need help with salt water system

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milla61

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May 5, 2013
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I bought a house this past winter and it has a pool and I have never owned one before. The only information I could get out of the previous owner was who installed the pool so I turned to them for information and they have been nothing but rude to me. Apparently the guy I bought the house from still owes them quite a bit of money and they have decided to take it out on me. I have called them multiple times and have never had a called returned. I even stopped by their store to explain to them I was not an acquaintance of the previous owner and told them I would even pay them up front if they would just help me get the salt system running. They filled out a work order with my info and then never called me back and have not stopped by the house.

So anyway, so far I have been figuring the pool out on my own with the help of some friends. The pool is 16,000 gallons and has a Hayward Aqua Plus Automation and Chlorination system. I have all the chemistry levels set except the salt and am ready to add it. My questions concern the settings on the chlorine generator. What percentage should I have it set at to start out and when should I change it if at all? My second question is about the super chlorination setting. If I understand it correctly super chlorination is like shocking the pool. If that is the case how often should I use the super chlorinator and how many hours should I set it to run?

Any info would be great
Thanks
 
Spend some time reading the swg article in pool school. Also read abc's of pool chemistry.

Once you add the salt you need to let the pump run for 24 hours before you turn on the swg.

You also need to learn that telling us that you have all the levels set doesn't mean anything to us. We like to see full test results and how you got them.

I'd start off with the swg set at about 50% and adjust it based on testing. Also you should not use the superchlorinatiion setting at all. If you maintain your pool correctly you will never need to superchlorinate and if a case arises that you need to you should use liquid chlorine to do it.
 
Start the percentage setting on 50% and then adjust it based on your FC level. It is best to test the FC level in the early evening after a sunny day. That will give you the most consistent results. If FC is higher than you want it, lower the percentage. If FC is lower than you want it, raise the percentage. At first you will want to do this daily, but as you figure out the correct setting you can switch to only testing/adjusting FC weekly, or even every two weeks. The ideal percentage will change with the seasons, so you can't ever ignore it completely.

Boost runs the cell at 100% for 24 hours (assuming the pump is on). That is not at all like shocking the pool, where you aim for specific FC levels and add chlorine much more quickly than a SWG ever could. I can occasionally be useful, for example after a major swim party, but for the most part boost is not all that useful.
 
If a "um" "friend" (yeah lets go with that) did dump a lot of salt in the pool with the swg on and generating it could cause an area of high salt in the water, which also has a very high conductivity, and if that bubble of highly concentrated salt water were to pass through the cell it could cause the transformer to draw very high current thereby overloading it and burning it out. Some swg's are protected from that happening but the vast majority aren't. Figuring that the pump is going to turn the water over pretty rapidly in most pools the probability of this happening is pretty good.
 
OOoh, not good. Once again, I should have just come here instead of (!) reading the manual for the SWG, which was not clear at all about the startup procedure. Hope I didn't zap something.

OTOH, I did only add less than half of what was required (15,700 gal, and I added 120 lbs, asked for 320 according to the chart in the booklet that the previous homeowners left) only because I didn't have enough pool salt on hand to add the rest.
 
masand said:
I may have missed it but is this a brand new pool? The SWG has never been used before? You really should test salt conc prior to adding rather than rely on charts in the manual.
Click to expand...

Not a new pool, nor a new SWG. I did the salt water test using the Taylor kit to check levels before referring to the chart in the SWG manual.

I bought this house in Jan with pool, and have been running it (and swimming in it) since then using BBB only, with few problems. Have not turned on SWG to date. I thought since it was installed, I would try it to see if it's even working. The SWG itself looks VERY old, but on the manuals I have, looks like it was installed in 2009 (unit looks like it's 20 years old!).

UV rays here are a beast!
 
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