Is salt Water Pools Or chlorine Pools easier to handle?

[ForceEdge]

Was looking to go salt but I was wondering if salt is harder to deal with when it comes to chemicals and keeping the water clear/clean. Ive dealt with a chlorine pool for the past two years and its just become routine now. Somewhat a little apprehensive swiping to salt because I've never dealt with one.

I just wanted some advice on what you guys think

Thanks Guys!

 

[Newdude]

Every last bit is the same and your routine continues. The only teeny tiny difference is FC. If you need bleach, you go out back and press a button. No more trips to the store.

PH, CYA, TA, CH remain unchanged and you do as you did.

The convenience of SWG cannot be understated. I would slash other budgets to pay for it if I had to. From things I enjoyed like not cooking dinner on Friday nights and ordering out from a restraunt. I would give that up in a heartbeat if SWGs quadrupled in price.

 

[Bperry]

Was looking to go salt but I was wondering if salt is harder to deal with when it comes to chemicals and keeping the water clear/clean. Ive dealt with a chlorine pool for the past two years and its just become routine now. Somewhat a little apprehensive swiping to salt because I've never dealt with one.

I just wanted some advice on what you guys think

Thanks Guys!

In case it’s not obvious, a salt pool = chlorine pool. There is no difference except where the chlorine comes from and you keep the same level of chlorine in both. The SWCG just extracts the chlorine from the salt (NaCL) instead of making you pour it in every day. Then the Na and CL combine back together into salt and the process continues.

 

[ForceEdge]

Every last bit is the same and your routine continues. The only teeny tiny difference is FC. If you need bleach, you go out back and press a button. No more trips to the store.

PH, CYA, TA, CH remain unchanged and you do as you did.

The convenience of SWG cannot be understated. I would slash other budgets to pay for it if I had to. From things I enjoyed like not cooking dinner on Friday nights and ordering out from a restraunt. I would give that up in a heartbeat if SWGs quadrupled in price.

Thank you so much on the advice! my pools is about 26-27k gallons. any SWG you recommend for that?

 

[Bperry]

Thank you so much on the advice! my pools is about 26-27k gallons. any SWG you recommend for that?

Mine is the same size and I use the circupool RJ60. I have no experience with other brands. But I’d guess any big brand model would work well. I chose the circupool because they allow self-install without canceling the warranty.

 

[ForceEdge]

Mine is the same size and I use the circupool RJ60. I have no experience with other brands. But I’d guess any big brand model would work well. I chose the circupool because they allow self-install without canceling the warranty.

WOW okay that sounds good ill check them out. any best time on when to purchase it when it comes to sales? Also, how has your experience been with it? any hiccups or anything I should be aware of?

How is the ease of installation as well. I'd say I'm somewhat handy so you think id be able to hook it up myself?

 

[Newdude]

any SWG you recommend for that

You want 2X your volume or more because cells are rated for 100% run time. Running them half as often gets twice the lifespan. For you there are 2 brands. Circupool makes a 55k and 60k model and Pentair makes a 60k model

 

[ForceEdge]

You want 2X your volume or more because cells are rated for 100% run time. Running them half as often gets twice the lifespan. For you there are 2 brands. Circupool makes a 55k and 60k model and Pentair makes a 60k model

so essentially it says 15,000 hour life span so id be looking at around 30K life span? I usually only run my pool at night and during summer months in NY. June-August

how many years do you think is possible with the Rj 60 plus?

 

[Newdude]

how many years do you think is possible with the Rj 60 plus?

12 (?) There are many many factors. Our short season and easier UV demand are two of them. Having balanced chemistry helps the unit live to its fullest.

A power surge or lightning strike on year 3 could change the equation.

 

[Bperry]

so essentially it says 15,000 hour life span so id be looking at around 30K life span? I usually only run my pool at night and during summer months in NY. June-August

how many years do you think is possible with the Rj 60 plus?

It’s not quite like that. 15k hours is 15k hours. The device runs on a duty cycle so if it’s running at 100% it’ll be making chlorine for 12 hours and resting for 12 hours each day (for example). But if its large enough that you can run it at 50% instead each day, it’ll be twice as long before you reach the 15k limit. My numbers are just for reference. The bigger cell you buy the longer it’ll last generally but costs more up front.

