I belong to a recreation club that has a large swimming pool, a workout room, and tennis courts. Some members have asked for a massage facility but the manager of the club is afraid that massage oil-covered people will enter the swimming pool causing problems with the pool filtration system. The manager has not complained of sunscreen-covered people entering the pool. My question, directed specifically to those who have some knowledge of swimming pool filtration systems that they are willing to share, is this: Is the manager’s concern justified? Will massage oil in the pool increase the cost of maintaining the filtration system?
Well, I hope the users of the pool pass through the shower before entering, or else massage oil will be the least of the pool’s problems. The concern is possibly justified because tanning oils are somewhat organic in nature (coconut oil, palm oil, etc), while massage oils might be mineral based, and even more heavily scented.
Just an opinion…
This sig not Y2K compliant. Happy 1900.
If the pool manager maintains his pool on a regular basis using the proper chlorinating procedures, massage-oiled people should cause no problem. Especially if the pool has a sand filter as opposed to a cartridge filter. The sand filter is much more efficient as filtering out such crud.
Oh, a pool question.
Okay, here is how it works. The people with massage oil get that oil on the ground around the pool & the pool handrails. That makes them very slippery & thus, dangerous.
Everyone should shower before going in the pool anyway cause otherwise its a coliform bacteria bath.
Due to a recent bonehead move by me this summer, I have a little experience with oils in pool water.
My pool has a skimmer and a DE (diamatrous earth sp?) filter. I have a deck around my pool and refinished it this last summer. Since there are a ton of railings around the pool I used a deck sprayer to seal the railings.
Needless to say, no matter how hard I tried I got a considerable amount of deck stain in the pool water.
After about two days the skimmer had collected all of the oil off the top of the water in what can only be described as a “ball of brown sludge”. This was actually a good thing because all I had to do was scoop out the oil. I then had to do a little scrubbing along the sides of the pool along the waterline to get rid of the rest.
My opinion is unless there is a lot of oil in the water, it won’t do any harm.
“It’s like banging your head against a wall because it feels so good when you stop.”