Intellichem recommends no higher than 35 CYA or it voids warranty??

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Its great that you want to take charge. Numbers look great. I would suggest not using the intellichem as automation just yet. You can manually add Bleach and Acid until the pool is a little older and until you can add the salt. This way you will get a sense of what your pool needs and will be more easy to adjust the intellichem later. Dont fight PH too much, 7.6-7.8 is fine.
 
Flying Tivo said:
Its great that you want to take charge. Numbers look great. I would suggest not using the intellichem as automation just yet. You can manually add Bleach and Acid until the pool is a little older and until you can add the salt. This way you will get a sense of what your pool needs and will be more easy to adjust the intellichem later. Dont fight PH too much, 7.6-7.8 is fine.
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Pool Service wasn't too happy that I added CH and TA levels and they told me that they get the levels sorted out over the 30 day span. They also mentioned that they never go over 200 CH on a pebble pool.
I think I've made the right choice in not continuing on with their 'service'.
Thank you for all the replies and opinions!
 
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I looked back on the thread and did not see you report your fill water test results. I would suggest you test TA, CH, and pH of your fill water. You will get significant evaporation and the characteristics of your fill water makes a difference.

Take care.
 
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You would have to dissolve 32, 8oz trichlor pucks to raise your CYA from 0 to 35ppm. I realize you are probably not at zero but you will want to add CYA especially if you will be running you SWG this summer.
 
Oly said:
You would have to dissolve 32, 8oz trichlor pucks to raise your CYA from 0 to 35ppm. I realize you are probably not at zero but you will want to add CYA especially if you will be running you SWG this summer.
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Thanks for the info! I didn't realize it would take that many pucks to get to 35. I'll definitely add some stabilizer to get that bumped up.
 
Use Pool Math to estimate the effects of adding chemicals to your 30K gallon pool. Also when adding CYA don't attempt to reach your target in one addition rather cut the calculated dosage by at least 1/2 and retest after several days. I assume you will be starting out at 30-40ppm CYA then ramping up toward 70ppm when utilizing your SWG this summer. If using CYA dry granules, put a dose in an old sock and suspend it in front of a return jet not letting the sock contact the walls or bottom of your pool. It will take some time to dissolve, squeeze the sock to speed up the process. It going to be a nice summer with that sweet swim'n hole you have in your yard. (y)
 
Oly said:
Use Pool Math to estimate the effects of adding chemicals to your 30K gallon pool. Also when adding CYA don't attempt to reach your target in one addition rather cut the calculated dosage by at least 1/2 and retest after several days. I assume you will be starting out at 30-40ppm CYA then ramping up toward 70ppm when utilizing your SWG this summer. If using CYA dry granules, put a dose in an old sock and suspend it in front of a return jet not letting the sock contact the walls or bottom of your pool. It will take some time to dissolve, squeeze the sock to speed up the process. It going to be a nice summer with that sweet swim'n hole you have in your yard. (y)
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Oly,
Thanks for the info!
I will use your advice when adding CYA to the pool. The main reason for my post was that Intellichem warranty states that the CYA level should not go above 30-50 (I've also heard no more than 35) so that was the main reason for my post knowing that Pool School recommended CYA level on a SWG pool is 70-80. I may have to supplement the SWG if it doesn't produce enough (as someone in this thread mentioned) to compensate for the lower than recommended level for the Intellichem system. I like the idea of the Intellichem system adding Muriatic Acid automatically, but now I'm thinking it may have been a mistake and I may just bypass the system and not use it so I can bump up CYA to 70-80 and not wear out the SWG?
Not sure yet...
 
mxfan said:
I didn't test the fill water. I will test it tonight and post results. Thanks
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mknauss said:
I looked back on the thread and did not see you report your fill water test results. I would suggest you test TA, CH, and pH of your fill water. You will get significant evaporation and the characteristics of your fill water makes a difference.

Take care.
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Here are the fill water results:
FC 1
PH 7.7
TA 30
CH 20

I’m also considering not using the Intellichem system for multiple reasons. Along with them not wanting CYA levels over 50, the plastic hose that runs from the Muriatic Axid tank to the return plumbing developed a small leak and sprayed axid all over the concrete pad. They came out and fixed that leak only to have a fitting completely dissolve and dump acid everywhere. It tarnished all brass fittings and ground wires. It is currently disconnected and i’m Adding acid manually at the moment. It also sprayed our house and ate the paint?
 

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The spilled acid is not good. That should not happen. The installer should warranty and repair everything damaged at their expense.

The Intellichem sounds good, but you would have been cautioned away from it by this forum if you had come here before installation. Just not practical for an outdoor pool we believe. There are cheaper, simpler ways to automate acid dispensing, if needed.

And with your fill water test results, you will need very little acid after the initial curing of your plaster. You are getting that nice, benign, Sierra Nevada water. Low TA and CH. I would suggest telling the pool builder to remove the intellichem entirely and get a refund.
 
