At the end of the day, the thing that matters most, is what you want and what fits you best and most importantly, what Works!
All forms of adding chlorine have their pro's and cons.
Manually dosing bleach is a daily task that you cannot skip. Lugging jugs of chlorine from the store every shopping trip is more than some folks want to do. Others dont mind doing it. Testing and adding chlorine every day...the same. It's a personal decision that you have to make about how much "hand on" time you want to invest in your pool.
SWG's may speed up corrosion to metal pool furniture and some forms of soft natural stone, and there are ways to mitigate that such as using pool furniture made of more rust resistant materials, and perhaps adding stone sealer to soft stones.
SWG's are expensive up front, but vs cost of bleach over a period of years, the investment is about equal.
SWG's will put chlorine in the pool whether you are home or not. This is the most advantageous feature of a Saltwater system.
Liquid chlorine can be added by an automated liquid chlorinator sytem, so for the of dosing liquid chlorine, this brings using luquid vs SWG closer together in terms of convenience.
UV systems are wothless if used outdoors. It's ludicrous of the PB to even offer it.
Tabs add CYA to the water and after a short time, the chlorine they provide cannot overcome the build up of CYA. WIth each 10 ppm of FC aded, it trichlor also adds 6ppm of CYA. It doesnt take a mathemetician to realize that trichlor pucks will lead to the need to drain the pool so as to get the CYA back to a manageable level.
Mineral Packs add metal to the water and can precipitate out and cause ugly stains on the pool surface.
I have serous doubts that continued use of either Chlorine or a SWG system will lead to you having to drain the pool at some point because of the built up of salt content.
Unless you are in the desert with no rain, most of the US gets plenty enough to dilute the salt level so that draining isnt an issue. If you end up with a filter than requires backwashing, that will also negate excessive build up.
I live in Texas too and I have to add about 2 bags per season to maintain my salt level.
My recommendation is do research the pro's and cons of chlorination systems and make an educated decision.
Also TFP is not necessarily pro SWG systems. What we are, is pro - use whatever method that doesnt add detrimental other chemicals into the pool at the same time.
That leaves out pucks and ozone and mineral packs and all of those things.
I've been wanting a swg for our future pool. I'd just about convinced hubby (even though EVERY builder tries to talk us out of it). The other night a builder really got into the topic and was very impressed with my limited knowledge of pool chemistry. I told him my concerns about trichlor tabs, cya levels, etc, and he attempted to allay my fears saying that a uv system combined with tabs and/or "dichlor" tabs would keep these problems at bay. He said eventually the cya in any pool even salt would be irreversibly high and require draining. I hadn't heard this before so I didn't have a rebuttal! What do yall think?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk