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Fri 31 Oct, 2014 12:55 pm
For 14 years we'd used a blue plastic bubble cover to keep our large below-ground warm in the summer. But for two summers now in spite of our Mojave Desert hot weather its contents has been too cold to go swimming. Apparently it's because this last cover has proven porous, evaporation from its top surface keeping the water cold.
Incidentally the evaporation leaves a whitish powder, sometimes tinged greenish or orangish, on the surface of the cover
(1) How can this happen, is it because (a) the plastic is defective in manufacture or (b) owing to our drought, constituents of the water have changed so it now attacks plastic, and
(2) The deposit proving not to be calcite, what do you suppose it could be
@dalehileman,
I suspect the plastic is more affected by sunlight than anything in the water. The precipitate you are seeing might just be what westerners call "alkali". All kinds of minerals build up in bodies of water that have no outlet. That's what makes the Dead Sea dead. Are you replacing the water in the pool?
@roger,
Quote:I suspect the plastic is more affected by sunlight than anything in the water
Yea Rog thanks, and me too. However since this is the first occurrence after 14 years wouldn't that indicate a difference in the plastic itself
Quote: The precipitate you are seeing might just be what westerners call "alkali"
It doesn't fizz with HCl but still you might be right. A friend has promised to have it analyzed
Quote:…. build up...no outlet….. Dead Sea dead. Are you replacing the water in the pool?
Lately we're better about that but we didn't for the first dozen years or so. Thus it's hard to blame buildup, but do you suppose the mineral might somehow be responsible for deterioration of the plastic
Thanks Rog for your musings
@dalehileman,
Well, I would definitely be surprised to find any concentration of HCl. That's an acid. Let's see how the analysis works out.
@roger,
Quote:be surprised to find any concentration of HCl
Sorry Rog you misunderstood my clumsy English. The purpose of a handy bottle of diluted HCl is to test a substance to determine if it's an alkali, especially calcite, confirmed by a bubbling
Is this a 14 year old plastic bubble?
@dalehileman,
Thanks for the clarification.
@PUNKEY,
Quote:Is this a 14 year old plastic bubble?
Key to the bubble immediately above, it's a fizzing with HCl testing for calcite
The ones I've been using for the past 17 years however are of a common type covered on one side with many small air bubbles
@dalehileman,
Doesn't any one else have a pool, much less live in the sand. Can't believe am I the only Mojave Desert participant
I had assumed with some 100,000 participants at least two or three would have had the same pool problem as I
But thanks guys anyhow
PS: I'd used the term "bubbles" too loosely--no pun intended. The typical pool cover is covered with small air-filled bumps that might be called "bubbles," while the effect of dilute HCl on calcite is better called "fizzing"
@dalehileman,
dalehileman wrote:Doesn't any one else have a pool, much less live in the sand. Can't believe am I the only Mojave Desert participant
I have a pool, and I live in the sand. But it's the Sonoran Desert. Our water stays warm in the summer, here in the valley of the sun.
In the "winter," some folks use surface warmers that float and look like large lily pads. I have no idea if they work.
@Ticomaya,
Quote:Our water stays warm in the summer
What luck
Than Tico you and I are the only a2k pool owneers
@dalehileman,
After scraping off 2 years' deposit we estimate some 40 lb. Our good buddy and aerospace executive Bor Mikaelson has volunteered to have it analyzed whereupon of course I'll reveal its composition
Meanwhile has any other pool owner, especially in a desert environment, ever experienced such
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