Salt water pools use chlorine produced by a chlorinator to sanitize the water just like old-school pools use chemical chlorine products to do the same. The difference is how the chlorine is added to the water.
Chlorine is manufactured by way of electrified liquid salt that passes through the salt cell in your chlorinator in your salt water pool. In a regular pool, liquid, puck or crystal chlorine is manually added each week to the water.
But how if at all does peeing in a pool affect the cleanliness of the water and what should you do if you have bathers – adults or children alike! – who choose to pee in the water?
Do not pee in your salt water pool as it cannot be killed since urine isn’t a living thing. While chlorine sanitizes the pool to swim in, urine remains in the water and isn’t actually removed in any way. Urine contains urea which combines with chlorine to produce the smell that we associate with chlorinated pools.
How to remove urine from your salt water pool
You can’t remove urine from your salt water pool per se and you can’t kill it either like you can a living organism like algae. Pee isn’t a living thing so it can’t be killed in the true sense of the word. You can’t physically remove urine from the water either since it can’t be isolated or otherwise scooped out like leaves or twigs!
While backwashing or otherwise draining your pool at any given time can reduce the urine content, you can’t specifically target it. It’s a liquid and can’t be isolated. The problem with urine in your pool is the contents of it, namely urea as well as ammonia and creatinine. These three compounds negatively impact your pool’s chlorine to properly sanitize the water.
So the only way to remove urine from your salt water pool is to avoid having it in your pool in the first place. Don’t pee in your pool and encourage your bathers not to do it either.
How much urine is in an average pool?
A study from Canada showed that in a large public pool containing 830,000 L (219,000 gallons) of water, researchers estimated that the pool contained about 75 L (20 gallons) of urine.
That’s only a miniscule amount of urine when you take the entire body of water into account but on its own, 75 L or 20 gallons of liquid is not insignificant.
However it’s more relevant when one considers the other pollutants that average pools contain, one of which (human sweat) also contains urea just like urine. So urine + sweat = more urea in the pool which as we’ll see below, creates another problem you want to avoid.
On top of that, a pool will also likely contain bodily oils, feces, colognes and perfumes, deodorants, sunscreen, human hair and other things you’d prefer not to think about. And if you have birds who often drop in for a swim or your dog likes to go for a dip, they bring other contaminants, too.
All contribute to the need for more chlorine which increases the costs to you the pool owner and the likelihood that you have to manually add free chlorine over and above what your chlorinator can produce each day.
What about that chlorine smell at public pools?
You know that strong “chlorine smell” you notice at a public pool? It’s actually not the chlorine, at least not on its own. It’s something called trichloramine and it’s created when the chlorine in your pool mixes with the urea in urine and sweat. The chemical reaction that occurs as a result of this mixture is called trichloramine which is also known as nitrogen chloride.
Liquid chlorine does have a smell if you sniff if up close (not recommended) but it’s not like the smell of trichloramine. That’s because as mentioned above, it’s actually a combination of chlorine and the urea that have mixed.
So next time you’re at a pool and get a whiff of the “chlorine” and think that’s a sign that the pool is clean because it’s chlorine you’re smelling, you’ll know that this isn’t actually the case. There is chlorine present along with the aforementioned and undesired urea.
Is there a dye to detect urine in a pool?
You might have seen the pool scene in the movie Grown Ups starring Adam Sandler, David Spade, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, and Kevin James. The movie intimates that there is a chemical added to public pools that can immediately detect when someone pees in the pool by turning the water dark blue.
The five men are each suddenly surrounded by a blue cloud in the water, indicating that they had all peed in the pool.
Does such a chemical exist in real life or is it simply a Hollywood gag?
It’s a myth. No such urine-detecting dye exists. In fact the rumor existed far before than the 2010 release of Grown Ups, too. Parents and pool owners had warned kids about this mythical chemical decades earlier as a method of not having them use their pool as a toilet.
But in fact it doesn’t actually exist. There is no chemical available to either detect or otherwise eliminate urine which is why it’s important never to pee in your pool.
Summary
The so-called chlorine smell in a pool isn’t actually a good thing and isn’t actually the chlorine that is causing the smell. It’s actually a sign that people have peed in the pool because the smell is a combination of the chlorine interacting with the urea in urine.
Chlorine doesn’t kill urine because pee isn’t a living thing that can be killed or neutralized. It doesn’t work that way.
The easiest way to keep urine out of your salt water pool – the only way in fact – is to avoid peeing in the pool in the first place.
Also, have a quick shower before swimming as this will help to remove bodily oils, loose hair, other contaminants, and any chemicals on your skin that will otherwise end up in your pool.