode. And, you know, who knows? We may do future episodes. I'm not sure.
Eric [00:20:59] The last one. I want to talk about its direct impact. That's alkalinity's direct impact on the LSI. And again, we'll cover the LSI in a few episodes from now. But it's the objective measure of water balance. There are six factors to the LSI and pH and alkalinity are two main ones. They're two of the six, but they're not all six. So if you know the pH of your water, that's great. Do you really test for alkalinity? [00:21:23]Do you test for calcium hardness? Do you test for cyanuric acid, TDS, and water temperature? If not, you don't have the whole story. It is very, very important to understand the role that alkalinity plays in the buffering system of not just pH but the LSI. [16.8s]
Eric [00:21:41] I loosely use the term buffer because [00:21:44]"buffer," as we've discussed in this, is the ability to take and receive hydrogen. [3.5s] When it comes to the LSI, we're just talking about what can stabilize the LSI, what can keep your water balanced. For instance, [00:21:55]alkalinity is one of those six factors. It can help you stabilize the balance of your water, [5.2s] but it's not the only one. In fact, it's not as good as something like calcium because calcium doesn't move. Alkalinity does. You put acid in a pool, your calcium's still there. In fact, it may go up if you put too much [acid] in.
Eric [00:22:14] So the way that alkalinity plays a role in the LSI is actually it calls for carbonate alkalinity, not total alkalinity. And I wanna be clear about this, because the Orenda app calls for total alkalinity on purpose. And that's because the Orenda app with the LSI function takes cyanuric acid into account. So basically what the LSI is asking you to do is it saying we want all of your bicarbonate and carbonate alkalinity and nothing but those two. That's what it's calling for. It doesn't want your cyanurate alkalinity.
Eric [00:22:49] [00:22:49]So what you have to do is you have to deduct whatever your CYA number is (and there's a formula for this) and it takes that out of your total alkalinity and you're left with what's called the carbonate alkalinity. [10.4s] And this is very confusing. This is a misnomer. We just saw a chart that showed bicarbonate and carbonate alkalinity as if they're different. And they are. But the LSI is calling for carbonate alkalinity, meaning any alkalinity with carbonate. That includes bicarbonate. It's super confusing, I know. It's calling for both bicarbonate and carbonate. It just doesn't want cyanuric acid. It doesn't want cyanurate alkalinity. It doesn't want anything else that contributes to the buffering capacity. So it's roughly about a third of the CYA number. So, for easy math. Jared, let's say you have a pool that has 90 cyanuric acid in it. It's higher than we would like. But that's not uncommon, right?
Jarred [00:23:42] Not uncommon at all.
Eric [00:23:44] So we're gonna take about a third of that, which would be 30. And we're gonna deduct that 30 parts per million from our total alkalinity. So if you measured 90 total alkalinity and you have 90 stabilizer, you take a third of that stabilizer, which is 30, and you subtract it from your 90 total alkalinity and you're left with 60 carbonate alkalinity. That's actually the number that gets plugged into the LSI.
Jarred [00:24:09] Automatically, you don't see it just FYI.
Eric [00:24:12] Yeah, again, you don't see it on the Orenda app. We do all the math for you behind the scenes. You still plug in your 90 total alkalinity, but then you just make the CYA on the calculator where it actually is. It'll factor everything for you. We actually get that question a lot. We get that question very often.
