New Owner, Old VERY Neglected Pool

[mknauss]

The salt will have no effect on your water chemistry. Best to wait until your SLAM is complete and then work on the SWCG.

 

[TurbineTester]

The salt will have no effect on your water chemistry. Best to wait until your SLAM is complete and then work on the SWCG.

Cool.

 

[mguzzy]

Yes wait until the SLAM is completed before you fire up the SWG. But you can add the salt any time really. Hold off turning on the SWG or turn it off if its on, until the salt is dissolved. Most SWGs don't like have high salinity water going through the cell when the anodes are active. Also I recommend adding the salt in stages of half, if your pool calcs say you need 500#, start by adding 250#, dissolve, test, recalculate, repeat. Nothing worse than over shooting your salt, and then you are draining to get the salinity down. I find Walmart has the cheapest in my area; Diamond or Morton. Stay away from the Clorox brand.. there is an interesting thread on the site about the Clorox salt.. it stained my pool.

What brand SWG is there? Its not in your sig. I would pull the cell and inspect it visually for scale and detritus. given all the gunk in your pool there may be some stuff stuck in there. If you see a lot of scale soak it in a 4 to 1 solution of MA until the bubbling stops. Don't over acid wash the cells if you don't have to, just if there are deposits. I think many people acid wash their cells too much.

Looking good! keep those pics coming its the highlight of my day to see the progress.

 

[TurbineTester]

Yes wait until the SLAM is completed before you fire up the SWG. But you can add the salt any time really. Hold off turning on the SWG or turn it off if its on, until the salt is dissolved. Most SWGs don't like have high salinity water going through the cell when the anodes are active. Also I recommend adding the salt in stages of half, if your pool calcs say you need 500#, start by adding 250#, dissolve, test, recalculate, repeat. Nothing worse than over shooting your salt, and then you are draining to get the salinity down. I find Walmart has the cheapest in my area; Diamond or Morton. Stay away from the Clorox brand.. there is an interesting thread on the site about the Clorox salt.. it stained my pool.

What brand SWG is there? Its not in your sig. I would pull the cell and inspect it visually for scale and detritus. given all the gunk in your pool there may be some stuff stuck in there. If you see a lot of scale soak it in a 4 to 1 solution of MA until the bubbling stops. Don't over acid wash the cells if you don't have to, just if there are deposits. I think many people acid wash their cells too much.

Looking good! keep those pics coming its the highlight of my day to see the progress.

Walmart def has the best price around here. Attached is Home Depot, Walmart and Lowe's in the order.

The SWCG is an Autopilot SC-48 controlled by a Pool Pilot Digital.

 

[TurbineTester]

What brand SWG is there? Its not in your sig.

Looking good! keep those pics coming its the highlight of my day to see the progress.

I can't figure out how to edit a signature on Mobile, am I missing something?

Also thanks. Its also the highlight of my day to take the pics and get feedback from all of you wonderful people. The level of involvement and knowledge on this forum is second to none!

 

[mguzzy]

There should be a control to turn off the SWG. They get wonky if you flush high salinity water through them when they are running as the salt is dissolving. Just make sure the generator is turned off. Be aware some SWG will report incorrect salinity. It usually a sign the generator is starting to fail. So if this is a part of the "neglected" pool equip, you should check for that.

 

[mguzzy]

Also,.. in many of your pics I see you have a helper... its kinda cool to be in the pool and feel the salt dissolving.. its an endo thermic reaction and the dissolving salt is cooler than the surrounding water. Your "helper" seems will suited to experience this

 

[TurbineTester]

Also,.. in many of your pics I see you have a helper... its kinda cool to be in the pool and feel the salt dissolving.. its an endo thermic reaction and the dissolving salt is cooler than the surrounding water. Your "helper" seems will suited to experience this

I'm actually fortunate enough to have four tiny helpers who love to swim and don't care that the pool is a little green. Wife, on the other hand, appreciates the hard work but won't get in until it's clear.

