New to SWG

[RyanMcC]

Hi everyone,

Like others, we’ve noticed that in our region bleach is now unattainable, and honestly I feel weird buying lots of bleach for the pool when it may be needed elsewhere. So, we took the plunge and ordered a SWG. Very excited about it now, actually. I don’t know how long we’ll be sheltering at home, but the pool would definitely make it more pleasant. Not worrying about obtaining chlorine is very appealing. Very fortunate to even be worrying about the pool right now.

We ordered it a little quickly, before diving through all the forum posts. Hope we did okay. We bought the Hayward Goldline AQ-TROL-RJ AquaTrol Above-Ground Swimming Pool Salt Chlorination System. Part of the thinking was that our pump is a Hayward, so keep with that standardization. We’ve since read here to go with a SWG that is rated for twice your pool capacity. Our pool is 10,000 gallons and the SWG is rated for 18,000. Hopefully that is close enough to double to make it a decent enough pump.

We were able to find some salt (which also seems to be getting scarce, though apparently there are ways to search that are more efficient- like softener- than what we did) and also ordered the recommended Taylor K-1766 salt test kit. My husband needs to figure out some plumbing changes.

I’ve been trying to understand the rationale behind the higher CYA in SWG pools. Someone explained that if the CYA were lower, say 30, then the FC would be sun eaten so fast that the SWG would have to work much harder. That makes sense, but doesn’t it also make sense that with a CYA of 70, you have to keep a higher FC level to santintize, so the SWG is also working hard to maintain that higher level? If it means that you need to work the SWG less hard to maintain the higher level with CYA of 70, wouldn’t it also stand to reason that in a non-SWG pool, if you had CYA of 70, that you’d then need to add less liquid chlorine to maintain the higher FC? I’m not understanding why there’s a different standard for the different types of pools.

How often do you need to add more salt?

Any other advice or pitfalls we need to avoid?

Thanks. Hope everyone has a safe and crystal clear swimming season.

Mjo

 

[Brett S]

I’ve been trying to understand the rationale behind the higher CYA in SWG pools. Someone explained that if the CYA were lower, say 30, then the FC would be sun eaten so fast that the SWG would have to work much harder. That makes sense, but doesn’t it also make sense that with a CYA of 70, you have to keep a higher FC level to santintize, so the SWG is also working hard to maintain that higher level? If it means that you need to work the SWG less hard to maintain the higher level with CYA of 70, wouldn’t it also stand to reason that in a non-SWG pool, if you had CYA of 70, that you’d then need to add less liquid chlorine to maintain the higher FC?

It doesn’t really matter what the FC level is. What matters is your pool’s chlorine consumption rate. Think of it like apples in your fridge. Say you have 7 apples in your fridge and you always want to try to keep 7 apples in your fridge. But your kids are eating 3 apples a day. That means that every day you need to put 3 apples back in your fridge to make sure that you stay at a free apple level of 7.

On the other hand, if you only want to maintain 3 apples in your fridge, but your kids are eating 6 apples a day that means that you’ll need to put 6 apples into the fridge every day to keep a free apple level of 3. In fact, you’ll need to be adding those 6 apples constantly throughout the day to make sure that you don’t drop below 0 apples.

So a free apple level of 7 with an apple consumption rate of 3 means that you only need to put 3 apples a day into the fridge. A free apple level of 3 with an apple consumption rate of 6 means that you need to put 6 apples a day into the fridge. Again, it doesn’t matter what the level is, what matters is the consumption rate. A higher CYA level will protect the chlorine from the sun and lower the consumption rate.

I’m not understanding why there’s a different standard for the different types of pools.

Because SWGs will constantly produce chlorine they are able to better maintain the FC level. If you are manually adding LC you are likely just doing it once a day, or maybe even once every couple of days and the FC level can swing much more. By using the SWG to keep the FC level more stable you can get by with a lower FC level.

How often do you need to add more salt?

Salt doesn’t evaporate, so the only time salt is lost is when rain overfills the pool and some water runs out, when water is splashed out of the pool, or when you lose water backflushing your filter. It kind of depends on how much water you lose, but I wouldn’t expect to need to add more than one or two bags a season unless you are consistently losing a lot of water.