alkalinity

Watching pH
What happens when the water added to a newly plastered pool has had a chance to interact fully with its new surroundings?  That's a big question, writes Kim Skinner -- one that has implications for the long-term appearance and maintenance of countless watershapes.
How Big Is That Pool?
Almost anyone who’s spent much time around swimming pools is familiar with the classic method for measuring their water volume – that is, by multiplying length by width by average depth and then multiplying that result by 7.5, which is approximately the number of gallons in a cubic foot. That’s all well and good for basic rectangular watershapes, but what do you do when the pool in question has a truly irregular shape?  The answer, as we’ll discuss here, has to do with
Exploring the ‘Acid Column’
When I conduct seminars at pool and spa industry trade shows, I regularly get asked about the validity of a water-management technique known widely as the “acid column” approach. Those who believe in this application method say that if acid is poured into a swimming pool in a concentrated area – producing what adherents variously call a column, slug, well or cloud – the alkalinity of the water will be drastically reduced, but the pH will not drop as much as it otherwise would.  By contrast, they say, if that same volume of acid is added by walking it around a pool and evenly distributing it throughout the water, the pH will be
Good Chemistry
Water is a chemical compound with a variety of physical characteristics, including the ability to act as a solvent and to harbor life.  For those two reasons alone, says chemistry expert Jeff Freeman, watershape designers and builders should want to know everything they can about water chemistry -  but they typically don't.  Here, he begins a new series on the importance of water chemistry with a discussion of why watershapers really do need to care.