Which Chemicals Should You Use to Disinfect Your Hot Tub?

Much as inflatable hot tubs are a nice thing to have in a family house, their maintenance is also very important.

If you decide to disinfect your tub by yourself, you are likely to be faced with the dilemma of choosing which chemical is the right one to use for your tub. After that, you need to decide concentration levels of these chemicals in your tub.

In this article, I will be guiding you on which chemical is the right choice for your tub and how you can make use of this chemical without causing any injury to either yourself or any member of your household.

Why do you need Chemicals?

When you or any other person in your household enters into the tub, knowingly or not, you deposit what can be called body materials. These body materials include lotions, dead skin particles, oils, etc.

These chemicals are used to clean up those body materials.

Caution

In applying chemicals, you have to understand the concentrations of the chemical you intend to apply. This is measured by what is known as Ph value.

The reason why you need to understand Ph values are;

• To avoid skin irritation;
• To avoid mineral scaling on the tub which can lead to corrosion of the metal parts of the tub

Scientifically Ph is defined as the degree of hydrogen ion concentration in water. If the Ph value is less than 7, then the water is said to be acidic. If Ph value is greater than 7, water is basic. At a Ph value of 7, water is neutral.

The Ph value of 7 is what you need to strive for so that you can avoid skin irritation or corrosion of the metal parts of your tub.

Skin irritation is caused by water with a Ph level of less than 7. While mineral scaling is caused by water that has a Ph value greater than 7.

The Main Types of Chemicals

These are:

• Chlorine and
• Bromine
• Others are biguanide and shock oxidizers.

Chlorine

It has been proven by experts as well as consumers worldwide that chlorine is the most effective tub chemical. This is because of chlorine

• Is Less expensive compared with its major rival bromine
• Produces the right scent if you apply it the right amounts

Despite these obvious advantages, chlorine has the following disadvantages…

• Do not use chlorine if your tub becomes very dirty before you decide to disinfect it. This is because you will need to add a larger amount of chlorine than usual, which will cause an unwelcome, offensive smell to you and or your visitors

Bromine

Bromine works as well as chlorine but it is more expensive. However, if you need a chemical that can work at very high temperatures without losing its scent, bromine is a better choice than chlorine.

Biguanide

This is a non-chlorine alternative, but it provides less aroma than either of bromine or chlorine.

Shock Oxidizers

These have been applied to remove body materials. These body materials include lotions, dead skin particles, oils etc. they have been proven to work very well when applied for this purpose.

It has to be noted that scientists are constantly developing newer and better alternatives to chlorine and the others, but as of today, chlorine is your best choice.