Adding Chlorine Tablets To Your Skimmer— Don’t Do It!
Convenient enough that the skimmer looks like it would make sense to add chlorine tablets to the skimmer basket. However, you should never add chlorine tablets directly to your skimmer!
Why It’s a Bad Idea to Add Chlorine Tabs to Your Skimmer
The pool skimmer is designed to catch debris that is floating in on swimming pool surface to keep the water clean.
Although it might sound like the skimmer would be the perfect place for chlorine tablets as it will allows the chlorine to be circulated heavily through the pool system and flow directly into the body of your pool water. However, the issue is not as much about the circulation, as it is the idle time of your pool pump.
Pool Pump Is Not Always On
When the pool pump stops running for the day, the chlorine tablets are still sitting in the skimmer of the pool. They will continue to dissolve and while creating an extremely rich, highly acidic amount of chlorine that will not be able to exit the skimmer until the pump is turned back on.
Overtime, the strong chlorinated water in the skimmer area will begin to eat at the skimmer walls, throat and basket. Once the pool pump turns back on, other parts of the pool and equipment will be exposed to this overdosed chlorinated water as well.
The pool equipment at the pad will suffer each time the concentrated water flows to it. It will eat at o-rings/gaskets, plastics, PVC, filters, etc. Overtime, this will be cause required costly repairs to keep everything functioning properly.
Preferred Options for Chlorine Tablets
Get an inexpensive floating chlorinator to place tablets into to travel around the pool water. When the pool pump is turned off, the floater is diluted in thousands of gallons of water and will not put the swimming pools parts at risk.
Inline or offline chlorinators at the equipment pad. These are installed on the return side after the pool pump and filter. The freshly filtered water will feed through the chlorinator prior to the return jet and adds chlorine directly into the water.
For additional help on proper chemical handling, contact Blue Diamond Pool Services, your swimming pool specialists, at 407-435-8553.