Bad Air Quality at Work. What to do?

[Gary Thill]

Got this email from a reader who is struggling with doing her job and staying health due to bad air quality. She read our Air Sickness article and wanted feedback:

Hello,
My name is Ann Marie. In the last 4 months I have been sick on an almost daily basis. I work in Aquatics (this is my 30th year) and my worksite has recently had higher than normal combined chlorine levels in the whirl and tot pools. I have been a competitive swimmer/water polo player/master swimmer throughout my life. It’s been 4 months since I swam with the club (I was thinking that maybe the flip turns were forcing water up my nose!!) but I still have to teach swimming lessons at least 1 – 1 ½ hrs/day, lead Aquafit classes 3 times/week along with guarding on the deck for approximately 4 hours/day. I also balance the tot pool and whirl pool on a daily basis using primarily sodium bicarbonate and calcium chloride: I use the prescribed WCB garb when dealing with these chemicals.
AFTER READING YOUR ARTICLE on Air Sickness(Oct.’06), I am wondering if there is anyone else out there in the Aquatic field that suffers NOT FROM ASTHMA but from sinus and sore throat problems. Maybe there are more articles pertaining to my concern? I am 49 years old and I would like to continue working until retirement. Please feel free to forward this comment to anyone who might be able to help me. My email address is [e-mail] . Thank you

[www.indeksolar.com ; John Hurt]

Have you checked the water with a TDS meter?

[Ross Palmer]

Ann Marie,
It is more likely that your problem does stem from the Disinfection By products of chlorine oxidation.
The ususal culprit is trichloramines which stems from the combining of chlorine with sweat and urine.
However a much more insidious DBP is trihalomethane which occurs after chlorine combines with nutrient matter.
The only effective way to overcome THM,s is to floc the pool continuously and filter out through a totally effective filtration medium.
There are a number of European studies on the problem(Google Trihalomethanes swimming pools),but the most alarming consequence of doing nothing is that swimming in a THM laden pool for 2 hours per week has the equivalent effect on your lungs smoking a packet of cigarettes.
How soon before we are asked to erect NO SWIMMING SIGNS next to the NO SMOKING SIGNS

[Sallie K. Smith]

I too have been having a lot of breathing problems as a result of my pool time. I read about the research being done in Europe and England and it seems that better ventilation, filtration and ultraviolet light is needed to help cope with this.

[Ed Lightcap]

Ann Marie,

After reading the Oct 06' article on "Bad Air" in AI, I wrote a 'letter to the editor' with some additional thoughts on improving indoor air quality. My letter was published in Feb 07'. Chloramine is formed when chlorine reacts with compounds containing nitrogen, such as perspiration, urine, and just about everything else humans discard, voluntarily or otherwise, into pool and hot tub water. As long as humans and chlorine invade the same water space you will have chloramine.

Higher doses of chlorine form higher concentrations of chloramine, so the more chlorine the more chloramine. When chlorine is over-applied, such as in shock treatment applications or "breakpoint" treatments, greater concentrations of volatile chloramine are formed resulting in more chloramine odor and subsequent irritation.

A simple solution is to reduce the amount of chlorine used. One easy way to do this is to use chlorine only where it provides value, such as for sanitation, and to eliminate heavy doses of chlorine for "shock treatment" where the primary goal is to reduce organic contaminants, many of which contain nitrogen.
If we follow this approach how do we remove the organic contaminants that consume the sanitizer and degrade the water quality? One answer is to use a chlorine-free oxidizer. It's simple, and delivers useful oxidation without forming chlorine disinfection byproducts, like chloramine.

I must confess i work for a company that sells chlorine free oxidizers to the pool and hot tub industry. But it's important for you to now that this is exactly why we're in the business.

If you know the pool operator, ask about their strategy for "managing" chloramine. There are other things that can also help like optimizing ventilation, water replacement, requiring showers before pool use, etc.

,,,,Ed

[Bill Priest]

I have spoken to Mr Lightcap a couple of times about his products and they have helped with our combined chlorine problem in our high-use indoor pools. His products take care of things that cause chloramines before they do.

We have also worked at adjusting the turnover rates of the dehumidification units (DHU's) to decrease the time it takes to replace all of the air in the pool area with fresh air. Increasing the air turnover made significant improvements in some facilities and not so much in others. Some DHU's do not have additional refrigeration or heating capacity to handle the higher cooling and heating loads caused by bringing in more fresh air and exhausting more bad air to outside. The amount of fresh air coming into your pool facility should be looked at and probably increased if possible. You must have an air exchange to haul out the airborne chloramines.

