Poway, California – As the temperature soars, San Diego begins preparing its swimming pool during the summer. However, in the case of a nationwide shortage of chlorine, many swimming pool companies find it difficult to meet the demand.

“Once there is news of the emergence of liquid chlorine, it will develop rapidly,” said Kurt Vitrano, who has been in the swimming pool industry for nearly 40 years.

The shortage has forced swimming pool maintenance companies to adopt a black market strategy to obtain products.

“In two hours, they inhaled 200 to 400 boxes of chlorine, and then they disappeared,” said Vitrano, the owner of the Powekurt pool. “So what we have been doing is buying dry chlorine, which I really don’t like.”

Vitrano serves and builds swimming pools throughout San Diego County, and he buys enough dry products to fill several garages.

He said he had never seen anything like this before. There have been reports of fires in manufacturing plants, but Vitrano said his suppliers said it was a residual effect of the pandemic and labor issues faced by many industries.

Like other swimming pool companies, he has switched to using less favorable dry chlorine to tide over the difficulties.

“Dry chlorine is definitely more expensive than liquid,” Vitrano said. “We have now bought drums, drums and dry drums to let us through the shortage period.”

He advises his customers to increase the pump’s circulation, make them run longer, and lower the temperature or turn off the solar energy. But there is no way to use less chlorine.

“When you are below one part per million…you get what is called bound chlorine,” Vitrano said. “At that time, chlorine mixed with ammonia and produced so-called chloramines. This is what causes ear infections and health problems in swimming pools. So chlorine is the most important part of swimming pools.”

He expects the shortage will resolve on its own later this summer.