Re: BBB for Beginners
I am so sick of replacing the components of my SWG system, I too am thinking about going Bleach.
They say that you replace the salt cell only every 3 years, to the tune of $300 minimum.
In reality, the box fails more often than the cell, so in essence the whole system needs replacing on a 3 year basis. Except that you have to debug the darn thing pretty much every year, because you never know if the cell is faulty or the darn circuit board. I have changed both this time to no avail. So I think something is amiss in the box itself, outside of the board. New boxes run $500 minimum, sometimes you can repair the boards yourself, I estimate 50% of the time. Not this time.
So if we are talking $1/day of bleach, which is seems realistic based upon what I have been putting in the past 2 weeks since my recent failure. (Actually, I used 90oz in the second week, after initially bringing up the level from 0ppm, when I discovered the cell failure.) That's 30oz every other day, which is only 50 cents/day. (But winter is coming, so consumption is less, right?)
It is disappointing to have to check the chemistry everyday, I was hoping for more of a weekly ritual.
(Maybe that's why when my SWG fails, I don't notice it until the pool has fallen to 0ppm!)
So the math could go like this: $1/day summer, $0.50 winter, for a bleach cost of 365 * 0.75 = $273/year in bleach.
That's about the cost of replacing the cell, which happens every 3rd year.
New boards run $300, also every 3 years, so that makes 2 years out of 3 an even proposition.
Salt is not free either, and has to be added more frequently than you'd think, at least 1 bag per month.
(You lose salt when you backwash. After heavy rains, and in spring/fall, you have to backwash more than usual.) So $7 * 12 = $84/year in salt (And that's a WalMart/Sam's price!)
Let's consider 3 years expense:
Bleach: $273 * 3 = $821.25
SWG: Salt $84 * 3 = $252 + $300 for salt cell + $300 for a board = $852 + $? electricity to run the cell
Cost is about a wash. (If you do the work yourself. The "pool store" charged me $600 for my first defective board replacement.)
So it comes down to this:
Would you rather:
1. Test your pool daily and add a bit of bleach?
2. Go through a week-long, hair-pulling debug session once a year and replace a bunch of hardware?
3. Replace the entire salt system $900 every 3rd year (when some part has failed), sparing the debug and granting 2 trouble free years?
So I'll be pulling the fuse on my salt system and picking up some bleach at Sams Club this weekend.
sounds like all is well!
