Pool Drain time again to lower CYA, Yikes!

If you measured the salt in your pool, you'd find plenty. You probably already have a salt water pool! All chlorine-sanitized pools are salt water pools eventually. Chlorine, pool acid, and people all leave salt behind when they are done with what they do in your pool, and that salt doesn't evaporate. It builds up just like your CYA does.

And with almost no exceptions, the level of salt in an SWG pool is not corrosive to anything you might have in or near your pool. The "bleach pump" is also going to leave salt in your pool, so that is not a solution to ridding your pool of salt.

Add to that: where once the cost of running an SWG pool was pretty close to running a liquid chlorine pool, since the rise of liquid chlorine costs that is no longer true. It's considerably cheaper to run an SWG.

Add to that: a "bleach pump" still requires you to buy, lug and store the chlorine. And that chlorine, sitting in a big tank outside somewhere, is going to be even more prone to losing its effectiveness (bleach poops out from age and UV), which makes running a bleach pump even more expensive.

AND! If you're willing to invest in a "bleach pump," you could put that to an SWG instead! The cost of running a liquid chlorine pool, just using jugs manually, is already more expensive than running an SWG pool, and you're considering piling on to that the cost of the chlorine pump equipment!!

If you want to solve the liquid chlorine "issues," and draining due to CYA issues, you should be looking at SWG, not bleach pump. IMO...

SWCG-level salinity does not corrode pool parts. A chlorine pool is a salt pool.

You will be stuck in a loop of doing this over and over until you dump the pucks and convert to just LC or a SWCG. A SWCG will be significantly cheaper long term than installing a Stenner and keeping it stocked with LC. That being said, I'd rather fill in the pool than deal with CYA issues or manually dose chlorine, so a Stenner is a tiny win there. In Florida, however, a SWCG is a no-brainer.

What is the current salt level of your water?

I have two issues with my SWG.

I didn't do it sooner, converted a few years ago and regret not doing it a long time ago.

It doesn't work during my winters. Gets a little too cold for a SWG to operate. So I have to deal with adding chlorine during the winter instead of doing very little work, and admiring my SWG pool.

I had a cl pump before the SWG. But you still need to lug in liquid cl and fill it up, so takes more work than a SWG.
And at the current liquid cl prices, SWG should pay for itself pretty quickly.

les_garten said:

I don't want to do a SWG because I don't want to deal with Salt corrosion.

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Ya big salt corrosion problem, like every cruise ship is rotting from the ocean salt pool which is 10 x the salinity of a homeowners salt pool.
Salt pool corrosion is a myth.

les_garten said:

Hmmm, ok I'll revisit the SWG forum

Any suggestions on which one to get?

I have power there already.

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You have a Pentair IntelliFlo pump and a Pentair IntelliBrite light. If you ever would consider adding a pool automation controller, then a Pentair IntelliCenter would be the obvious choice. Which would mean a Pentair SWG would be the obvious choice. They would all work together in ways that no other combination of brands would.

If you are 100% certain you will never add pool automation, then there are arguably better choices than a Pentair SWG.