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[Fast411]

Man I love this site..

I have had a saltwater pool for 3 years now and never looked anything up online, because it seemed perfect all the time. My PB told me that all I had to do was keep the salt at this level and he chlorine at this level and I'll never spend another dollar. It worked for a while. Iran it 24hrs with the SWG at 90% to keep the chlorine tester at normal. It had no CYA in it at all, just salt. My neighbor, who had the same PB as me was doing the same thing. He came home one day with stabilizer convinced the pool store was selling him something he didn't need. We were so uninformed, and at the time the local pool store was anti-SWG so they didn't want to help us.

I grew up taking care of a pool in Orlando. We had a free form IG pool with DE filter that I cared for daily. It was a pain, but I also swam every single day. I wanted a Polaris so bad and would ask my father "can we please get an automatic pool cleaner" and he would respond "I already have an automatic pool cleaner, you, and it cuts grass also" Well, now I have my own Polaris, I didn't choose it but I am happy with it.

If you have noticed I have been through a few motors. The last one started making a high pitch noise when I just happened to be outside. The pitch was so high I wasn't sure if it was my ears ringing and locating the source was difficult. I leaned down to the pump motor to listen closer and all this white powder started shooting out in jets from the vents. It looked like little fire extinguisher going off. Just as I stood up in reaction to that the powder ignited and was shooting out the side of the motor like little thrusters. The flames were about a foot long with tons of smoke. I hit the off switch and ran. I figured nothing in an electric motor was good to breathe. The local hayword dealer has replaced them all for free. This time they gave me a brand new out of the box motor instead of rebuilt , or so they say. I have wondered if something in my pump is killing them.

Anyways, now I am battling metal stains and a leak. Not as dramatic but more of a pain. And I feel much better about my prospects since I have started reading here.

 

[Buggsw]

Hi. It's nice to meet you. Boy, that is quite a story about your pump motors.

 

[Guest]

I saw the same thing with many of my new customer's pools. They has a specific brand of SWG and NO CYA in the water. The builder just told them to read the display and put in salt when needed. I was amazed that NONE of these customers ever read the manual for their SWG. I contacted the manufacturer (I know someone that works for this company) to give them a 'heads up' about this particular builder and they arranged a 'training session' for the builder.
I did sell CYA to these customers after showing them the required level in the manual (we also sold this brand of SWG.)

Your experience is not isolated, sorry to say. I came across a different builder that was doing basically the same with a different brand of SWG.

You have to remember that builders want to sell you a pool and they will tell you what you want to hear to make the sale! ("Just put in salt and the SWG will take care of everything else and of course I will still respect you in the morning and I promise I won't ... in your ...!" )
Builders, IMHO, are not the ones to go to for learning about pool maintenance. They BUILD pools. They don't take care of them!

This will explain what CYA does with a SWG
water-balance-tips-for-a-swg-t3663.html

 

[Guest]

Man I love this site..

I have had a saltwater pool for 3 years now Iran it 24hrs with the SWG at 90% to keep the chlorine tester at normal. It had no CYA in it at all, just salt.

If you have noticed I have been through a few motors.
Anyways, now I am battling metal stains and a leak.

This is painting a picture of some severe water balance issues to me. I know you had some very high pH spikes when you were running the SWG without CYA. I suspect that you had been pouring a lot of acid in to maintain the pH and this could be linked to the motor failure if you were pouring it into the skimmer.
Metal stains are also indicative of water balance problems. If your fill water has metals then you should be using a seqesterant on a regular basis. However, proper water balance is also important since stains usually occur when the pH spikes.
What kind of metal is in your water (or what color are the stains)? Do you know where the metals came from?

 

[Fast411]

Man I love this site..

I have had a saltwater pool for 3 years now Iran it 24hrs with the SWG at 90% to keep the chlorine tester at normal. It had no CYA in it at all, just salt.

If you have noticed I have been through a few motors.
Anyways, now I am battling metal stains and a leak.

This is painting a picture of some severe water balance issues to me. I know you had some very high pH spikes when you were running the SWG without CYA. I suspect that you had been pouring a lot of acid in to maintain the pH and this could be linked to the motor failure if you were pouring it into the skimmer.
Metal stains are also indicative of water balance problems. If your fill water has metals then you should be using a seqesterant on a regular basis. However, proper water balance is also important since stains usually occur when the pH spikes.
What kind of metal is in your water (or what color are the stains)? Do you know where the metals came from?

You answered my stain question on the 4th of July. They look like tea stains when on the walls. In the water, after treatment for stains then raising the chlorine too fast, the color is yellow which looks green in my pool.

Yes I think my ph spiked once or twice the first two years. I used the solid acid when it did, broadcast in the pool. But without the stabilizer back then, the chlorine would swing wildly. With the quick test kit, one day it would be bright yellow orange and the next day clear. That was from small adjustments to the SWG dial. So I imagine other things swung wildly with it.

Well, I have everything in range now. I also have the TF pool test kit. I ordered Jacks Magic Pink Stuff. For now, The metal seems to have made a thin even coat on my pools walls instead of the very dark localized stain I would get after winter (I do not close my pool, it has until now run 24/7/365) I will handle the metal stains in the fall per your advice.

And to my PB's merit he did tell me to buy bleach and use it for shock and fine tune.

 

[Fast411]

My chemistry as of yesterday, tested at the pool store:

FC 0.5
TC 1
pH 7.6
TA 100
Calcium 170
CYA 40
Phospahtes 300??
Salt 2300, she used an electronic thing (my SWG showed 2700)

I ran the pump all night last night with the SWG on superchlorinate. DPD tablet test showed 2-3 on chlorine, pH the same as the day before.
MY TF test kit arrived today, but I have not been home to use it.

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

My chemistry as of yesterday, tested at the pool store:

FC 0.5
TC 1
pH 7.6
TA 100
Calcium 170
CYA 40
Phospahtes 300??
Salt 2300, she used an electronic thing (my SWG showed 2700)

I ran the pump all night last night with the SWG on superchlorinate. DPD tablet test showed 2-3 on chlorine, pH the same as the day before.
MY TF test kit arrived today, but I have not been home to use it.

If you read the Water Balance for SWGs link above, you'll see your water is very "off" from ideal for an SWG. Hopefully her testing was off. Test with your new kit, and if the results are similar, you have some work to do.

You should not use the superchlorinate feature, it shortens the life of the cell. IT's best to shock your pool with liquid chlorine, so that the SWG can 'maintain' the higher level - it doesn't produce it fast enough for your needs, especially if overcoming organics in the water.

Ignore phosphates - it's just pool store paranoia designed to sell unneccessary and profitable chemicals to you, "phosfree". IN a properly chlorinated pool, phosphates are irrelevant.

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

By the way, please edit your signature down - it's too long. You are limited to 5 lines of text.