There are a lot of elements constantly entering your pool water: organic debris, humans, insects, even urine ( unfortunately). These things can cause ammonia in your pool which then reacts with the chlorine to form chloramines. Chloramines are just a fancy term for combined chlorides. When they are high in the water swimmers will become irritated with contact with the water and the smell will be very strong. Many people believe the strong chlorine smell means there is too much chlorine in the pool when actually the opposite is true.
The pool needs to be “shocked” by raising the chlorine residual by 5 to 10 times the normal level. Depending on how often your pool is used, shocking will need to be done once a week up to every couple weeks.
What exactly is in pool shock? It is a strong and quickly-dissolving chlorine chemical compound. You can also purchase non-chlorine alternatives.
For more information on pool shocking, check out our resources here.