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Speaking from experience with the IntelliCenter, it's an overpriced way to maintain PH - something that it does a very good job via the PH sensor and the acid tank / stenner pump. I personally like it better than the IntelliPH for this, because the IntelliPH is based on time-regulated dispensing vs using a sensor.

It does not do well maintaining my FC (via regulating my SWG) using it's ORP readings. I personally think that some of this has to do with my pool being covered with an auto-cover 99.9% of the time, and not allowing the same off-gassing that a normal pool would get, but who knows.... I can say that I can close the pool cover with a FC level of 4, my ORP will stay steady to rising, so the SWG will turn off, and I'll open up the pool a few days later to a cloudy pool and a FC of 0 or 1...

I've tried logging the ORP values and the FC values from my TF-100, and they don't correlate. I've tried cleaning the ORP sensors and taking new readings, replacing the sensors, etc. It's just not consistent, and as a result regularly puts my FC at risk, so I end up testing and manually moving up / down the values via ScreenLogic to make the SWG kick in.
 
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dw886 said:
I've tried logging the ORP values and the FC values from my TF-100, and they don't correlate. I've tried cleaning the ORP sensors and taking new readings, replacing the sensors, etc. It's just not consistent, and as a result regularly puts my FC at risk, so I end up testing and manually moving up / down the values via ScreenLogic to make the SWG kick in.
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What CYA level do you run with your ORP & SWG system?
 
mknauss said:
The spilled acid is not good. That should not happen. The installer should warranty and repair everything damaged at their expense.

The Intellichem sounds good, but you would have been cautioned away from it by this forum if you had come here before installation. Just not practical for an outdoor pool we believe. There are cheaper, simpler ways to automate acid dispensing, if needed.

And with your fill water test results, you will need very little acid after the initial curing of your plaster. You are getting that nice, benign, Sierra Nevada water. Low TA and CH. I would suggest telling the pool builder to remove the intellichem entirely and get a refund.
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mknauss,
I definitely should have come on the forum and asked about the Intellichem system. I was thinking that the new technology sounded great, my goof!
Thank you for your input, I appreciate it!
I have asked the PB to remove the Intellichem, we'll see what they have to say.
Thanks again!
 
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ajw22 said:
What CYA level do you run with your ORP & SWG system?
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I've tried to keep CYA within the Pentair recommended specs of 30-40ppm - which is lower than the TFP recommendations, and to be honest, ORP is never always high or always low.
I've had where ORP readings spike, and my SWG shuts down thinking that there's too much FC when in fact there isn't enough, and it's caused cloudy water.
I've also had ORP slumps, where I've had the IntelliChem ORP level set to the minimum that ScreenLogics allows, and the ORP sensor reading was less than the set point, so it kept my SWG running out of control...in that scenario I had to go into the intellichem settings, and "tweak" the ORP reading by -50 so that it would read low enough to turn off the SWG.

It looks good on paper - there's white papers that I've read on ORP prior to purchasing - there is actually science behind it, but it's not foolproof. Too bad there's not a way to run an automated FAS-DPD test, and work off of actual FC numbers. :)

That being said, I really like the IntelliChem just for it's ability to regulate PH. I know it's not a big deal to many, but I like seeing the telemetry around my PH levels from my phone, and knowing that things are good. Just wish FC had an accurate way to do the same thing.
 
From what has been said here CYA over 30 confuses ORP sensors. For any chance for ORP to work CYA has to be kept more in the 20 level. That does not work well for outdoor pools.

This thread may have more detail then you care for - ORP Control You can search for messages that have ORP in them from user "chem geek" to learn more.
 
ajw22 said:
From what has been said here CYA over 30 confuses ORP sensors. For any chance for ORP to work CYA has to be kept more in the 20 level. That does not work well for outdoor pools.

This thread may have more detail then you care for - ORP Control You can search for messages that have ORP in them from user "chem geek" to learn more.
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The problem is that you can't measure CYA that low. My first summer (2 summers back), I only added enough CYA to get me to 20 (by calculation), but the problem is that I only have the number of gallons that my pool is spec'd at, so who knows what is really in it. Last summer, I went up to 30. Now that I'm 2 years in, and some CYA has come out plus I've added last year, it's even more difficult to get to that low unmeasureable level.
 
dw886 said:
The problem is that you can't measure CYA that low. My first summer (2 summers back), I only added enough CYA to get me to 20 (by calculation), but the problem is that I only have the number of gallons that my pool is spec'd at, so who knows what is really in it. Last summer, I went up to 30. Now that I'm 2 years in, and some CYA has come out plus I've added last year, it's even more difficult to get to that low unmeasureable level.
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Do the opposite of the dilution test. Use proportionally more reagents to pool water and see if it tests at CYA 40 then divide in half.
 

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