What Happens When Urine Mixes with Chlorine?

What happens when you pee in the pool?

In another article on what not to do at the swimming pool, we expressly said you should never pee in the pool.

Actually, you should never pee anywhere else apart from the bathroom. However, no matter how important this bit of information is, many people will still pee in the pool.

You would think that only children are likely to do this, but according to a survey carried out sometime back, 19 percent of adults admitted to having peed in the pool in their adult lives.

Nasty habit, this one!

So what happens when you pee in the pool? Urine is going to change the pH balance of the swimming pool water. This is going to affect the effectiveness of chlorine in the water, lowering its ability to kill bacteria. The swimming pool becomes riskier for many people. Urine in water is also gross.

Why peeing in the pool is dangerous for your health

Urinating or pooing inside the pool is really dangerous for your health and that of the other users.

Think about it closely. If you have had a condition like a yeast infection, there is always a possibility of spreading it to other swimming pool users.

However, if the chlorine levels stay intact in the water, bacteria and fungi can die easily. Don’t assume that it is okay to pee in the pool because it has been some time since the pool was shocked with chlorine.

Some bacteria are stubborn, and they can stay alive for a few days.

Perhaps a small amount of urine is not going to cause too much change in the chlorine level. However, before you pee in the pool, ask yourself what would happen if everyone else using the public pool decided to pee in the water.

Urine contains chemicals such as inorganic salts, ammonia, and others. Now, when these chemicals interact with the pool water, which contains different chemicals (from chlorine to cleaning products), it stirs them up.

When the pool water gets into your eyes, they will start stinging.

Toddlers can swallow pool water

We discussed how to prevent toddlers from swallowing pool water. The reason we did this is that kids and even adults do swallow pool water occasionally.

Besides, water goes inside you when you swim. It can go in through the mouth, nose, or ears. If this happens, you do not want the water to have urine in it. It is bad enough already that so many people are swimming in it. Urine makes it worse.

How to tell if someone peed in the pool

Well, perhaps you could ask, in which case the answer will always be no, unless it is children. They hardly lie.

The truth is that there is no way to find out if someone has peed in your pool. Of course, there are laboratory methods, but are you sure you want to go in that direction?

Test for artificial sweetener in the pool

To test for urine in the swimming pools, researchers look for acesulfame potassium, which is an artificial sweetener that’s added to processed drinks and food. If a person takes such food and pees in the pool, tests for ACE will turn out positive.

The reason why we pee this sweetener out is that the human body does not break it down. Therefore, if the food you took had copious amounts of this sweetener, it would come out of the body in its entirety.

Apart from using such a method, there is no way to look at the water and know that someone has urinated in it.

There is no urine indicator dye

One of the questions that most people ask is: Where can I buy urine indicator dye? Well, it is available on Amazon.com and other online marketplaces. Perhaps even your local swimming pool store has it.

However, the question is not whether we have urine indicator dye. The question is whether it works.

Forget what you have seen in the movies showing swimming pool water turning blue or green when someone pees. It does not happen.

In any case, even if it did, there would be another problem…

Urine indicator dye would be made of chemicals. One of the reasons urine is bad for the pool is because it is a chemical.

And it is best to avoid adding “unauthorized” chemicals to the pool. Therefore, testing for urine in the swimming pool is like a double-edged sword. You might know there is urine, but the harm the dye causes to the water is not worth it.

On the question of how to know when someone pees in the pool, you will just have to trust that other people are as sensible as you and that they don’t pee in the pool.

Forget urine indicator dye, since it does not exist. It is sold on Amazon, but it is a novelty that you can use to play tricks on your friends or for Halloween.

Why does it feel so good to pee in the pool?

The reason why peeing in the pool would feel good is the same reason why peeing in the shower would feel good.

There are many benefits of swimming daily. One of them is that the workout makes you happier and more carefree.

It enhances the release of feel-good hormones like dopamine and serotonin. It suppresses stress hormones like cortisol.

Why all this jobber-jabber about peeing? Well, peeing in the swimming pool and the shower feels so good because it is psychological!

You see, all that buoyancy and all the water around you trick you into thinking that there is a lot of water in the body. Thus, the brain sends signals to the body that it needs to expel some water.

Hydrostatic pressure

If fluid is kept in a container, it is going to exert pressure on the walls of that container. This is what is referred to as hydrostatic pressure.

Even in the blood vessels, the same pressure builds up, pressing against the walls of the vessels. Blood is the fluid here, and the vessels are the container.

When hydrostatic pressure increases, your blood pressure rises a bit. This sends signals to different parts of the body, especially the kidneys.

They start to filter more blood, which means more frequent urination since the dirt it filters out is mostly eliminated through urination.

That is why most people feel the need to empty their bladder after some time in the pool. It is vital to visit the restroom before getting into the pool to lower the risk of your bladder getting full.

Teach your children the same thing.

How do you treat urine in a pool?

Like it or not, there is a high chance that someone will pee in your swimming pool. Therefore, it is best to assume that there is some urine in the water.

So, the next thing you should be asking is how to treat chlorine in the pool to make the water clean again to swim in.

Does chlorine kill pee in pools?

Chlorine kills many things in the pool, including germs, viruses, and fungi, by attacking and eating away their walls. However, those are mostly the only things it kills!

Therefore, chlorine does not kill pee! Pee is not alive to be killed. What it does is neutralize the urine and make your swimming pool clean again.

Chlorine is going to neutralize the urea in the urine. Thus, just adding chlorine is going to help clean the pool and make it fit for swimming again.

Do pools have urine detection?

Unfortunately, there is no way to detect urine in a pool unless you use the sugar test that we discussed earlier.

If you are a swimming pool maintenance person, you will just have to trust that the people swimming are good enough not to pee inside the water.

Even the so-called dyes are really not good because you will be adding chemicals to the water. These chemicals can harm the people using the pool.

It is recommended that you do not add any type of additive to the pool water unless it is authorized. You do not want to deplete the chlorine in the water because it kills microbes that could otherwise harm you.

Wrapping it up

What happens when you pee in the pool is that you make the water gross. If you have urine incontinence, just don’t swim. Do you have diarrhea? Don’t swim.

If you work in swimming pool maintenance, just assume the water contains pee and clean it intentionally.

To repeat, there is no way to know whether someone has peed in the swimming pool because the water is too much for the urine to smell.

In the pool regulations for users, remember to include a “Don’t pee in the pool” rule.