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And welcome to the Pool Game Podcast show. It is best to Bob Lowry. I'm going to talk to Bob
1:08
about borrades, and if you haven't heard about adding borrades to a pool, the 50 parts per million,
1:15
this is definitely a podcast for you. And Bob Lowry goes over the benefits of borrades,
1:21
and a lot of other aspects. I'm using borrade on your pool route. Are you a pool service pro
1:27
looking to take your business to the next level? Join the pool guy coaching program. Get expert advice,
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business tips, exclusive content, and get direct support. For me, I'm a 35-year veteran in the
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industry. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, I've got the tools to help you succeed.
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Learn more at swimmingpoollearning.com. So let's jump right in here and talk about borrades now.
1:49
I'm a big fan of borrades. I've been using borrades now. I've been testing them thoroughly and
1:54
different. My pool has been my test pool. I let my pool run for three weeks without chlorine,
2:00
with a borrade level of 31 or 32 parts per million. It was pretty low. I kept it low for the test.
2:07
And after two weeks, I got a little bit of algae on one step, and then after three weeks with no
2:13
chlorine, this was in April when it was warming up. The water was about in the 70s. I had the pools
2:19
that are turning cloudy on me. So with borrades, it took three weeks for the pool to turn cloudy,
2:24
with no chlorine for three weeks. I don't tell my wife I left it with no chlorine for three weeks,
2:28
by the way. So let's talk about borrades. You want to give the listeners an introduction of
2:34
what adding borrades will actually do. What does it mean that borrades to your pool?
2:39
Okay. Well, first of all, borrades are a one-time thing. So it's not something you need to check
2:45
every week and make adjustments to anything. You add it once, and you only need to check it maybe
2:51
once a month, even every two months. And if the level drops down a little bit, raise it back up.
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The recommended level is 50 parts per million. And so at least that gets us over that part of it.
3:04
But borrades do two things in water. One is they help prevent the pH from going up as fast
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or as high. So it is a pH buffer to prevent the pH from going up. And they work really great
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with chlorine generators. Pools that have always had the pH going up. It's a good thing to do,
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especially with pools that have any kind of aeration, waterfalls, spillovers, negative edge,
3:36
those types of things, all of those things create aeration and turbulence, and that raises the pH.
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So if you've got pools that are all the time the pH is going up, first thing you do is lower
3:49
alkalinity, puts some borrades in the pool. So borrades will prevent the pH from going up. And the
3:55
other thing they do, as you just said, is they prevent algae. They do not kill it. So it is technically
4:03
an algae step, but it's not an algae side. It doesn't actually have any algae side of properties
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until you go to about 200 parts per million in the pool. But I would not recommend putting two
4:17
parts per million in the pool. But borrades is you can buy it in three varieties. The one that
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I recommend the most is called boric acid. And the reason I like, and regardless of which chemical
4:34
you buy, once you put it in the water, it is all exactly the same thing. So the type that you buy
4:41
doesn't matter. But the amount of chloriner, I'm in the amount of chemical you'll need to add,
4:49
and the adjustment you'll have to make afterward varies. But boric acid, when you put it in,
4:55
you can push it around with your brush and dissolve it. Some guys have actually used like a
5:02
hammerhead without the basket on or without the bag on. And that dissolves it in a second. But at
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any rate using boric acid, it lowers the pH of the pool by 0.2. And it raises, it lowers alkalinity
5:17
by five parts per million. So essentially it does nothing. You know, lowering the pH in your pool by
5:25
0.2 is not a big deal. You probably wouldn't even adjust for it. So you put it in and you're done.
5:32
The other chemicals are sodium tetraborate, ton of hydrate, and sodium tetraborate,
5:38
decahydrate. And both of those will need more chemical. But in addition, they have a pH of about
5:46
nine. So when you put 50 parts per million on the pool, it's going to raise the pH of your pool
5:52
to nine. It's also going to raise your alkalinity by 115 parts per million. And in order to
6:00
offset that, you will then need to have about 2.5 gallons of myriad of gases to 10,000 gallons
6:10
to get it back to where you started. So you end up having to make adjustments to pH in alkalinity
6:17
after you add it. Once it's in the water, they all do the same thing. But you'll just need more
6:23
chemical and you have to buy myriad of gases and come back and add that. So it just seems easier
6:30
to have borca acid if you can find it. Borca, you can usually find it if you can't find it at your
6:36
wholesale distributor or swimming pool or some distributor. You can sometimes find it at landscape
6:42
and nursery places because they also sell it for you to use in your lawn, in your
6:49
in your landscaping or gardening to prevent bugs. So it's a good thing and put it in the water
6:57
and forget about it. It'll keep your pH from going up so high. Then you can use
7:03
cinderic acid and your alkalinity to keep the pH from going low. And we talked in the first one
7:11
about about making the pool stable. And the idea is we make the pH in alkalinity stable by using
7:19
cinderic acid and alkalinity to keep it from going low. And then we use borca to keep it from going
7:25
high. And then we use a chlorine that doesn't change the pH. So that makes that whole thing stable.
