Maintaining an appropriate chlorine level can be challenging. Factors such as changing seasons, amounts of pool use every day, sun and rain, can easily alter chlorine levels in a pool.

And when super-chlorinating or shocking the pool, which involves increasing the chlorine level to extremely high levels to eliminate algae, bacteria, and chloramines, it’s quite easy to overhit the mark and over-chlorinate the pool.

Normal pool chlorine levels range between 1.0 and 3.0 parts per million (ppm), depending on the amount of stabilizer in the water (higher levels create higher chlorine demand). Now, If your pool water contains over 2-3 parts per million, continue reading. We’ll talk about the best guide to lower chlorine levels in Pool.

What’s the Reason Behind a High Chlorine Level?

Adding too much pool shock or loading the feeder with too many chlorine pills can result in extremely high chlorine levels.

A common way to over-chlorinate a pool is to leave a liquid chlorine pump running all night, resulting in a greenish-looking pool the next day.

High chlorine stabilizer cyanuric acid concentrations protect chlorine from the sun and allow for a natural breakdown. This reduces the amount of chlorine used after adding a pool stabilizer. How does pool stabilizer work? Read this article to find out.

Various season requires different levels of chlorine or bromine. Hot and bright days require more chlorine, as do pools with more swimmers and more leaf load.

Additionally, pools with more effective filtration and circulation systems and pools equipped with additional sanitizers such as minerals, ozone, or UV systems may require 50% less chlorine to maintain clean, clear water.

How to Tell if Chlorine Levels Are Too High?

Your pool’s chlorine is composed of two distinct types of chlorine compounds. Combined chlorine, also known as chloramines, happens after the chlorine has combined with organic matter (such as bacteria) and is responsible for the distinctive odor associated with chlorinated pools.

Combined chlorine, or chloramines, is formed after chlorine kills organic matter (bacteria, pathogens, algae) and is responsible for the distinctive chlorine smell in your pool.

Contrary to the usual belief, you can’t determine how much chlorine is in your pool by simply smelling it.  Over-chlorinated pools are associated with dry hair, sensitive skin, and itchy eyes. However, there is a less bothersome and safer approach to determining whether your pool contains too much chlorine.

It is essential for pool owners to know the three types of chlorine. Learn more about free chlorine, combined chlorine, total chlorine, and their differences.

A DPD testing kit can determine the free and mixed chlorine levels and the total chlorine count of your pool chemistry. Check out the 10 Best Testing Kits that you can use to monitor pool chemical levels.

Alternatively, the OTO kit test measures the free chlorine lingering in your pool. These types of tests determine the accurate chlorine levels in your pool and help you determine how you can lower them.

Pour a tiny quantity of pool water into the DPD testing kit and add buffered DPD powder until the water becomes pink, as instructed. Then, add a specific FAS chemical one drop at a time until the water turns clear. One drop of the FAS compound is equal to 0.2 ppm of chlorine. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that the optimal chlorine level for your household pool should be between 1-2 parts per million (ppm). However, if the DPD testing kit reveals that the chlorine levels in your pool are greater than usual, there are several options for bringing them down to normal levels.

Simple & Fast Steps to Lower Chlorine Levels in Pool

If you’ve been worried about the safety of your pool’s chlorine levels and are now considering getting a DPD test kit, you’re not alone. With people heading to the water for summer fun, it’s more important than ever to maintain an optimal level of chlorine in your pool.

Fortunately, there are some simple steps you can take to lower your chlorine levels quickly and safely:

Step 1: Use the Sunshine

Taking advantage of a warm, sunny day is a quick and simple approach to disperse chlorine in your pool. Pool chlorine levels reduce swiftly and naturally by exposing the water to bright sunshine for hours. Then, due to the reaction between the UV rays and free chlorine, chlorine gas is discharged into the atmosphere reducing chlorine levels.

Monitor the chlorine levels to ensure they don’t go below 2 parts per million (ppm) of chlorine. Once chlorine reaches these levels, it’s again time for you to sanitize your pool.

Step 2: Stop Adding Chlorine and Start Swimming

If your chlorine measurements are just a little bit above the ideal ranges of chlorine concentration, stop adding chlorine to lower chlorine levels in your pool. 

Make sure you turn off your chlorine feeder and either remove the chlorine floater from the pool or take your chlorine pills out of the skimmer. Decreased chlorine inflow into your pool permits the chlorine already present in your pool to be utilized more efficiently and effectively.

Swimming in the pool can assist in speeding up this process since chlorine works to remove the bacteria that the swimmers have introduced.

Step 3: Increase the Temperature of the Pool

The temperature of the pool can indirectly affect the chlorine levels of the water. Bacterial growth is accelerated by a rise in temperature, resulting in increased chlorine consumption.

If you have a heated pool, you might want to heat up the water temperature to 90°F–100°F over the optimal level for a short period of time. Keep an eye on and maintain the chlorine to ensure they are on the right levels. 

Step 4: Use Hydrogen Peroxide

Hydrogen peroxide is marketed as a pool chemical oxidizer, which means it breaks down chlorine. To disinfect a pool, you’ll need to use food-grade hydrogen peroxide (35 percent concentration), designed mainly for pools because the human version isn’t powerful enough for this task.

Step 5: Add Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C)

Yup, that same substance that helps strengthen your immune system may also help you with your pool problems. 

Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) is a chemical that can lower the levels of chlorine in a swimming pool. It’s possible to get Vitamin C from food or use store-bought products, but it’s important to make sure it isn’t contaminated with anything else that could harm your health. 

Step 6: Try Sodium Thiosulfate

The use of sodium thiosulfate, sodium sulfite, sodium bisulfite, and sodium metabisulfite — collectively known as chlorine neutralizer — is one of the quickest and most straightforward methods of lowering the chlorine levels in your swimming pool water.

Step 7: Drain and Refill With Fresh Water

If you simply need to decrease your chlorine levels by 1-2 parts per million (ppm), diluting your pool water by draining and adding new water may do the trick. However, you should keep an outlook that you’re draining the other chemicals from your pool as well, so this will require you to rebalance the pool chemicals afterward. 

Conclusion

You can give one of these choices a try then wait 24 hours before retesting your pool water. Regardless of which option you select, make sure you thoroughly read and understand all the manufacturer’s instructions before working with any chemical in your pool, especially muriatic acid.

With the right approach, high levels of chlorine are a thing of the past. You’ll be back in the pool and enjoying your backyard sanctuary before you know it. Check out the articles below that make you worry less about your pool. You can find all of our articles on our website. Happy swimming!

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