Reduce Your Chlorine Use with SERUM Total Maintenance

If you use dichlor or a metallic ion-based sanitizer in your hot tub you might have recently discovered that your dealer is low on stock and may have increased prices. Unlike so many changes we have experienced in the past year we can’t blame this one on COVID-19. We have to blame Hurricane Laura.

Just 10 weeks ago, Hurricane Laura struck Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane. Packing winds up to 149 mph, it caused widespread destruction. Laura was the most powerful storm to hit Louisiana in more than 150 years. Laura was also, at least partially, responsible for a fire at a Biolab chlorine factory near Lake Charles, LA, that burned for 3 days. This Biolab factory alone produced approximately 40% of the total US supply of trichlor and dichlor.

Of course, this fire occurred at the same time the pool and spa industry is seeing record demand, far outstripping anything anyone might have forecast as little at 7 or 8 months ago. The result has been classic economics. Increased demand and limited supplies are driving up the cost of all chlorine-based products. Worse yet, supplies are diminishing causing distributors to allocate their products among their dealers. Industry estimates are it may take a year to get chlorine production back in line with demand.

One solution is to reduce your need for dichlor & other chlorine-based spa sanitizers. Here are a few suggestions.

1. Keep your spa water pH in the proper range. Chlorine loses its bacteria killing efficacy rapidly as pH rises. Even at a pH of 7.8, chlorine has lost 2/3rds of its ability to kill bacteria. The closer you keep your spa water pH to 7.2, the more effective chlorine is, and the less you use.
2. Drain your spa every 3 months. Dichlor is nearly 50% a chemical called cyanuric acid or CYA for short. Only the other 50% is chlorine. CYA is needed primarily for pools – to protect chlorine from sunlight. This may seem counterintuitive but as the CYA in dichlor builds up, with repeated applications, it also reduces the killing efficacy of chlorine. Hence, regular, scheduled drain & refills actually reduces your need for dichlor.
3. Purge your spa every 3 months along with your drain & refill. As biofilm accumulates in your spa’s plumbing, it also depletes the available chlorine. A clean spa will consume less chlorine and also ensure your hot tub enjoyment.

Hot Tub Serum’s Total Cleanse and Total Maintenance can help you reduce your use of chlorine if you are using either dichlor or metallic ion-based sanitizers.

Total Cleanse is the most effective spa purge available. Unlike all competing spa purges, it contains both salts and the pathogen killing ingredient benzalkonium chloride. Most spa purges do not kill the bacteria in biofilm. Worse yet, they do not remove all of the biofilm.

The salts in Total Cleanse rip apart the mucus layer protecting biofilms from sanitizers. Then the ADBAC in Total Cleanse kills the bacteria. Your spa is truly clean!

Total Maintenance ensures the chlorine in your hot tub is working at maximum effectiveness by reducing the chlorine decay rate in your hot tub.

Total Maintenance is the ONLY EPA Registered product to operate at a back-up, secondary sanitizer. Along with chlorine, it is also killing pathogens in your spa, hence reducing the load on chlorine and extending its useful life (reducing the decay rate).

In fact, Total Maintenance will reduce the chlorine decay rate by approx. 75%. You will add dichlor less often or if they are using an ion-based system, your chlorine cartridges will last longer!

Total Maintenance also locks in pH. It is a powerful pH buffer helping to keep pH in the range of 7.2 – 7.6 (and preferably at 7.2). As we noted, this ensures chlorine is operating at peak pathogen killing efficiency, again reducing your need for chlorine.