Aside from offending my own aesthetic sensibilities am i creating any sort of health problem by peeing in my own pool? It measures 75 feet x 40 feet with an average depth of 5 feet. I estimate the quantity of urine as about 1 or 2 ounces every week or so. A pool guy tests it every few weeks and has never said Hey, someone’s been peeing here!
Is it indetectable? Immaterial ¿? Unimportant?
Pee is usually sterile (not always) and if it isn’t then a properly chlorinated pool should readily kill anything that gets out (that’s why pools are chlorinated…not just pee but anything that can make us sick).
Still, I find swimming through that warm spot disturbing.
Yes, I should have mentioned that my pool is chlorinated, rather heavily. I swim in the nude and, after a few years of removing myself from the pool, putting on a robe, going to the bathroom, and then reimmersing myself in the pool, I began to wonder exactly who or what I could possibly be harming by peeing in the pool.
There is a side benefit: urine dissolves the turds.
Dan
Urea reacts with chlorine to form nitrogen trichloride. This is a primary component of the distinctive pool odor. It’s irritating to mucous membranes, but I’m not aware of (I haven’t checked) any long term problems.
There may be other disinfection byproducts.
A new variant of urine therapy, why not? Diluted to the point where it can be combined with homeopathy with greatly improved results! Congratulations, I see scientific recognition on the horizon.
My gf makes fun of me because I’ll leave the ocean/sea, go to the men’s bathroom and pee, then return to the ocean/sea.
Yeah…this is noticeable in public pools where lots of people are swimming and probably peeing. Having been in many when growing-up my eyes would get irritated and the smell was there but no lasting problems. Fine the next day.
I doubt one person peeing in a properly chlorinated pool would be noticeable. Just a guess…I am not an expert.
If you are going to do it just don’t do it from outside the pool.
“If you are going to do it just don’t do it from outside the pool.”
Many years ago we had contractors from McDonald Douglas (?) in Texas visiting on a project here at NASA in Cleveland. They were a uh, colorful bunch. One day a guy informed us he had been thrown out of the Port of Call, a popular motel. It had a pool with underwater windows that opened to the bar area. He said he got caught peeing in the pool. I asked how in the heck anyone would notice that. He replied, " I was standing on the divin’ board writing my gal’s name in mid-air - Jolene. Shoot, if I had been going with Sue I would have made it!"
I read somewhere, probably here - what we attributed as kids to “too much chlorine in the pool” e.g. red burning eyes and such, is technically a result of not enough chlorine, or inadequate filtering, wrong pH. As mentioned above chlorine reacts with organic solids like pee, sweat, and other things and forms chloramines or other irritating substances. A swimming pool that is maintained correctly is a thing of beauty. It isn’t the chlorine that causes irritation as such.
Peeing in your own pool is probably harmless, but in the spirit of the Dope, here’s an opportunity to test an urban myth.
Ask your physician to set you up with a non-toxic dose of methylene blue. After ingesting, wait a short while then take a swim and relieve yourself. Report back to us whether you’ve left a blue stain in the water. The world will be grateful for your contribution to science.
Seconded. Two scientific breakthroughs! There is a Nobel Prize there somewhere. Or at least an Ig-Nobel one. Don’t forget to mention us in your acceptance speech when they pelter you with paper planes.
Ive been at these bars located in a pool and thought that they were great fun. Then I noticed that is was rare to see drunk people getting out to go to the bathroom. Never going to one again.
I recall seeing somewhere a sign that said, “This is an ool. There is no p in it; please keep it that way.” My answer to the OP is that I probably wouldn’t do it, but I have no hesitation peeing in the ocean. Every other creature there is doing it.
Or (no doctor required for this) eat a pound of cooked beetroot. Stain will be reddish, not blue, but quite conspicuous.
After one of my hospital visits I was prescribed something, and when talking with my doctor (not the one who had prescribed it) during the time I was waiting to get it filled by my local pharmacy he mentioned that one of the side effects was that it would stain my urine a bright carrot orange. And sure enough, it did. It would have been nice if the prescribing doctor had told me this. I could just have seen myself frantically calling the clinic to report that I was peeing carrot juice.
And certain purple food dyes (also found in black dye) will turn your poop green.
My SO was naturally concerned when one day her pee was red. I remembered that she had been eating beets, and suspected that that could be the cause, which Dr. Google confirmed.
Really, just starting to figure it out makes it clear that this will NOT affect you.
A pool 75’ by 40’ by 5 feet deep is about 15,000 gallons of water. So about 1.9 million ounces of pool water. And your urine is about 95% water, so we are comparing 0.05 of 1 ounce to 1,900,000 ounces of chlorinated pool water. So a ‘urine dilution ratio’ of about 36 million to 1. Insignificant.
The pool water is probably more affected by the amount of sweat rinsed off your body into the pool (especially if you lay around in the sun between dips). Or the amount of saliva left in the pool if you swim underwater.
I can’t see any of them mattering.