Another thing that should be checked, especially if you start messing around with the DHU, is the pressure balance of your pool area to the rest of the facility. The pressure in the pool area should be slightly negative in respect to the rest of the facility, including the equipment room if it is separated from the pool. If the pressure in the pool area is positive compared to the rest of your facility, the pressure in the pool will force the highly corrosive combined chlorine into the other parts of the building where it will cause damage to almost everything. By setting the pressures correctly between the pool and the rest of the facility, a small amount of clean air will constantly flow into the pool area instead of having pool air flowing into the rest of the facility. I have seen hand rails rusted above the waterline and looking brand new below the waterline. That indicates to me that combined chlorine, which gasses off easily from the pool water, is responsible for most of the rust and corrosion in a facility with a pool. If you can smell your pool in areas not associated with the pool, get your buildings air balanced checked.

Our final attempt has been with "low pressure" UV. We have been told that medium pressure UV is required to sanitize and remove chloramines. We have tested the less expensive low pressure UV and found it to be very effective at removing chloramines. Our hand testing shows about .2 combined chlorine most of the time with no odor or eye burn in our high-use pools. UV is expensive and requires maintenace but it does work very well. It also kills Crypto quickly.

One last comment - keep your water balanced at all times. If you let alkalinity go out of spec you will not be able to control pH. If pH goes out of spec you will not know the sanitizing ability of the chlorine regardless of what your hand test says. If your pH is 7.8 or higher, your sanitizing ability may be so low that your pool should be closed even though your hand test shows free chlorine to be normal.

Bill

[Jesse Benavidez]

Ann Marie,

I dont want to beat a dead horse when I say to use a non chlorine shock for your choramine treatment. To backup Ed, we use a product called, OXONE, Potassium Monosulfate. This product is available at most pool stores but can be purchased in larger quantities from Dupont. We are using a tester product from Dupont. It is oxone but in a liquid form. This makes it easier to dose and it requires no mixing barrel. Just a chemical pump that is on a timer.

Also, we began having issues with our facility begenning of the summer. The symtoms you described were the same that our athletes were complaining about. Mainly our older kids that would swim 2 hour sets at a time and also had two a days. Our masters rarely had complaints. However, our air exchange ratio was a little low, so we changed it to perform more air replaicement per hour. I think we changed it to 40%. We also changed the Humidity to 50-60% and dropped the water tempature to 78f to lower the evaporation rate.

After about a week. Our athletes were experiencing better swims afterwards.

[Bill Priest]

Jesse,

Good point on the humidity level. One other thing that is bad for your facility is condensation. The water vapor from the pool area that condenses somewhere has the bad bi and tri types of chloramines entrained within it. These highly corrosive chloramines will be anywhere there is condensation of moisture from the pool. These chloamines are corrisive enough to cause concrete block to come apart over time and can cause severe damage to the facility from rust and corrosion. We try to keep our pool areas at 50% relative humidity all of the time and can do so even with some of our pools at 85 deg and spas at 102. If there is condensation on windows or walls in your pool area you should fix the problem immediately. Even skylights shopuld not be allowed to condense pool water vapor.

[Clemente J. Rivera]

High Capacity Feeding is a Relatively new Concept that is getting the attention of Aquatics Professionals Worldwide.

Did you know that there are pools out there running less than 0.3ppm Chloramines with JUST their primary sanitizer? (NO OZONE, NO UV, Just Chlorine?) This creates a very comfortable environment for aquatics, and makes the HVAC manufacturers VERY HAPPY.

Here is a quick analogy: I bought a BMW roadster, got my BMV Pro Driver's Series Certification, and filled my car with REGULAR unleaded Gas. Am I going to enjoy this drive? I think not.

Same with a Pool: You purchased a High end Chemical Controller, for an Olympic Natatorium, and installed stenner pumps that only get 1/2 the chlorine you actually need to overcome the organic demands of your pool. is that pool going to remain clear and safe? I dont think so either.

The fact of the matter is, the Majority of swimming pools are undersized in their chlorination capabilities. High Capacity Feeding, as it is stated, is the answer to all your pool's sanitation AND oxidation needs.

The concept is simple - Get the chlorine in the pool at high feed rates (under the control of a properly configured ORP controller) and you can achieve Ultra Low Chloramine levels, while maintaining Health Department sanctioned levels.

For more info - Contact me at [e-mail]. Forget the Expensive Lightbulbs and Ozone systems that are Ultra expensive to MAINTAIN. Let us show you the most efficient method to kill chloramines, and make your pools ULTRA clean. You'll thank me later!

As for air quality - Air should be kept 2 degrees over the water temp, with a 55% Humidity level.