7:33
And that's that's the goal. That's the idea. Yeah. And then there's also some manufactured
7:39
borate products out there too that are premixed so that they don't race the pH and they can buy
7:44
those readily online or into supplier too. Yes, they are compensated so you just pour them in.
7:51
And they may be a little more expensive and they may have to use a little more than the other
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types that there are I think two or three brands now that are our pH compensated.
8:03
And you mentioned some of the benefits already of adding borates that keeps the pH from
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going too high. It also prevents algae growth. Also there's a sparkle to the waters in there.
8:14
I noticed right away. You know, I try to stick to things that you can prove can we
8:21
make a move in the laboratory. But they definitely I have I've even made a video at one time
8:30
of putting some borate in a pool and leaving the camera on. And when you put the borate in a
8:35
pool, you can watch the pool change. And it actually changes in sparkles when you first point it
8:41
in the pool. And also some people claim that it makes the water a little bluer. And it makes it
8:47
sparkle. And some people claim they can even feel the feel of the water different. But
8:54
those are hard things to judge and allow. Yeah, for sure. And so the accessible acceptable borate
8:59
level, you mentioned 50 parts per million. I know that bioguard is now recommending 35 parts per
9:05
million. Is there a big difference because I've tested my pool at 28 parts per million. And then
9:10
I raised it to 48 50 parts per million. I didn't really notice a huge difference in the levels
9:17
but is there, you know, is there a big difference between 35 and 50? Probably not.
9:23
The advantage, of course, is that it is acting as a buffer and analogist at. So
9:31
raising it gives you more of both of those. So there isn't an advantage if you have a problem
9:38
with a pool that always gets algae or, you know, has the pH going up all the time and so on.
9:46
So there is an advantage to having a little more buffer in the pool. I know the reason that
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BiOLAM uses 35 and it's not, it probably isn't for what you think it is. But EPA, first of all,
10:01
came out and said that the maximum level for borate should be 35. And so BiOLAM came out
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at 35. But subsequently that was revisited and some additional information came out and they said
10:17
that 50 would be okay. And I actually have some people running pools at 70 parts per million of
10:25
borate. But the claim is that it gets to be toxic. And frankly, the toxicity of borate is about
10:35
the same as it is for table salt. So it's not as dangerous as that would maybe have you believe.
10:43
But the toxicity is that you need to fork to be toxic. Probably deathly, you would need to consume
10:55
five grams of pure borate, which is a lot. And in order to do that, just to do a little bit of
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mental math on it, five grams is 5,000 milligrams. So a part per million is the same thing as a
11:18
milligram per liter. So in order to get, if you had 50 milligrams per liter and you needed to get
11:28
to 5,000, you would need to consume 100 liters of pool water to get to five grams. And 100 liters
11:38
is about 26 gallons of water. So you would need to consume 26 gallons of water and that would all
11:47
have to be before you let any water out. Because borate doesn't bio accumulate in any mammals. So
11:57
you would have to keep drinking it until you consume 26 gallons. So which is obviously impossible.
12:04
Dogs that claim that four times are four times more susceptible. But I think that's probably because
12:12
of size, you know, an average animal is 50 or an average, you know, big guy these days is about
12:20
200. So, you know, his four times more susceptible. But even at that, even if you divide that by four,
12:29
a dog would have to drink six gallons of water without being to have a problem. And it doesn't
12:37
bio-humanize so it resets to zero tomorrow. So it's just, I don't think a dog can get
12:44
to him enough to have a problem from the pool. But nonetheless, there is a toxicity for it. But
12:49
there also is a toxicity for salt. There's also a maximum level for the cider acid of 100 parts
12:57
per million. And look how many pools there are at two or three or four hundred parts per million
13:01
a cider acid. So we go over those limits all the time anyway. So I think bio lab is just covering
13:09
themselves in case there was any kind of a legal action ever taken that they could say, no, we
13:15
followed what EPA said. Got it. And then, you know, also, you can explain that parts per million is
13:21
just a small measurement in 10,000 gallons of water. So right there is also another thing that
13:28
focus on, too, is not 50 parts per million in 10,000 gallons of water is not a lot of the product
13:34
in there. Well, yeah, put it this way. We think that one part for one percent is small, correct?
