Having trouble maintaining chlorine in your pool? 

You're not alone. 

More and more municipalities have switched to a new way to treat their water and although it may work good on their end ... the new system plays havoc with pool chemistry. 

Water treatment facilities are now using a system involving "chloramines" to treat their water.  Basically, in the pool chemistry world, "chloramines" are tied-up chlorine (or inactive chlorine).  This is the chlorine reading that most pool owners want to "shock" out of their pool water because too much can cause cloudy water and/or render a pool's chlorine level ineffective.

Here's the real problem though ... when a pool owner starts out with a certain level of chloramines in their source water, the chloramine level must first be burnt out in order to successfully maintain free chlorine (the actual chlorine disinfecting your pool).  In professional pool water chemistry circles, this is called a "chlorine demand" and it's usually very high. 

If the chlorine demand is not satisfied, free chlorine is almost impossible to establish and/or maintain.  A new term has emerged from this type of chlorine demand called "breakpoint chlorination" whereby the chlorine demand is measured and a reading is calculated to break down chloramines to the point where they are rendered so that free chlorine can be established.

For more information, contact a pool water professional in your area. 

* This guide is written from a pool water perspective and in no way implies knowledge of how municipal water treatment facilities operate.