 

[Chrissykr]

Just a side note. Since the pool still has days to go and the concrete can use a pressure washer, I would do it now so whatever makes it into the pool won't mess up a just finished water. At least 2 feet from the edge where you know for sure that's getting in the water as much as you think it won't, it will.

Ugg the dreaded concrete wash...We do ours a couple of times a year, and I cringe every time. This year we bought a surface cleaner, and wow it was painless. I highly recommend using one, it makes it so much easier, and the mess in the pool was significantly less using it.

Any pics today?

 

[Rattus Suffocatus]

That is what I now use in my water softener. Those exact bags. Morton raised their price by about a buck a bag recently and Diamond Crystal did not. Both brands are good quality. The double handles on those are really nice.

They should also have the crystals.. At least they do at our Walmarts around here. Either would work but the smaller crystals will dissolve faster. Indeed they are in a blue bag... Diamond Crystal® Solar Naturals® Water Softener Salt Crystals | Diamond Crystal® Salt

Only other comment is to avoid and softener salt that says iron control on it because it's not pure salt.

I have been following this and your pool looks a lot better.

 

[TurbineTester]

Here it is today and the salt cell looks good to me. I did the see any gunk or corrosion. Test results attached. Added just over a gallon of LC. Backwashed filter at 18 psi. Kids and I swimming to stir things up.

 

[Saturn94]

Another reason to hold off adding salt is your still backwashing a bit. You would just be wasting salt at this point.

 

[Saturn94]

Walmart def has the best price around here. Attached is Home Depot, Walmart and Lowe's in the order.

The SWCG is an Autopilot SC-48 controlled by a Pool Pilot Digital.

Do not use the salt in the yellow bags. It has an additive to control iron per the SDS sheet. The one in the blue bag someone above linked is the one you want as it doesn’t have any additives.

Or you could use the Diamond Crystal Pool Salt (they call it Splash Ready). Around here there’s very little price difference, with the pool salt version being slightly cheaper.

 

[mguzzy]

WEEEEEHooooo... I see a tint of azul!

 

[Saturn94]

I'm actually fortunate enough to have four tiny helpers who love to swim and don't care that the pool is a little green. Wife, on the other hand, appreciates the hard work but won't get in until it's clear.

I’m with your wife one this one. ?

 

[TurbineTester]

Do not use the salt in the yellow bags. It has an additive to control iron per the SDS sheet. The one in the blue bag someone above linked is the one you want as it doesn’t have any additives.

Or you could use the Diamond Crystal Pool Salt (they call it Splash Ready). Around here there’s very little price difference, with the pool salt version being slightly cheaper.

I'm not sure if the yellow bag has the Iron Control additive because Diamond Crystals makes a green bag product specifically made to fight iron. The yellow bag doesn't say anything about iron. In any case I already added a few bags of the yellow to test the SWCG. If the yellow bagged salt does in fact have some trace additives to deal with iron, how big of a deal is it?

 

[Rattus Suffocatus]

I'm not sure if the yellow bag has the Iron Control additive because Diamond Crystals makes a green bag product specifically made to fight iron. The yellow bag doesn't say anything about iron. In any case I already added a few bags of the yellow to test the SWCG. If the yellow bagged salt does in fact have some trace additives to deal with iron, how big of a deal is it?

I am pretty sure that the yellow bags are okay since I have used Morton "iron" salt for a few months when a Kmart was closing and they were blowing them out. Green bag for Morton as well. I don't recall the Diamond Crystal yellow bags having anything but salt in them but they are the briquette type which with my particular softener is recommended. I would look but I don't think I have one right now.

Still when I add a SWCG next year, I will use blue bags or non Chlorox pool salt as it is more appropriate.

 

[Rattus Suffocatus]

$51 for the iron salt? Ugh I paid 4 bucks a bag when they blew them out. Probably why I haven't seen them at Walmart...

 

[mknauss]

yellow bag has the Iron Control additive

Appears in your area the yellow bag is plain, no additives. Use it.

 

[TurbineTester]

$51 for the iron salt? Ugh I paid 4 bucks a bag when they blew them out. Probably why I haven't seen them at Walmart...

I know it was a weird price, I think it might have been a one time pallet price.