Friends,

I just joined this group to post this message to help those of you struggling with Baquacil. I wanted to pass along what I've found to be an absolutely tremendous solution. But read thru my note to get the backb=tround.

I've been a home pool owner for more than 40 years -- two pools at two homes. I'm a native Californian living in Missouri. So, without an ocean to surf any more, I've got to have a pool. Having struggled with maintaining pool chemistry and water clarity, I wanted to share with you what, after decades, I've found to be the perfect solution.

I'd converted our first pool from chlorine to Baquacil after years of expensive, traditional chlorine treatment. It worked great for the first few years. But after a couple of years, I found I kept having to add more and more stuff to keep the pool clear.

Ultimately, we had to go back to chlorine. What my pool support folks told me (and I've had it confirmed by others) is that because of they way Baquacil essentially works, algae can develop an immunity. It happened fairly quickly in our area. In other areas, less hot, I get a sense it takes longer.

Anyway, we spent few years of expensive chlorine treatment at our second home (the original owner put it had it on Baquacil until it stopped working in our area and converted it back to chlorine).

After well more than $1,000 in chemicals per summer (we open our pool pretty early and it's heated), our pool service person suggested a solution that has cut our cost to nearly zero -- and eliminated the maintenance problem.

It's a salt chlorinator. It cost about $1,500 to install. Takes about 10 40-pound bags of salt to start (for a pool of something more than 20,000 gallons). After that, its maintenance free. No algacide. It took me a few years to accept my pool guy's recommendation to stop the algacide, but I'm on the second year without any adverse consequence.

Just need to add a bag of regular water-treatment "solar salt" every couple of months -- cost of about a few bucks per bag.

The only drawback is that the water does have a very slight salt taste. Supposedly at the same level as eye tears. So, there's no eye irration we had with traditional chlorine, nor smell, nor ruined bathing suits, etc.

I cannot exaggerate how great this system has been. It's brought down to zero (literally) both the costs of maintaining the pool as well as the drag on our own time.

And don't get fooled by folks who try to sell expensive bags of component chemicals to maintain a salt pool. You just need salt and the salt chlorinator device (an electric thing that connects to your pool piping) takes care of everthing.

And, in case there is any doubt. I'm neither a pool supplier or contractor. Rather, I'm a reporter who has absolutely no financial interest in this matter.

There are many people here who have been saying essentially the same thing for years

By the by, the "algae become immune to baqua" thing isn't true. Chemicals build up in the water that prevent the baqua from working. If you do massive water replacement each year, and also replace your filter media each year, it is possible to get baqua to continue working indefinitely. It does get fantastically expensive however.

Welcome to the forum

Your comments on baquacil are pretty much accurate. However, I am puzzled by this...
. What was expensive and why do you think your total cost is less with an SWG?......It's not.

As you read more and more on the forum, you will find many folks here who are both advocates and experts on SWG's. You will also find many that are advocates and experts on manually chlorinated pools.

The single biggest factor separating the two is convenience.....not price. Other than that, manual pools and SWG pools share more things than they differ.

That's way too much money to be spending in chemicals.

BBB my brother. It's basic chemistry and it will save thousands of dollars. One bottle of shock at $2.99 is chicken feed. Actually chicken feed is over $12.00 (don't ask me why I know that).