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#130542 - 04/19/08 10:38 AM Re: Swimng pool water [Re: Susan]
LED Offline
Veteran

Registered: 09/01/05
Posts: 1474
According to these websites, they do remove chlorine.

http://www.berkeyfilter.com/

http://www.berkeyfilters.com/berkeytech.htm


Edited by LED (04/19/08 10:40 AM)

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#130558 - 04/19/08 03:28 PM Re: Swimng pool water [Re: LED]
HerbG Offline
Member

Registered: 02/12/07
Posts: 142
I addressed the question via email to Berkey filter and here is the answer:

Q: Can your filters safely remove the multiple chemicals that are often added to swimming pool water? The idea is to use the pool as a source of drinking water in an emergency.

A: I am not sure of all the chemicals in swimming pool water but a list of removed chems re listed at www.berkeyfilter.com home page. Removal of chlorine for sure.

Thank you,
Dwayne Hinton
Hinton International

Note: The list of chemicals listed on the Berkey website as being removed by their filter is quite extensive. I am not qualified to know if it would remove every harmful chemical used in pools, but using their filter would do a lot to reassure me that the water is safer to drink.



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#130561 - 04/19/08 04:10 PM Re: Swimng pool water [Re: HerbG]
Arney Offline
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 09/15/05
Posts: 2485
Loc: California
Originally Posted By: HerbG
Note: The list of chemicals listed on the Berkey website as being removed by their filter is quite extensive.

Activated charcoal tends to remove certain classes of chemicals fairly well. Chlorine is one, plus a lot of organic chemicals. But that leaves a lot of things that activated charcoal does not filter at all. I mean, take something simple like sodium. Activated charcoal does not filter sodium, so if you had a home water softening system on your tap that added sodium to the water, the sodium concentration would pass through the activated charcoal filter in your Brita pitcher unchanged.

Anyway, my point is, be careful not to just assume that just because of the extensive list (which I just skimmed on the Berkey website), that this filter will make pool water safe. "Safer" as you point out, maybe, but there is a real possibility that it could also completely miss pool chemicals that would make you sick if you're drinking gallons of it long term.

Actually, that got me to thinking. If you already have an idea early on in some crisis that you're likely to completely run out of your stored water with little hope of resupply and would be forced to start drinking pool water eventually, it would actually make sense to start mixing drinking and pool water early on to dilute the chemicals. Again, I'm talking emergency situation here, but I think the dilution would help to lessen the impact of drinking straight pool water, like maybe GI upset. I guess another possibility is that you find yourself needing to support a lot more people than you were planning for. Again, to stretch your water supply, dilution early on might be something to consider.

This idea goes against everything that emergency managers tell people about pool water, just so everyone is clear. But I'm just raising the point for people to think about in case they're faced with such a choice.

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#130565 - 04/19/08 05:29 PM Re: Swimng pool water [Re: Arney]
Susan Offline
Geezer

Registered: 01/21/04
Posts: 5163
Loc: W. WA
Regarding this sodium question...

I was under the impression that water softeners were attached to the source of water coming into the house. And I also assumed that swimming pools were filled with garden hoses, from the faucet that is between the meter and the house.

If what I understand is correct (one never knows), there shouldn't be any more sodium in the swimming pool water than what is normally found in the local well water or municipal water system.

Right? Wrong?

Sue

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#130566 - 04/19/08 05:32 PM Re: Swimng pool water [Re: Susan]
Susan Offline
Geezer

Registered: 01/21/04
Posts: 5163
Loc: W. WA
Back to the sand filter question. Since chlorine is an issue, and microorganisms are a facet of the sand filter, and chlorine usually kills algae, would swimming pool water make a sand filter useless?

Sue

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#130576 - 04/19/08 08:42 PM Re: Swimng pool water [Re: big_al]
HerbG Offline
Member

Registered: 02/12/07
Posts: 142
I found a partial list of the chemicals commonly used in pool water maintenance, and it illustrates the complexity of trying to filter them out. This came from the Morris County Municipal Utilities Authority, NJ website:

"A partial list of pool chemicals includes chlorinated isocyanurates, lithium hypochlorite, sodium bicarbonate, potassium monopersulfate, hydrogen peroxide, sodium hypochlorite , calcium hypochlorite, and certain ammonium, brominated, copper and silver compounds, and muriatic acid."

Perhaps none of these chemicals are harmful in the concentrations found in a home pool, but I do not want to be the one to find out!

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#130583 - 04/19/08 10:37 PM Re: Swimng pool water [Re: HerbG]
Wilderness Offline
Stranger

Registered: 04/19/08
Posts: 2
How to treat swimming pool water to make it potable.

Take a manageable amount of water from your pool and run it through a cloth filter such as a Milbank bag to remove the large particle matter. Then add chlorine to this water, wait for the proscribed length of time for the chlorine to work. Only after this time is up add Alum to the water and leave to settle. Alum is a flocculent that attracts impurities including chlorine and settles on the bottom if the container, the water above the layer of alum is safe to drink just be careful not to disturb the alum

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#130629 - 04/20/08 04:12 PM Re: Swimng pool water [Re: Susan]
Arney Offline
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 09/15/05
Posts: 2485
Loc: California
Originally Posted By: Susan
If what I understand is correct (one never knows), there shouldn't be any more sodium in the swimming pool water than what is normally found in the local well water or municipal water system.

Sue, there are a number of pool chemicals that may typically be added to pool water that contain sodium, such as sodium bicarbonate, which is where the extra sodium comes from, above and beyond whatever may be in the municipal supply. And many people have "salt water" pool systems these days, too, which create chlorine using the salt in the pool, similar to how the MSR Miox personal water filter works.

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#130660 - 04/21/08 12:07 AM Re: Swimng pool water [Re: Arney]
Art_in_FL Offline
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 09/01/07
Posts: 2432
As is pool water, assuming it is properly maintained, shouldn't be a problem. Small amounts might be unpalatable due to chlorine but healthy enough. People,especially kids, swim in it and normally take in significant amounts doing so. Even heavily chlorinated pools should be okay to drink as-is in small amounts. The human body handles chlorine pretty well. The normal stomach is awash 0.6 mole hydrochloric acid. Whereas pool water is maintained pretty close to normal Ph.

As time and the situation allows getting rid of the chlorine is simple enough. Simply pouring the water back and forth between containers can get rid of some of it. Less energy intensive simply exposing to air will dissipate the chlorine in time. Faster if the water is warm.

We are talking about survival water here. Your not opening a water bar. Given a choice between a well maintained residential pool or some of the mud puddles I have sucked water out of I would take the pool every time.

Of course if your actively contemplating utilizing a pool as a water source you might invest in a few inexpensive carbon filters. If the pool won't be maintained you would simply treat the water like you would from any other open source. Filtering and chemically treating as needed.

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#130715 - 04/21/08 04:50 PM Re: Swimng pool water [Re: big_al]
plsander Offline
Newbie

Registered: 08/26/04
Posts: 39
I don't have a pool, nor do I plan to ever own a pool...

Back when I was a teen, in Atlanta, we owned a pool, inground, 18x36, 8ft deep at the deep end. Guess who did most of the daily maintenance grin

While the water will go funky very fast if not cared for - with or without the filter running. Sunlight and heat would cause the chlorine to evaporate off and wind, rain, and critters would bring contaminates in to the pool.

However, with the winter cover on the water would stay clean for months (September to May).



Originally Posted By: big_al

Never thought of that.(but by making a small change in the intake I can filter from the bottom) but come to think of it,, if the power goes out then no filter.

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