13:41
Yeah. One percent would be small. It takes 10,000 parts per million to eat for one percent.
13:48
Okay. So, so we're talking about, you know, a far per million is the same as one inch in 16 miles.
13:57
Yeah, that's a part per million. So pretty incredible. It's really is. It's very small.
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14:31
So I've heard this before, you know, using boroughs in a residential pool,
14:36
Florida and in particular, I've heard this mention. I don't think there's too many
14:40
boroughs in their NSF approved them. I'm not sure I haven't researched it, but they are EPA approved.
14:45
And so can you use boroughs, you know, if you're looking at the law just legally in a residential
14:52
or a commercial pool. Well, residential, there are no, there are no rules, regulations, guides,
14:59
health codes. There's nothing but residential pools. So you can put whatever you want in a residential
15:06
and most health codes do not say that you can't use boroughs. They don't specifically say you
15:15
can't use it. And until there is a guideline for it, then you can use it. And there are
15:22
no health problems with doing it. Many pools in a lot of areas in the country, you can use it.
15:28
And whether or not you want a product needs to be NSF approved, that goes state-by-state and
15:34
almost health code by ask code. So you can, in general, say that you can't use it. Why do you think
15:42
that so many distributors and poolsters don't even stock a boray product?
15:47
Well, borayed has only gotten popular in the last two or three years.
15:53
And part of it has to do largely with me and me pushing my books and people getting my books to
16:00
take care of their pools and stuff and realizing that boroughs is a good thing. The boroughs have been
16:05
the first patent on using boroughs in swimming pool was in 1984 by John Gerber. The John Gerber
16:13
company was actually John Gerber. And they had a patent on it from 1984 until 2001.
16:21
And then they let the patent go and the Gerber company wasn't around anymore. But they sold a product
16:27
that was borayed and gloryed together. It was a mixed variety for you. But nonetheless, it was a
16:35
a great product. It does a great thing in pools. Boric acid and boroughs have been used for
16:40
150 years to do laundry. Boric acid is used in eye drops. Boric acid is used in foot powder.
16:50
Borax is used in foot powder. It's used on humans and around places all the time.
16:58
You can put it in your garden and then eat your tomatoes. So it's not a problem.
17:06
And the problem is that it just hasn't been popular. And distributors are, you know,
17:11
supply and demand. You know, if there's something out there that everybody wants, they're going to
17:17
cover, they're going to handle it. And if not, there are plenty of places that you can buy this
17:23
material from. It's not difficult to get. It's a little bit more expensive. But you can actually buy
17:31
borax at the grocery store. You can buy it in the laundry section to do your laundry.
17:38
And a box is about five pounds of borax. So you can go buy a bunch of boxes at the grocery store
17:43
and throw it at any pool. But then you have to adjust the pH in that particular one.
17:49
But you still need to adjust, you will need to adjust your pH back now. But many guys
17:54
told me once I start calling landscaping places and home depots and lows and stuff, saying,
18:00
you know, can I talk to the garden department? Not the pool department. Can I talk to the garden
18:05
department? You support acid for my garden? Oh, sure. Got a 50 pound bag. Yeah, we sell it that way.
18:12
So you may find out that it's available from other distributors and it's maybe a little cheaper
18:18
than a pool distributor. But some of the pool corpse in California, for instance, they have it.
18:25
And I don't know whether it's going to SKU yet, but I know that they do have it. And service
18:31
guys, you know, some of these service guys decide to switch all of their pools and they want to go
18:37
buy a pallet of it to switch all their pools. So great. Yeah, good information on borax there.
18:44
I think people that don't know about it are going to really open their eyes to something that
18:49
is relatively new, I guess, talked about. And I think it's something that people need to actually
18:56
know that's available on the market and all the benefits that we talked about.
19:01
So let's talk personally. We think it's a good thing. I've written about it. I've ruined it.
19:06
I've got on my website, there are five technical bulletins that you can read online for free
19:15
on my website or you can download them as a PDF. And one of the borax technical bulletins is
19:23
nine pages long. And borax are a chapter in the pool chemistry for residential pools book.
19:33
And if you're looking for other podcasts, you can go to my website to me poollearning.com,
19:38
where I have over a 1900 podcast for you to download and listen to. And of course,
19:42
I have a lot of podcasts with Bob Lowry as well. And if you're interested in the coaching program
19:47
that I offer, you can learn more at poolguycoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast.
19:52
Hey, grocery a week. God bless. This episode is brought to you by Hasa providing products that
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