Going on vacation and SWG broke

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71ailmar

71ailmar

Silver Supporter
Dec 17, 2020
41
Mesa, AZ
Hello again, fellow TFP'ers!

So my SWG bit the dust and I'm waiting on Pentair to send someone out (my 3 year warranty is up next month, talk about timing!).
I've been adding liquid chlorine every day....seems my pool eats about 3-4ppm daily. While I dont mind continuing to add liquid chlorine till the SWG gets replaced, we leave on vacation in a couple of days for 1 week.

So my question is, about how many tabs would be required to maintain my FC in the 7-9 range for a pool my size (>30kgall)?
Currently it's at 9 with 0 CC and I've been trying to maintain it within that range since my CYA is 50-60. I previously added stabilizer to raise it but with the SWG not working I decided against adding more since I'll need to rely on tabs while we're gone and that will help increase CYA a bit.

I have one floater that I can add 3 jumbo tabs but I'm nervous that will not be enough to get us through the whole week without dropping to lower FC levels. I can get another floater and double the tabs but not sure if that's overkill?
 
Jimrahbe said:
71,

Please tell me why you think your original SWCG is bad???

Thanks,

Jim R.
Click to expand...
Hi Jim,

So we cleaned the SWG about 3 months ago (it was pretty bad, hadnt checked it in about 9 months or so)....chlorine levels shot up again with just the SWG untill the past couple of weeks. Noticed FC was staying low and at first I just assumed it was our Phoenix summer kicking into high gear and needing to run the pump longer, low CYA levels, etc.
Then I realized the SWG cell light was flashing green. Finally was able to take it out and inspect it a couple of days ago.
It barely had any build up from the last time we acid washed it 3 months ago but went ahead and cleaned it out ayway. Put it back in and the green light continues flashing and my FC numbers continue to drop unless I add chlorine.
Salt levels are fine, 3650 on my strip test (and the unit is reading within spec) and the rest of the water is balanced.
Soooo.....

We're 6,000 hour into it's life...I know they're rated for average 10,000 hours but see plenty of people on here complain that it bit the dust well before that. Thankfully it's under warranty...till next month.
What I'd love to do is have the company that comes out to fix it, replace it with an ic60 and we cover the difference in price between the 40 and the 60. I have to run the pump about 18 hours a day at max capacity to keep up with the FC demand.
 
71,

Sounds like a plan... :goodjob:

A 40K cell on a 30K cell is way too small as you have found out...

I just wanted to make sure the cell was bad.. A flashing cell light, with a clean cell, is a sign the cell is used up, no matter what the cell reports is left.

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
Jimrahbe said:
71,

Sounds like a plan... :goodjob:

A 40K cell on a 30K cell is way too small as you have found out...

I just wanted to make sure the cell was bad.. A flashing cell light, with a clean cell, is a sign the cell is used up, no matter what the cell reports is left.

Thanks,

Jim R.
Click to expand...
Yep, we learned the hard way to handle the pool ourselves.

We did our own pool build (through BYOP) back in 2020 and while overall we're glad we did and saved a ton, we realized that "experts" aren't really "experts"...Our pool guy who worked in the commercial business for a long time and was now owner of his own residential pool service/repair business, recommended the IC40 (along with UV and Ozone :rolleyes: ).
Being complete novices at the time, we went with it. And we didnt even get the equipment from him so he wasn't making any money off it, just recommendations he was giving us as to what type of equipment to go with.
Now I'm like, "what the heck was he thinking recommending an ic40 for a 30k+ gallon pool?"
Even though we did some research overall (pros and cons of SWG vs nonSWG, brand of equipment, heaters, infloor cleaning pros/cons, etc) you just don't know what you don't know.

I found TFP about 6 months into our build and started educating myself on here, double checking his work with water balancing, building my confidence till I was ready to discontinue service and handle the pool myself.
But it was a great learning experience and overall we're still really happy with our pool.
 
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