Yes, but you need to calculate the right amount – and use plain bleach.

Household bleach (sodium hypochlorite, typically 6% or 8.25%) works fine for shocking a pool. It’s the same active chemical as pool shock, just diluted. The “safe concentration” question is about dosage, not the bleach itself.

You’re trying to raise free chlorine to 5–10 ppm for a shock treatment. For a 10,000‑gallon pool, that takes roughly 1.5 gallons of 6% bleach (or about 1 gallon of 8.25%). But pool sizes vary wildly, so use an online pool calculator – enter your pool volume, current chlorine level, and target, and it’ll tell you exactly how much bleach to add.

Two gotchas:

• Only use plain, unscented, no-additives bleach. Anything with “splash‑less,” “outdoor fresh,” or “cloromax” contains thickeners or surfact