Enzymes, another needless chemical for your pool….. or not?
What is an enzyme and why should you care?
Enzymes are everywhere. We even have enzymes in our mouths and they work as the first stage of digestion by breaking down food into smaller molecular components to get this process going.
Pool enzymes aren’t much different. A common view is that enzymes “eat” whatever they are designated to treat but what really happens is a process of separation. Enzymes break things down to smaller pieces to better eliminate detrimental chemical.
Pool enzymes are “built” to remove the annoying things that are difficult for chlorine to attack. You’re familiar with these; oils from cosmetics, sunscreen, deodorants, hair products, nitrogen from perspiration and urine and other organics.
The use of enzymes can help your pools or spas in many ways. They can:
- Lessen the frequency of required breakpoint chlorination
- Eliminate scum lines on walls in skimmer pools, wave pools and spas
- Lower the use of chlorine by “pretreating” organics
- Prevent oil contamination of all filter media
- Eliminate biofilm in piping and filtration tanks that require the “attention” of chlorine
- Help keep UV quartz tubes and UV intensity sensor clean and operating more efficiently between services
It is important to know that while they can be a benefit, not all are created equally. Enzymes are chemically designed for certain tasks and selecting the product that best meets your needs can sometimes be tricky.
The answer to the initial question is that yes, enzymes do have value and are a useful pool water treatment when applied properly by experienced personnel.