pH is a measure of the relative acidity or alkalinity of water. pH is short for “power of Hydrogen”. Essentially it is a measure of the amount of dissolved hydrogen.
It is measured on a scale from 0 – 14 with 7 meaning the water is neutral. Below 7 is acidic and above 7 is alkaline (also called basic).
pH is also a logarithmic scale, meaning each whole # is 10 times greater or lesser the whole # next to it. In other words, water with a pH of 4 is 10x more acidic than water with a pH of 5.
Keeping pH in the proper range of 7.2 – 7.6 is particularly important in spa water for at least 3 reasons. Note that this means your spa water is just slightly alkaline.
- Your skin has a pH, usually around 5.5. pH below this can cause skin redness & irritation. Other the other hand, pH above 8.0 can cause dryness or tight feeling skin and worse.
- When using chlorine as a sanitizer keeping pH in the proper range is critical as chlorine looses its ability to kill bacteria and other pathogens rapidly as pH rises.
- Low pH can result is corrosion of the metal elements in your spa. High pH will result in scaling – calcium deposits everywhere below the water line.
