Swimming Pool Phosphate Remover Cost Comparison
SMS
Orenda PR10000. This sells for $37 online and I had bought it at the
store previously for $60 in a prepackaged quart bottle.
Now the store sells only the much less concentrated Hasa product in
bottles, but has a PR10000 in bulk that they use for their pool
maintenance side of the business (PR10000 is the most effective
phosphate remover per ounce). So I wanted to buy a quart of the bulk
PR10000, and they didn't know how much to charge me so they started to
calculate the price based on the effectiveness of the PR10000 versus the
price and effectiveness of the Hasa, and came up with $108 a quart!
Anyway, I decided to do a spreadsheet of phosphate removers to see which
was the most cost effective. This is using the dosages specified by the
manufacturer.
Surprisingly, the Kemtek was the cheapest in the 32 ounce bottle, while
the PR10000 was the cheapest once you move to the 1 gallon bottle.
Phosfree (regular) was the most expensive by far, nearly seven times as
expensive than the Kemtek, with Phosfree commercial and Hasa nearly 3x
the cost of Kemtek.
| Kemtek|Orenda|Orenda| Hasa | Phos | Phos |
|Phosph.| PR | PR | Phos | Free | Free |
|Remover|10000 |10000 | Out | Reg. |Comcl.|
---------------------------------------------
Ounces | 32.00 | 32.00|128.00| 32.00|101.50|101.50|
---------------------------------------------
Price |$13.00 |$37.00|$109.00|$18.00|$40.00|$55.00|
---------------------------------------------
Per Ounce | $0.41 | $1.16| $0.85| $0.56| $0.39| $0.54|
---------------------------------------------
Cost (1) | $6.50 | $7.40| $5.45| $18.00|$42.17|$18.33|
1. Cost to Bring PPB down by 1000 in a 20000 Gallon Pool
JimT
What is the maintance dose on each product for your 20k pool?
The Phosfree price for 3 liter is kinda high. You should be able to get
that for around $25 to $30. I think I paid $32 last time I bought it.
SMS
> What is the maintance dose on each product for your 20k pool?
The maintenance doses will all be proportional to the costs I calculated
for the dosages to bring the phosphates down a lot.
> The Phosfree price for 3 liter is kinda high. You should be able to get
> that for around $25 to $30. I think I paid $32 last time I bought it.
My pool is 40K gallons, I just used 20K as a comparison because few
people have 40K pools (my pool is very deep because the people that put
it in had a diving board).
I used the dosage chart on the bottle to calculate how many ounces it
would take to reduce phosphates by 1000 ppb in a 20K gallon pool, to
find the effective cost of each one.
The prices of each product vary, I used the Leslie's sale price (today)
for the Phosfree, and the OSH (Orchard Supply Hardware) price of the
Kemtek. The other prices are what I found on-line, actually the Hasa
price at the store I went to was much higher than the on-line price.
I remember when I first was buying the phosphate remover after a winter
of a lot of leaves in the pool. One quart of PR10000 brought the
phosphates to zero, while it would have taken six 3L bottles of the
Phosfree to achieve the same result.
All of these products have lanthanum chloride or lanthanum carbonate as
the active ingredient.
Chlorine is another chemical with wildly different prices. I pay $2.50 a
gallon for 12.5% chlorine at one pool store (8 one gallon deposit
bottles for $20), while Leslie's sells 10% chlorine for $4.79 a gallon,
about 2.4x the price when adjusted for the different strengths.
SMS
> All of these products have lanthanum chloride or lanthanum carbonate as
> the active ingredient.
I'm pretty sure that almost every retail pool supply store has no
interest in selling something like Orenda PR10000, even though they will
use it themselves. Why sell a highly concentrated chemical when you can
sell much higher quantities of less concentrated versions and net much
higher profits.
They had five 55 gallon containers of it, and based on the retail price
for the 275 gallon price ($13,480.31) or $49.02 per gallon, they
probably paid around $35 per gallon.
JimT
I figured as much. I'm using the phosfree trying to get it to zero. But
I use the test at the store. I throw in about a pint a week.
SMS
The other issue is cyanuric acid. There are no commercially available
neutralizers and if you use 3" chlorine tabs the cyanuric acid builds up
so much that you end up with chlorine lock-up and you have to drain and
refill. Some pool stores really push the tabs instead of liquid
chlorine. They are convenient, but now I only use them when I'm on vacation.
JimT
I don't use mine as much <tabs>.
willshak
pool. Been using it for the last 6 or more years.
I use fewer tabs per season now than before I had it. The cartridge is
advertised as being good for 6 months, but since I am in the NE US, our
Summers are barely 3 months, so I use it for 2 seasons before replacing.
http://www.nature2.com/poolproducts/inground/nature2_professionalg.asp
--
Bill
In Hamptonburgh, NY
In the original Orange County. Est. 1683
To email, remove the double zeroes after @
SMS
> I have a Nature 2 sanitizer installed after the filter for my inground
> pool. Been using it for the last 6 or more years.
> I use fewer tabs per season now than before I had it. The cartridge is
> advertised as being good for 6 months, but since I am in the NE US, our
> Summers are barely 3 months, so I use it for 2 seasons before replacing.
> http://www.nature2.com/poolproducts/inground/nature2_professionalg.asp
I had one of those once, but I never saw a difference in chlorine use.
tra...@optonline.net
Does that mean if you kept the chlorine at lower levels than normal
you wound up with noticeable water problems? Not that I disagree
with you, just curious. I'm skeptical about the science behind
it. The sales info is also misleading, as it
implies that normal chlorine levels cause eye and skin irritation and
odors. In fact, burning eyes and chlorine odor come from chloramines
which are combined chlorine that comes from a pool that needs to
be shocked.