Good afternoon
My husband has just been to buy javel for the pool and been refused without a certificate.
@Corona
Please could you shed light on this?
How do we open our pool now?
So I’ve been on line and other places still advertise Javel.
The only law I’ve found is for PFA’s and comes into force in 2026.
Try a different brico shed, Brico depot refused me one time around the covid era. I laughed so loudly at them so as to cause max embarrassment whilst explaining how crazy it was to restrict biocide.
We had a visit from a French person in the UK pool expo, telling us all about how we should do things, naturally I piped up with, do you realise how dangerous it is in Bico’s in France storing 20ltr bidons of javel next 20ltr bidons hydrochloric acid! Told them to go home and lecture their own country as we dont store our chemicals like that in the UK.
I did post a while back that I could clearly see the regulations tightening up over the next few years so maybe some are but not all as I found in the episode above a few Km’s up the road I bought plenty of javel without question.
I will be changing my pool to salt soon as things are only going to get worse going foward.
Good luck elsewhere and please let us know how you get on.
Thank you.
We will try the brico further away.
Honestly, just when you think you’re organised and another curve ball gets thrown.
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9.6% Javel?
Never been asked for ID when buying that nor the 36% Chlorine in 20L bidons in pool shops.
The only pool chemical I’ve had to supply ID for the oxygenating shock liquid “rattrapage”
Aka hydrogen peroxide, rocket fuel 
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Weeeeellll. Not fuel, oxidiser 
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Part of.
I prefer a Xenon-fuelled ion engine myself, takes longer but gets you to Alpha Centauri eventually. 
Or possibly an Alcubierre drive but my local garage doesn’t have those in stock yet.
I feel a Uranus joke coming on 
Are nuclear piles involved?
(sorry, we have seriously hijacked this important thread, apologies…)
To bring it back on track, here’s a short swimming pool-related video clip:
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I can’t understand this. My local Rural Master, Carrefour and Gamm Vert all sell 5 litre bidons of Javel. Just go in and buy one. No need to say what you want it for…it’s a household cleanser and everyone has some!
Kate, I also hate stupid rules. I believe they are probably well intentioned but by the time it moves down the food chain the droid at the end just does what is said without thought.
I think the 20 litre bidons for the pool are probably stronger.
We’re in Perigueux tomorrow so I’ll look in Leroy Merlin.
I tested my cya yesterday and it was 29 which surprised me as we’ve had so much rain and had to let water out of the pool a lot over winter.
However it’s probably not the most accurate test, A Lovibond scuba.
I’ll pop to the pool shop and get a proper test done.
We have got a closer fitting winter cover now and the water was the clearest it’s ever been on opening the pool.
So this year I’ll be keeping a very close eye on cya.
I believe there is a percentage measurement for how much chlorine depending on the cya.
Could you remind me please.
Thanks.
Yes pool shop javel is around 14-15% when manufactured but is quite reactive so depending on transport and storage, temperature etc it quite quickly loses some of that potency, as javel gets weaker and less reactive its a bit more stable losing less hence Brico sheds 9.6% is usually lower cost than pool shop 14%. In the past people have tested the brico shed javel and found that to be old manufacture date printed on the side usually and they reported it being nearer to 5%. So fresh is best, I go for high turnover shops so usually quite fresh and therefore stronger.
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They are pretty good, but like any intrument can go out of calibration over time. I havent had mine recalibrated in 6 years, I used the shop bought calibration liquid and my old lovibond colourimeter to check each year. With CYA test if the water is a bit cloudy it can test a bit higher than it really is. The pool shops mainly use the the La Motte spin tester these days and the results are pretty good.
There are now pretty good online apps and calcultors for chemical advice especially CYA vs Chlorine. Just dont take the advice to increase TA as its pretty pointless unless you like constantly rising pH. Better to have lower TA and run with a slightly higher pH to reduce and corrosion potential, you’ll save a lot on pH minus that way. Depending of course on your starting ppm. I remember when working near Jumilhac le grand a pool that was only 27ppm of TA, that started the deep look into what was going on pool water wise and with help from a far better chemist we reviewed and shared to others in our pool community. The thing to watch running a low TA is you can reduce your pH much much easier with much smaller doses of pH-.
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Maybe they do where they care a damn - I certainly have never seen any in the SW use such a tester! here it is take in your jam jar of sample, whisked into the back room and the ‘expert’ dips in a [even maybe out of date] test strip, jots down some figures that s/he knows nothing about and holds hand out for 5€… 
Yes, draining water is the only [recognised] way to reduce CYA, and if you do not top it up as you drain, CYA will just get lower.
HaHa! Good luck with that.
Why? If you do not use big slabs of chlor or add stabiliser, (I presume you have a salt chlorinator?)once you arrive at the desired level it will not change much without addition of stabiliser or draining!
I refer you to the next post by Corona… buy a bidon of hydrochloric acid.
I have followed his advice from a different life many years ago, and now really only regularly test for TA . I keep it at 80 with regulation by HCl, and I find the rest looks after itself (clean the chlorinator plates of course and help by adding javel if/when it gets really hot. Swimmers are my test for Ph, and as no one has complained, then I have saved on phenol red!
A bit of thread drift maybe, but since you mention the Scuba - I had one, a Scuba2, that I thought was giving erroneous readings. I found Lovibond attitude to my call for service totally unacceptable and on a visit to Florida purchased an ‘Exact EZ’.
I use it every week for TA and monthly for Chlorine and salt, and the very odd time for Ph. Brilliant. And their EU agents ITS are very polite and helpful when I order new media. I presume it is accurate as the pool is pretty good…
I was being ever hopeful things were improving but as you say Adam, in the local shop its out with dip strips.
Lovibond service is better than Palintest but yes these two giants of the industry need to be much more customer friendly. The exact isnt bad and has improved over the early model. Pool id is another good one.
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