Is refilling a better option? Looking for thoughts/advice

[cbrown4690]

Want to start by saying that this site has been, and continues to be, a wonderful source of information. We are going on our third year and have never had an issue. All of our friends and neighbors comment about how great our pool/water looks. Also I understand the importance of testing and do my own test via the tf-100 kit. Now to my question...

Has anyone who has access to relatively cheap water looked at the cost of using pucks/powder chlorine and refilling when the CYA gets too high? Water in my area cost around $3 per 1000 gallons which means I can fill my entire pool for around $100. I don't really want to get into the whole environmental side but will say it would be a pain to have to refill often and I wouldn't want to refill more than once per year if that often. In a really really dry summer we will get a conservation notice to water early/late etc but that's as severe as its ever gotten. My thought is when my SWG goes out I need to consider this as an option, installing puck dispenser etc., and just wonder if anyone else has looked into it. I do use bleach during the off season and to boost my chlorine level for high bather loads but I am not interested in relying on it as my sole source of chlorine due to the inconvenience messing with that many jugs.

Again I don't want anyone to read into this that the TFPC method doesn't work because it absolutely does and I have nothing but positive things to say about following the guidelines that are presented with that method.

Thanks ahead of time for your thoughts/advice

 

[woodyp]

Ok. Let's say your SWG dies. Replacement cell will run you about the same cost as replacing that much water over 5-6 years.

 

[cbrown4690]

What I am unsure of is how often I would have to refill. You would be correct with a refill ever year. Would that be the expectation using pucks?

 

[Texas Splash]

cb, I believe I've seen that topic go around before. I seem to recall a discussion where readers compared the cost of a bucket or two of 3" tabs, along with 100% pool drain/re-fill, and all other chemicals required to refresh their pool as opposed to simply maintaining it year-round with same water and bleach. Other than just kicking numbers around for gee-wiz trivia, if someone really wanted to do that I would have to ask "why"? TFP emphasizes simplistic methods to maintain a pool year-round, and the common household products used to do so are relatively cheap - much cheaper than a $100 bucket of tabs, not to mention all the other products a pool needs at start-up. Certainly there are cases where draining the pool cannot be avoided, but to simply use the drain & re-fill method on a routine basis to avoid using liquid bleach just seems like such a waste of resources to me personally. Glad to you see the value in TFP. Others may have another angle on this issue. V/r ~ Pat

 

[cbrown4690]

Looking at pool math there is around a 1.6 to 1 relationship for tricholr. So using 4 ppm of chlorine a day for ~125 day swim season would make my CYA ~300. So that would be at least a refill a year, more like 3, if I have that correct.

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Thanks for the response and the is way more of a "gee-wiz trivia" (I like that term lol). Nothing is broke so I don't plan to change a thing. Just seems most folks on here are burdened with water issues and cost of water and I wanted to see if others had spent time looking into it.

 

[tim5055]

By the time you factor in replacement SWG cells, installation and such the cost of a SWCG is generally about the same as manually dosing with liquid chlorine on an ongoing basis.

I know for me that to maintain my FC level I would have to use so many pucks that water replacement would be required every year. Your pool is a little larger tan mine, but 4 pucks will raise my CYA 10 points. I had to do this calculation because I'm down to 40 CYA and I'm gong to supplement my Stenner Pump during vacation with pucks to bring th CYA back to 50.

Now, in my area the pucks necessary to keep my FC at teh proper level are more expensive than bleach. When you consider that SWCG & bleach are generally a wash and pucks are more expensive than bleach I don't think pucks are the way to go. You also have to consider that as the year goes on and your CYA is rising, you continually have to raise the amount of pucks you are using to maintain the proper FC/CYA ratio. It's a never ending cycle.

The areas that can get away with puck usage are those where there is a shor swim season and winterizing the pool draws down the level a lot, thus replacing water every year.

 

[DanielP]

The areas that can get away with puck usage are those where there is a shor swim season and winterizing the pool draws down the level a lot, thus replacing water every year.

What really sucks is people in most southern states that have long swim seasons don't even have reliable source for cheap bleach compared to the great lakes area and the coasts. In the OKC area I called every pool store and none carries liquid chlorine. So far it's either catch a sale at Ace Hardware on memorial day weekend or a sale at Homeland grocery store.