long term costs: clorox; tablets; or salt

[texasdad]

1. Clorox and liquidator or injection system


2. Triclor and have to drain refill every few seasons


3. Salt and cell. Cell nneds replaced every few years. Need to seal flagstone once a year. Need extra muratic.


Currently I'm using clorox and add a little each day. I want to automate some for next summer.

 

[PoolGuyNJ]

Injection system gets my vote. Not the Liquidator though. Not my idea of a user friendly install.

Salt and Tabs are a toss up. Salt is more convenient though.

Scott

 

[Bama Rambler]

I second the injection system. Makes chlorine dosing easy.

 

[anonapersona]

Injection system gets my vote. Not the Liquidator though. Not my idea of a user friendly install.

Salt and Tabs are a toss up. Salt is more convenient though.

Scott

What other choices are there?

 

[PoolGuyNJ]

Hayward has Sense & Dispense.
Pentair has Intellichem.

Both can control a salt cell and or peristaltic pumps feeding liquid chlorine or bleach based on ORP and Muriatic or CO2 for pH.

Of the two, I think the Pentair is the easier and better integrated system, even though it's brand new.

Scott

 

[anonapersona]

to texasdad, the problem with the trichlor then drain and refill is that there may be a lot of other chemicals you need to add to the pool to rebalance it on a large refill. And if you let algae get going, which is usually the thing that tips one over into the drain/refill dance, then you have that to fight as well. In my pool, to replace half the calcium since my tap water is very very low in calcium, would require about $50 of hardness increaser and then I'd be fighting the pH and TA for a long time with the tap TA at 340 ppm. A half refill would take me from 70 to 205 ppm TA. That is a lot of time and effort, plus chemicals. No idea how much acid that would take but I'm sure it would take many many weeks of attention to keep pH from going past 8.0 daily, given my pool set up.

Not sure of your pool size but in my 23K pool, I used about 7 oz of trichlor a day, more in summer, less in winter. That adds 468 ppm CYA in a full year. So to go from 30 ppm CYA to 60 ppm CYA would only take 3.5 weeks (less in summer, longer in winter) Add back in that $50 per refill for calcium, it adds up. Plus 10K gallons added to the monthly water bill.

 

[personalpoolsandspas]

can you post more information about your pool, such as the chemistry of your tap water, filter system, size of pool, etc...

to go from manually adding chlorine every day to something like haywards sense and dispense (which i like) is quite a jump. do you have anything right now, a chlorine feeder or floating chlorinator etc?

i dont think we can honestly answer your question without more info.

 

[guamguy]

You listed extra muriatic acid with the SWG. If you get your TA in the recommended range, you shouldn't need much MA. My pool is open and in use year-round, I use a SWG, and the last time I added MA was in May. I keep the TA at about 70, and pH at 7.6-7.8.

 

[personalpoolsandspas]

You listed extra muriatic acid with the SWG. If you get your TA in the recommended range, you shouldn't need much MA. My pool is open and in use year-round, I use a SWG, and the last time I added MA was in May. I keep the TA at about 70, and pH at 7.6-7.8.

in all the pools we maintain, 80% are swg.years ago when swg's first started gaining popularity, the ph was hard to control when we kept the TA at a normal level. The key is to keep the TA around 70. keeping acid around is a non issue.

 

[PoolGuyNJ]

Keeping acid around is not and issue? Come on 'bro, you know better than that.

Using common sense is a must. Keep it out of the reach of children, storing it where it won't fall, using it correctly, and proper disposal of a diluted solution are all issues. Acid can be dangerous to people, property, and the environment. Having a healthy respect for it's capabilities is a must.

Its a must have too when keeping your pool balanced, just as a proper test kit, baking soda, borax, washing soda and bleach are.

Scott

 

[personalpoolsandspas]

i meant its a non issue because i use dry acid. i should have been more specific.

i hear you, muriatic acid is nasty stuff. you know its bad when you go to acid wash a pool and it melts away everything it touches...and the fumes, bleghh

 

[guamguy]

MA is cheaper than dry acid. It does suck to handle the stuff.

 

[texasdad]

can you post more information about your pool, such as the chemistry of your tap water, filter system, size of pool, etc...

to go from manually adding chlorine every day to something like haywards sense and dispense (which i like) is quite a jump. do you have anything right now, a chlorine feeder or floating chlorinator etc?

i dont think we can honestly answer your question without more info.

Pool is a small (13k gallon) gunite. I have a cartridge filter and two speed pump. I dint hav any type of computer controls, just a timer for on off.

I looked at the sensevand dispense and it looks like it is for salt?
Do most injection systems add a set amount of chemicals each day, or do they usually test and figure out what to add?

Over the summer I'm pretty consistently adding 3 cups of clorox each day.