We had a chlorine pool given to us about 13 years ago. 24' above ground. First year with chlorine was horrible battle with algae and seemed like a science experiment gone bad. Our neighbor suggested Bacquacil, so I converted to that about 11 years ago. It worked fine for us and we could leave the pool unattended for a couple weeks during vacations, etc... however, it was VERY expensive. After about 3-4 years we started getting algae again. The solution offered by the pool store was always 'add this algaecide". It happened about twice a year. I got to wondering where that algaecide was going. The water started getting a weird taste. The pool would always clean up nice, and look good in the spring, but then two months into it, boom! Algae again. We were spending a tad over $200 a season on chemicals.

I started looking and found this site. Great! I drained our pool this past June, smoothed out the wrinkles in the liner, filled it with fresh water, installed a cheap Intex SWG $169.00 and dumped in $40 worth of salt. After a week I added some CYA to bring it up to proper levels. That is all I have done to it since June 21!!!

I still need to balance out the calcium hardness as my SWG gets crusted up about every two weeks. Then I just soak it in vinegar overnight and off I go again. Once I take care of that, I'm pretty sure it will go much longer between vinegar soaks.

We run our sand filter 8 hours a day on a timer. The SWG runs for 3 hours a day and that keeps the chlorine at just the right level. As long as there isn't a power outage the Intex maintains its program. If not, it just shuts itself down until you resolve it. It is a cheap unit but works as advertised.

All in all I'd have to say that I waited too long to switch away from the Bacquacil. The saltwater pool is much nicer than the Bacquacil ever was.

Where did you get your SWG and how did you install it?? Is it the kind that hooks in the plumbing?

Walmart has the Intex SWGs on clearance right now for around $150.

I have a question about SWG"s. The pool store where I "used to" buy my baqucil told me I couldn't use a salt water system with an AG pool w/ metal sides. She said it would rust my metal and I would be replacing my pool in a year. Is that just more "pool store" talk?

Converted to BBB and LOVE it.

Deb

Deb,

There are a lot of happy AGP owners (metal sides) here with SWCG. If SWCG were incompatible with metal-sided AGP's you'd read about it here! With that said, if you see any scratches or gouges on the sides or top rail that reach bare metal, you might want to touch them up. And with a SWCG pool you also discover which pool accessories used high-grade stainless fastners versus low-grade stuff.

Kelly