Eric [00:24:34] 'Hey, does this account for cyanuric acid?' Yes. Raise the cyanuric acid and you will see that the LSI goes down because it's taking out a bigger and bigger chunk of your alkalinity. [00:24:45]The higher your CYA, the less carbonate alkalinity you have compared to your total. [3.9s]
Eric [00:24:50] So I know that's kind of a mouthful. A lot of what we discussed in this episode, there's visual cues that we were using, like the chart and the calculator. [00:24:59]You can download the calculator in the App Store and Google Play for free. It's just called Orenda O R E N D A. It's totally free and it'll show you your LSI in real time and it'll show you exactly how alkalinity impacts pH adjustments. So no matter what the pool alkalinity is. It will take cyanuric acid into account. And when you try to make a pH correction, it will factor in the alkalinity for you. [26.7s] It's a very precise thing. So that, again, is the Orenda app. And then if you want to see these charts, just go to Orendatech.com. That's Orenda T E C H dot com. Go to our blog. There's a search bar type in the word alkalinity. We have several articles in there, and that chart is on, I believe, every single one of them. So all these resources are available. By the way, you can do the same thing in the app. You can go to the main menu and you can go to articles and just type in alkalinity. All of the blogs on our Web site are in the app for you. All the videos, they're in the app. And you can share them, so if you or your neighbor or your friend or your coworker, they need to see something or they need to read an article. Maybe it's your customer. If you're in the trade listening to this and you want them to understand why you need to raise alkalinity or whatever it is that you need to do. It's a pretty easy thing, let us do the talking for you.
Eric [00:26:18] I know that this was a very dry subject. Would you agree, Jared?
Jarred [00:26:22] Hey I thought we made it as interesting as we possibly could.
Eric [00:26:25] I really tried. I mean, I know we're talking about water chemistry, but when it comes to water, this is about as dry as a subject. But here's why we wanted to really lead off this podcast. This is episode two. We're going to a lot of episodes. The reason I wanted to cover alkalinity so early on is because it's so misunderstood. When you Google things, there's ways that you can see what people are Googling a lot more than others, and [00:26:51]alkalinity is one of the most Googled questions in the pool business. [2.4s] And I mean, put yourself in the shoes of one of our listeners, Jarred. If you didn't know what alkalinity was, but you know what's important and you know how to measure it. Chances are you're just gonna Google it privately. Right?
Jarred [00:27:07] You're gonna Google it. But I mean, I come from the background of maintaining pools and I know that I had all kinds of trouble trying to maintain my alkalinity in that industry standard, within that industry standard. And you're always hesitant to add bicarb because, you know it's going to increase your pH at the same time, which is what you're constantly fighting because you wanted about 7.4 or 7.5 to keep the chlorine as efficient as you can. So you have to make a choice and you're always playing the See-Saw game, which is very frustrating as a service technician, because it seems like a never ending battle. And that's where I came from. And why this helps. It will help, I think. And it helped me understand that, hey, it's not all about the alkalinity and keeping these industry standards where they need to be. There's other things that we can do to keep this water balanced and buffered.
Eric [00:28:03] Correct. By using the LSI. So let's do a real world example and then we'll wrap this episode up. Jared, you have a pool where you keep your alkalinity.
Jarred [00:28:12] My alkalinity roughly sticks around 60 to 70 parts per million now.
Eric [00:28:18] Yeah. Now, think about that. I'm speaking to the audience here. Not you, Jarred. This is a guy who truly understands water chemistry and the LSI and he's operating his pool with automation and by manually tinkering because he's experimenting and he's found 60 to 70 is where that alkalinity maintains. How often do you add bicarb to maintain that?
Eric [00:28:42] You don't.
Jarred [00:28:42] Very. Never, never.
Eric [00:28:44] Yeah. Isn't that curious? So you don't necessarily need. High alkalinity to maintain LSI balance water and here's the big question [00:28:53]why do you get away with a lower amount of alkalinity than 80 to 120 like the book says? [4.9s]
Jarred [00:28:58] Well, I. I go outside of the industry standards. I run my calcium level at 500 plus.
Eric [00:29:04] OK. Right there. That's the answer. You have shown and demonstrated because calcium is a more reliable factor for water balance. He has replaced the LSI anchor point from Alkalinity, and he's made it calcium. So he's had he has a higher level, you know, 200 to 400. Calcium is textbook. He's at 500 plus. A lot of our pools around the country are because now you don't need as much alkalinity to maintain the LSI balance.
