Pro Tease/ SWG CYA

[waterbear]

Waste,
First, thank you for the sincere complement. I just try to do my best with what little I know.
Second, you pretty much answered my PM !

Third, just a comment on why the product companies that sell borax also sell sodium carbonate for pH control....This is just my opinion and has no basis in fact!
Total Alkalinity is also called Carbonate Hardness and is a measure of the carbonate/bicarbonate/carbonic acid buffer system in the water. This is why they recommend sodium carbonate to raise pH since it is part of the buffer system. Downside is that is also raises alkalinity. Borax creates a secondary boric acid/borate buffer system in the water and adds no carbonates to the water which is why it has minimal impact on TA. I am not really sure of all the chemistry of how the 2 buffer system interact at the moment. Would love to research it when (hahaha, more likely IF) I get the time!

an interesting side note, I recently saw a product by Lo-Chlor Specialty Pool Chemicals that adds magnesium to the water to help prevent calcium scaling on salt cells since the magnesium carbonate scale is 'mushy' and washes off easily. The chemisty behind it is sound but with all these additive the pool is becoming more like a salt water aquarium instead of a salt pool. (Hmmm, I wonder if using aqarium salt in a pool might solve all these problems at once? Don't know if I'm brave enough to start adding "Instant Ocean" or "Reef Crystals" to my pool but they do contain the borates and magnesium salts! They're too expensive anyway!)

[PoolDoc]

I've skimmed this thread, and agree with most of what I read: welcome to the wonderful world of marketing!

The interesting thing for me has been, as I came to understand how marketing and sales deception drove the pool industry, I began to see the same sort of deception in most other realms of marketing.

Chemicals seem to be a realm in which deceptive marketing especially flourishes, whether it's cleaning chemicals or pharmeceuticals. But cars, toys, electronics, 'personal hygiene products' and more are all sold with the same kinds of lies.

That's just the kind of world it is in which we live!

Ben

PS: Thanks for keeping the rants here, instead of in the general discussions. But that doesn't mean that newbies shouldn't be told that Proteam is just borax.

PPS: Waste, before you are too hard on your employers, spend some time thinking about what sort of *workable* business model they could adopt that would allow them to be both honest and adequately profitable. I was fortunate, early on, to stumble on a commercial pool service model that allowed both. But, it's model few in the industry understand, and it was tailored somewhat to my own skills which are not entirely typical. Dishonesty is always dishonesty, but even the Bible excuses it more when it's for the sake of eating.