TFP Confidence and Competence - My SWG broke and now I'm SLAMing

[BenB]

I've not posted here in a long time but the last few days have given me something to write about so here I am again!

I think the thing that i'm most grateful to this website for is that it's taught me essential life skills as it relates to pool maintenance. And those skills might be succinctly summarized as Confidence and Competence. I think those are really important life qualities for almost everything, and I have TFP to thank for its part in getting me there when looking after my pool.

I'll be honest, I got a bit lazy this past summer. Since I have a salt water chlorine generator, everything just works. Every couple of weeks I add acid to maintain the pH but otherwise, after three years of owning this pool, I've reached the point where it largely is running itself and I have been checking it less often.

In the last couple of weeks, the weather has started to turn cooler, and swim season is all but over. So, when I started hearing the characteristic warning beeps from the pool controller flashing up voltage warnings for the SWG indicating it was starting to fail I did what i did last time around. I turned it up to a higher % and assumed that it would limp through the autumn and winter and I'd be able to replace it in the spring.

Apparently i was wrong. I tested the water for the first time in probably two weeks yesterday and when I dropped the powder into the beaker and it didn't even go slightly pink but remained completely clear I knew immediately what i was dealing with.
And that's where confidence and competence comes in. In that moment I didn't panic. I didn't feel worried, and I certainly didn't feel the need to call 'a pool guy' or run to the nearest pool store to have them sell me a bunch of quackery. No, I just shrugged my shoulders, found the cheapest chlorine I could nearby and started a SLAM.

A few hours later when my FC read as 5 instead of the 12ppm I'd just added (calculated via app) a couple of hours earlier, I didn't need to second guess whether the chlorine was bad, or whether my test results were wrong (because I did my own) and I didn't second guess the size of my pool. No, all of those are known things to me. And so i trust the process. I dose it back to 12. Come next morning it tests as 8, so I dose back to 12.

I should mention that I thought this was a preventative SLAM - it's certainly not TFP clear but it's only mildly cloudy and certainly not at all green. So I thought I'd just get it up to SLAM and we'd be good. Indeed I think most pool owners would probably just think they needed to 'shock' the pool and they'd be done.

But no - I know how a SLAM works - and so I know that regardless of whatever my eyes are telling me, for as long as the pool is gobbling up chlorine, I'm not done until I pass an overnight loss test.

And that's totally fine. It will take what it will take! I just hope that the warranty claim on the salt cell doesn't take too long because i'd really like to get back to my lazy maintenance mode as soon as possible!

So, once again, thanks to the TFP site and resources and forum for giving me those two important words. Confidence and competence. The confidence to know that what you're doing will work and is the right thing to do based on the science. And the competence to have that knowledge accessible or stored in your brain ready to go whenever the need might arise so you can handle the situation independently.

Thanks!

 

[mknauss]

Good job!
Do you have automation? Your signature does not show it and if not, there are much more DIY friendly SWCG systems than Jandy.

 

[Newdude]

Very few cells can overcome algae. It very well may limp along as you'd hoped once the SLAM is complete. 2 weeks is a long time unchecked (I GET it, I promise. lol) and something may have shut the cell off allowing the algae to bloom.

I found mine off 7 or 8 times for low salt after big rains this season, even running 24/7

 

[BenB]

Yeh it's a Jandy PDA system running it all. Not a huge fan to be honest so given the price I'd definitely go something more straightforward if/when I need to replace it.

Good point, NewDude. Once the SLAM is done I'll stick it at 100% for a few days and see if it's generating anything at all. With the solar heating still going it's hard to tell whether the light bubbling at the closest return is just from the heater run (I find the PRV lets a few bubbles in), or the SWG. Hopefully it will indeed limp on. You're also right about it turning off. For the whole time I've had this pool for 'some reason', on some days when switching on in the morning it simply won't detect the SWG at all and so doesn't run it.

It doesn't help either that over the summer my pool EATS CYA - I can start at 70-80 but once the water temperature hits 90 it starts to rapidly deteriorate. Again I allowed it to drift down to ~30-40 but of course lower CYA gave me less safety net when things did go wrong.

 

[Newdude]

For the whole time I've had this pool for 'some reason', on some days when switching on in the morning it simply won't detect the SWG at all and so doesn't run it.

Things go sideways one way or the other. You don't have the rain but maybe you have occasional power flickers or system glitches. The closer anyone runs to min, the closer they need to pay attention. I target a 10 on the sunny days and let it overproduce on the cloudy days and I have 2+ days FC in reserve at all times. It allows me lots of wiggle room. Pretty much all I have to do is go check the green light and if the cell turns on everyday, I still have my reserve, and only need to look out for the next adjustment time. Coincidentally this is how I found it off after the rains. I bleed the filter and check the cell light daily, it takes literal seconds.

 

[duraleigh]

Your mastery of the TFP methods we teach is obvious. That Confidence and Competence shows through in every word you write.

Well done!

 

[PoolStored]

Don't forget to Brush!

Congrats!