Jarred [00:29:33] Absolutely. And it gets you know, I've had this conversation with multiple people and I'm when I tell them I run my alkalinity 50, 60, 70, that's where the conversation of well, is in my pH going to drift faster. [00:29:45]If I'm running such a low alkalinity, my pH is going to rise faster. [2.4s]
Eric [00:29:48] Well, the answer's no. It's not going to rise faster. It could drop faster if you put too much acid in. Because as the alkalinity goes down, you need less acid. That's the big risk. But it's not gonna rise any faster because the rise of pH has to do with your chlorine. And it has to do with physics, which we will discuss at length in the next episode. But for now, are there any final points of questions that you get from homeowners, Jarred or anything you want to add before we wrap this episode up?
Jarred [00:30:16] Not really. Questions ever revolving alkalinity a whole lot. It's really just getting people to understand that they don't need to fight their pool. [00:30:24]The pool does not need to be a burden. You know, your pool is going to want to naturally drift into certain ranges that you just work with them. [8.7s] It's a lot easier. It's a lot more pleasant. And you can enjoy your pool. I mean, we enjoy my pool every day. I have three kids. We use it everyday. We enjoy it. I don't want to fight with my pool. That's not fun. So that's the ultimate goal is to make it enjoyable. Don't make it hard. And if you have proof with the LSI being balanced and keeping these parameters within those ranges and it's balanced, I don't think there's really much to argue with.
Eric [00:31:02] Yeah. Yeah. Well, again, don't helicopter parent your pools. You know, the service trade professionals are primarily out there once a week, maybe twice a week, if it's a special property that's got multiple bodies of water or something like that. But, by and large, you're seeing once a week and the name of the game is not to control your chemistry, it's to contain it well, as it is predictable when you get it right.
Jarred [00:31:25] It is. And people have to understand there's water is different everywhere in this country. Makeup water is different. Well water versus city water versus which city you're in. Everything is different. So everybody's going to have a different way of managing their water. My way is not going to be the way, as somebody say in New York could be completely different. So everybody has to take that to consideration. We're not telling you this is what you have to do. Absolutely not. You can. How many combinations are there to manage the LSI? Over 700?
Eric [00:31:53] And you factorial at seven hundred and twenty different things you can adjust, but then you've got all the numbers you can adjust it to. So it's millions of different ways that you could really adjust the LSI. We're not telling - we at Orenda - we're not telling you how to run your business, but we are showing you on the calculator all the ways that you can do it right. You get to decide how you want to do it right. We have recommendations on what makes the most sense. I mean, you don't want 200 alkalinity. That's ridiculous. But if you have 200 alkalinity and a hundred and say one hundred and ten calcium. Yeah, sure. You could still be LSI balanced. But now you've got other consequences because 200 alkalinity is too much buffering. It's actually a pull your pH up over its natural ceiling and you are going to get scale faster.
Jarred [00:32:35] And that will require a lot more acid to get that pH down, correct?
Eric [00:32:39] Oh, my gosh, yes. I mean, huge, huge amounts of acid. So play around on the calculator, folks. I appreciate all of your time. Jarred, thank you for your time. The next episode of Rule Your Pool, we are going to talk at the same depth. We're here to talk about pH. And now that we have the baseline of alkalinity and understanding that it's just parts per million, that is the buffering capacity to sort of slow the drop of pH against acid. pH itself impacts just about every other chemistry. So thank you all for your time. We will see you in the next episode of Rule Your Pool.
OUTRO [00:33:13] Thank you for listening to Rule Your Pool, a podcast by Orenda Technologies. For more information on what we discussed this week's episode. Check the links in the description or visit www.orendatech.com. I hope you find this show valuable enough that you tap that subscribe button and share it with your friends. You can also like us on Facebook and social media. With our help, you'll be able to rule your pool without overtreating of with chemicals wasting money. I'll see you next episode.