Ugh....chlorine

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Unless you get polymer walls for your in ground pool, steel walls, no matter what you do, will always corrode eventually. It doesn't matter what sanitizer you use as all chlorine based sanitizers eventually turn into chloride in your water, aka salt. It is not uncommon for pools that exclusively used pucks or liquid chlorine to have salinity levels well over 1000ppm or more within the first year of use. So, SWG or not, your pool walls will always be exposed to water that has chloride in it.

As for sacrificial anodes, in short, it won't work. The only way sac anodes work is if the surface area of the anode matches the surface area of the walls and that would require a huge number of buried anodes. One could weld zinc bars onto the steel walls and allow those to act as sac anodes but they will eventually wear away and then the walls are no better protected than before. Hanging a zinc bar on the bonding wire (not the ground wire, they are different) won't be effective either.
 
Oops I meant bonding wire! Really starting to wish I had not bought a pool at all at this point. Should have just stuck with the cheap above ground and replaced it every 10 years would have been cheaper. The more I read in this site, the more confused I get. So basically it doesn't matter what I do the metal on my pool will corrode. It will do so faster with salt and whether I have a swg or not there will be Salt? The zinc anode doesn't work? The more I read the more confused I become. Too many differing opinions and I dont know who is more knowledgeable.
 
You need a pool so you can go relax and stop worrying about all this so much. As to which SWG to buy all I can say is that the Hayward system is the most poplar around here by far. I personally do not have an SWG on my pool, however I do have one on my Hot tub, the only reason I don't have one on my pool is that it is an indoor pool, and chlorine consumption is very low (about a quart of bleach per day in the summer so I use a metering pump instead).

Ike
 
Amanda B said:
Oops I meant bonding wire! Really starting to wish I had not bought a pool at this point. Should have just stuck with the cheap above ground.
Click to expand...

I think you might be overthinking this a bit too much. Plenty of people build in ground pools with steel walls that go a decade or more without any major problems. I suppose there are even folks on this forum (lots, I suspect) who have steel wall in-ground pools. There are lots of "horror stories" on the internet written by people who don't want to accept that the problems they encounter are most likely their own fault and so they write these stories trying to indict everything and everyone else aside from themselves. 99% of the time these horror stories are caused by improper pool water chemistry management. But rather than accept the blame, they'd rather try to pin it on things like salt water or that bad service company they hired a few months back, etc., etc.

I think you'll do just fine.
 
The whole point of worrying now is to ensure that when the pool is good to go I am ready and can enjoy the pool for as long as possible. I am not a wealthy individual I have saved for years for this...over a decade! So it does matter a lot to me. I will never be able to afford to do this again so it is important to me that I ensure the longevity of the pool but also that I can enjoy it. Typically when given a problem I can research it and solve that problem. No clear answers here as a way to have a swg and slow down corrosion which is accelerated by salt. I will never be able to replace in a decade...this pool is it for me. If it doesn't last then I will be without a pool and swimming is one thing I love and helps with my back. Maybe others can replace in a decade or two but I cannot.
 
I did not mean to imply that this should not matter, it is just that you don't seem to have any soft stone in your design and that all concrete that is exposed to the weather slowly deteriorates the only question here is the rate. Personally I suspect the quality of the concrete will effect how long it holds up more than the use of an SWG will. (many pool builders like to pour concrete too wet as it makes it easier and quicker to work, but results in weaker product) Not to add more to your concerns, but you may want to look up concrete slump and have a conversation with your PB about it.

Ike
 
I am not involved in this thread but I have always thought that simply rinsing down the affected pool parts from time to time would reduce the possibility or corrosion to that of a manually chlorinated pool.
 
I am not in the industry, though have been thinking about taking a cert class next spring. I HAVE been in the industrial valve and instrumentation industry, designing, specifying, installing and troubleshooting such products for water treatment plants, paper mills, power plants, chemical plants, food processing plants - you name it. The single most common corrosive condition across all of them is - chlorine. It is used as a bleaching agent, sanitizer, intermediate process instigator, raw material and much more. And it is very corrosive, especially in wet form. Titanium is one of the few metals that can handle it wet and concentrated. BUT! Pool water isn't concentrated. Guess what is in salt water? NaCl...Sodium chloride...chlorine. No different than from pucks. Can salt impact soft stone? Sure. Can it etch dyed stamped concrete? Yes. Here is the catch to all of it - pools require maintenance. Period. The point of the TFP system is to require less of it than any other system at the least cost. That may mean hosing off your coping occasionally or checking to make sure that any exposed metal is protected or flushed. Virtually all of the components in the "wet end" of the pool system are designed to come into contact with chlorinated water so they are either plastic or stainless steel. The difference between maintaining the splashed components of a salt pool and a conventional chlorine pool is minimal and offset by not having to add chlorine, fight rising CYA levels, worry about vacation dosing, etc. There are a few people on this forum who have a particular bone to pick with salt and usually support some other method of keeping algae at bay. Some are well meaning but unsupported scientifically, others are promoting a product for personal gain. The vast majority of swg owners love their pool water - like you did originally - and wouldn't have any other system. There is possibly something better out there, but I haven't seen it.
 
