The PROs and CONs of SWG

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Jul 11, 2014
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NJ
My wife and I are thinking about going with a SWG moving forward. I consider myself now very astute with the TFP methodology but I got to be honest, I'm not thrilled with having to dump bleach every 2 days to keep my FC level nominal (we are full sun and typically keep my CYA lower (30-40)).

I was hoping I could get some stories from folks out there who DID go SWG and are TFP'ers and what they think of the experience and the adjustment with respect to maintenance (in fact, I just read chem geek's guide which will probably be my reference going forward).

Any feedback would be much appreciated.
 
I can't say anything about "switching" as we have had an SWG pool since day 1. But I can say this - I would never want to own a pool without one. I live in southern AZ where pools are open and/or running 24/7x365; I could not imagine operating a pool without one. I hate jug-dumping when the winter months come and the SWG shuts down due to cold water. Thankfully the FC loss rate is so low that I only have to manually add chlorine once every 2 weeks or so.

You're area is more seasonal and experiences more rain than here, so I suppose there will be a little more "work" to keeping salt levels up if you get fresh water exchange. I have not added a bag of salt in years, so that's not an issue for me.

Good luck with the conversion.
 
I am in an area that gets a lot of rain and the adding of salt is a lot less cumbersome than adding bleach daily! I switched to a SWG and would never ever want to go back to daily bleach additions. Once you get your pool "dialed" in, it truly is trouble free with a SWG.
 
Adding acid is less precise than having to manually chlorinate. With acid, if you miss a few days nothing bad can really happen. If you miss chlorine additions (or if cya gets too high) you've got real problems. SWG is easier to maintain!
 
I switched. Maintaining with bleach was too large a burden for me, especially because I am 50% travel. With SWG, the only chemistry maintenance I must do weekly is acid additions. It is so nice to have salt that I just bought a new $1100 SWG to replace my fried CompuPool unit. It is totally worth it.
 
A properly maintained cell (if run using TFP levels) should last more than 5 years. We have a user here in AZ (chiefwej) who got 7+ years out of his Hayward T-15 cell and he runs his pool all year long.

As for vinyl liner - a salt pool is no different than a bleach pool. Salt, in and of itself, has no effect on vinyl.
 
I will add about acid additions, you can also fine tune your pool playing with the sweet spot for your TA (each pool likes a different level) and borates and even acid additions are negligible to none. I added acid the first time in over a year this weekend.
 
My last SWG lasted almost 10 years. Chemistry is key to long equipment/pool life in general.

I would not consider another form of chlorination but there are a few downsides.

1. - Cost of the new cell is quite high but the cumulative cost of chlorine is probably not much different

2. - Cell maintenance and cleaning. But if you keep the chemistry in line there isn't much to do here.

3. - PH rise requiring acid dosing. To me this is the biggest negative but I solved that with an automatic dosing system. I have very high TA fill water so borates and maintaining low TA don't really help much.
 

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I bought my SWG before my pool was in :) Been over a year with it and nothing has happened to the liner...

I will never own another pool without one, if this one dies a horrible death I will replace it within the week :) The cells are suppose to last 3 to 7 years, most everyone just thinks about replacing them every 5 years..
 
OP has a big pool. I have a Pentair IC-60 gallon and have to run it 18 hours when it is 90+ degrees outside (CYA 70). I don't think you would be satisfied with one for 40 galllons.
Manually, most of the year, I was adding 1 gallon of 10% chlorine per day. That's a $1,000 per year..........
 
The trick to SWG is to size up to a large one so that you only have to use it minimally. This saves wear and tear on the device.

The next trick to be aware of is that SWG work on a slow-and-steady premise. If your baby poops in the pool, or you want a quick recovery from a kids party where you know *someone* probably peed in the pool, you should use liquid chlorine (aka bleach) to get that fast rise in FC that you want. This trick also saves that wear and tear on the cell.

Cells have a finite lifespan. While they're absolutely fabulous for their contribution to pool care ease, I don't want to use up their lifespan earlier than necessary by running it balls to the walls high. Hence choosing one oversized and using bleach when I need a fast pick up.
 
A con for me is that I have very high CH and water restrictions. Which means when I backwash or replace water, it goes on the lawn. I wouldn't be able to do that if I had a lot of salt in the pool. We don't get enough rain -- generally none from May to Octiber at least -- to wash it out of the soil.
 
Richard320 said:
A con for me is that I have very high CH and water restrictions. Which means when I backwash or replace water, it goes on the lawn. I wouldn't be able to do that if I had a lot of salt in the pool. We don't get enough rain -- generally none from May to Octiber at least -- to wash it out of the soil.
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Ahhh, good point Richard, I have a cart filter so sometimes I forget some people have to discharge/backwash :) There are plants out there that do not like high salt content, for me I can't seem to phase the Bermuda grass 1 bit, I've tried.... :)
 
I'm happy with mine, been 4 years, couldnt imagine how many bottles of cl I would have carried by now. One thing I dont like is if you have a fairly high ch content in the water, they will discharge white flakes when they reverse polarity, or self clean. My pool sweep picks most up but on occation your standing by the return and suddenly its like a snow globe. I always try to keep th ph in the lower 7's to keep the scaling down.
 
bobby1017 said:
I'm happy with mine, been 4 years, couldnt imagine how many bottles of cl I would have carried by now. One thing I dont like is if you have a fairly high ch content in the water, they will discharge white flakes when they reverse polarity, or self clean. My pool sweep picks most up but on occation your standing by the return and suddenly its like a snow globe. I always try to keep th ph in the lower 7's to keep the scaling down.
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Flakes are often a sign of a water chemistry imbalance. If you keep your CSI negative, flakes are much less likely to form. Adding 50ppm borates will also help keep calcium from scaling in the cell. I have 850ppm CH and my cell has NEVER needed to be acid cleaned.
 

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