Is BBB method more economical?

[RavenNS]

I agree with you, it just all depends on what things cost in your location at the time.
Sometimes bleach here in NS is not at all a good deal ( a couple dollars per bottle), & sometimes it's on a great sale like 0.88 cents a bottle...

same with Borax. I find it difficult to find, most stores don't seem to carry it anymore (here). And the price can be much more expensive then buying Ph Up at a pool store. Factor in being able to buy PH up at large dept stores, & it is actually a lot cheeper ( here) to buy regular PH up.

Buying a 50 lbs bag of food grade baking soda though is a huge savings over pool store though

[duraleigh]

Being cheaper can be a reason for BBB, but certainly not all or even the primary reason, IMHO.

1. Simplicity

2. Understanding you don't need "magic" ingredients

3. Understanding that many pool store products have unwanted side affects

4. The convenience of grocery store purchases instead of going to the pool store

All these are probably better reasons.

[Mom2Czars]

I was able to get the 6% bleach from Walmart for $2.29 per 1.42 gallon bottle all summer ($1.60 per gallon). Does the granular chlorine have CYA in it? That would be my only concern about it. If it doesn't, I might seek some out myself, since I'm looking for a good method of getting chlorine under the stairs in my ABG pool. If you're using stabilized chlorine, you'll be having to pay more attention to your pH.

Because my pool is just 13.5k gallons, once my water is balanced I only need about 3 cups of bleach per day to keep it at a good level. Because I don't use the pucks and my liner is vinyl my pH stayed put all summer too. So it cost me about 1 large bottle of bleach per week to run my pool. I did have to add a bit more from time to time related to weather and bather load, but not too often. Seems pretty cheap to me, especially compared to some other methods.

[ivyleager]

My personal experience is that the bleach method is much more expensive and time consuming when one is dealing with a large volume pool, such as yours. I'm looking at SWC's for next season.

CaryB