 

[Bperry]

WOW okay that sounds good ill check them out. any best time on when to purchase it when it comes to sales? Also, how has your experience been with it? any hiccups or anything I should be aware of?

How is the ease of installation as well. I'd say I'm somewhat handy so you think id be able to hook it up myself?

Mine has been flawless for two years. I haven’t plugged it in just yet (just opened a couple weeks ago) so maybe I should wait a week until I do turn it on. It doesn’t work when the water temp is below ~50F or so which means you’ll have to use liquid to chlorinate during those times.

To install yourself, you’ll need to be able to run electrical wiring safely and have basic PVC plumbing skills to do it. Ideally you have a variable speed pump that has an electrical load output that will power the cell only when the pump is running or you hook both the pump and the generator up to the same circuit breaker so that the cell cannot come on if the pump is not on. You need to make sure water is flowing anytime the cell is generating chlorine or gas buildup will occur and you get an explosion. There’s a flow switch included that makes sure the cell won’t turn on if water isn’t flowing but those can fail and so it’s best practice to make sure the cell doesn’t even have power when the pump is off.

In my case, the pump and cell are on separate circuits but my pump runs 24x7 so water is always flowing. The flow switch is kind of a backup safety feature if the pump blew a circuit breaker. Now that I write this I’m thinking I should probably rewire it.

 

[Bperry]

WOW okay that sounds good ill check them out. any best time on when to purchase it when it comes to sales?

If you can go back in time before COVID, that was the best time to buy. Been climbing fast since then. Sometimes circupool has a coupon that lets you upgrade to the next bigger model for $10. That’s what I did but that was right before COVID.

 

[march2012]

Was looking to go salt but I was wondering if salt is harder to deal with when it comes to chemicals and keeping the water clear/clean. Ive dealt with a chlorine pool for the past two years and its just become routine now. Somewhat a little apprehensive swiping to salt because I've never dealt with one.

I just wanted some advice on what you guys think

Thanks Guys!

by chlorine do you mean pucks? In the long run pucks will build up CYA, causing you to need to drain your pool. I had a great stenner pump/bleach system I setup. I would buy 20 gallons at a time and fill a blue 55 gallon drum. It would last about 30 days in the summer and pretty much all winter.

Unfortunately I recently had several times where I had drive to multiple stores to find bleach because it was sold out. When it was in stock (e.g. leslies) it was like $8/gallon with a limit of 4. Driving around town looking for bleach is not my thing so I just had my salt system installed today.

Kids had their first swim in the pool for the year. I wont go in until the air temp is above 90 and the water temp is at least 85.

I loved the bleach pool, but with the scarcity of bleach it was too much trouble for me.

 

[rweiler994]

My pool is 10,000 gallons, and I made it a point when I ordered my pool to do a SWG upgrade. I was promised an intellichlor 20, but they could not get one when it was time to install, so they tried to give me an IC15, but I called them on it...they changed it out to an IC30. I run my SWCG around 15% with my pump on low most of the time, should last a while. I do turn it down to 10% if FC starts to climb.

I did look, Discount Salt Pool has the upgrade to next size for $10.00 promotion going. Taking care of my pool is so easy I get a kick out of it when people at work say that it would be too much work.

 

[jark87]

If you need bleach, you go out back and press a button.

I don’t even have to do that - my SWCG is programmed to run at a certain rate when the pump is running. I wouldn’t own a pool that didn’t have a SWCG. Maintenance is SO easy - about 10 minutes a week.

 

[Newdude]

I don’t even have to do that - my SWCG is programmed to run at a certain rate when the pump is running

So was mine. And sometimes I needed more chlorine and it required going to the back yard to press a button. Way better than going to the store.

 

[blazer58]

You want 2X your volume or more because cells are rated for 100% run time. Running them half as often gets twice the lifespan. For you there are 2 brands. Circupool makes a 55k and 60k model and Pentair makes a 60k model

Ok

You want 2X your volume or more because cells are rated for 100% run time. Running them half as often gets twice the lifespan. For you there are 2 brands. Circupool makes a 55k and 60k model and Pentair makes a 60k model

pureline also makes a cell for 60k
That’s the one I use and install was supper easy and have had no problems with it