I know the installer is doing a great job! Every time I have a question that has been brought to my attention from other pool owners, he is already working on it and on at least one occasion has shown me the problem was already solved. I know the concrete is going to be sealed. Actually, I am surprised how thorough the installer is. I plan to rinse things off. Just concerned about the pool walls more than anything because I cannot rinse those nor see them to know if I need to make changes. I also know there are differences in concrete as I am in taekwondo and have to break patio stones with a Palm strike and some concrete is definitely easier to break than others. I am not going to worry about that at this point I have enough to stress about. Since I have seen several of his pools that were built in the 80's I know he builds to last, just want to make sure I do my part to ensure my pool lasts and that I don't unknowingly do something to increase deterioration. Seems like I probably should stay away from a swg, though I prefer pools with it due to the softness. Guess ownership is a compromise, cannot have both so I have a difficult choice to make.
 
The biggest thing you can do to make a vinyl liner pool last is to maintain a correct chemical balance through regular testing and chemical adjustments. This is regardless of the source of Chlorine. Also spend the little extra now on a premium grade liner, it will last MUCH longer than a standard grade liner with proper care.
 

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27 mil is good, but is not the whole story when it comes to liners, although it is a sign of being a good product. Other concerns are what type of seam sealing does the company use. Seam splits have traditionally been a common failure point for in ground liner pools. As well as the level of UV inhibitors and plasticizers in the vinyl itself.
 
Amanda, just so you know, most installers apply foam over stainless steel before installing the liner, and water only comes into contact with the walls if you develop a leak in the liner. When liners are changed, whether swg or not, those with steel walls have any spots of corrosion sanded out and have rust proofing primer applied, then foam, then vinyl. Its not like needing to replace the wall.

Its also possible to have composite walls, though some installers prefer stainless steel for longevity. I have composite walls and they were in pristine condition 15 years later during a liner change. Ergo, I like em ;)

I have switched to swg. I simply would never go back. But if I were building new, I would do things like use coated side ladders designed for swg use, etc. Small, cheap tweaks that offset any potential issues of corrosion.

I understand your confusion, and nervousness. But if you like soft saltwater, my vote is for SWG. If it makes you feel any better, every single employee with a pool at my particular pool builders company has SWG, and they're one of the oldest companies in my town. Installers who are wary of SWG are I think are worried more about people not taking care and balancing and ergo blaming them if things go wrong...or are a bit ignorant about chemistry in general (eg UV for an outdoor pool? Ludicrous!)

As to salt and concrete...what do they think is in road salt for heaven sake? 10 times the salt tats in a swg pool ;)
 
I also would vote for a SWCG.

Our pool was installed in 2004 with a SWCG (vinyl lined, polymer walls). To date I've had no issues related to it being a "salt pool". I'd go with with a SWC in a heartbeat if I had to do it over again.

But like was explained, any pool using chlorine will end up being a "salt pool" since chlorine breaks down into salt.
 
The liner is through The Vinyl Works. Somewhere I read about the seams and uv inhibitors...but now I cannot find that info., I just remembered the thickness. I believe I will buy swg in spring. In the process of shipping back the uv/ozone system. My fault for not researching uv/ozone I heard what I wanted to hear less chlorine, soft water, no fear of corrosion from salt sounded perfect. I do have one question though. I get that uv is free from the sun, and read that it hits the top layer of water. I get that the uv system only treats what is flowing though the uv system not what is in the pool, but doesn't that mean that all the water would be treated as it flows through the system when the pump and filter is on? So that it is treating all the water?
 
UV systems do work, and are effective at killing things in the water that flow through the cell, also the type of UV in them is much more aggressive than the type we get from sunlight it is the hard UV type that gets filtered out by the ozone layer in nature. The problem is it leaves no residual for the bulk of the pool water and does nothing to kill the algae and other nasties that cling to the pool surfaces (liner, under ladders, inside light niches, etc) which you still need chlorine to kill. Now in a well managed pool with adequate chlorine levels to keep those things from growing in the first place there should be few organics floating in the water in need of killing, and since the UV also oxidizes Chlorine you end up with a net loss on chlorine in a well balanced pool.
 
Okay now that makes sense! So basically this is in a way a back up system for people who cannot keep their water treated well otherwise it it completely useless. Or maybe would help someone with a germ phobia feel less anxious!!
 
Correct now such UV systems do have a place, such as in therapy pools, indoor commercial pools, hot tubs, etc. Basically situations where you have a high bather load per gallon of pool water, and or elevated temperatures and limited natural UV. So if you plan to have 25-30 of your closest friends come over and swim every day you might benefit from keeping the UV system, otherwise there is enough natural UV in a typical outdoor residential pool to fully oxidize all of those CC products at typical residential bather load levels.
 

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