Thailand - some sums for a SWCG pool

[brucey7]

I commissioned my 25,000 gal pool a year ago with an Electric Chlorine Generator.

SWCG cost here was close to $2,000 (Made in Australia with horrendous import duty), it uses roughly 1amp on a 220v supply so costs about $100/year on electric to run. The first one failed in a week, Thai guarantees generally last until you have paid the invoice, I hadn't fortunately. Supplier broke the second one fitting it but promptly replaced it.

Chlorine powder in bulk is $150 for 50kg which is about enough for 2 years (Chinese made, Japanese is more expensive).

It's a no brainer, and I won't be replacing my cell when it dies, though I do like the feel of salt water but at $5 for a 50Kg bag of salt, it's cheap (and we use it as table salt in the kitchen too), Muriatic Acid is also $5 for 5 gals equiv. (and we use it diluted to get the stains off the bathroom floor too). Sometimes, the cell is not strong enough to maintain FC and I have to add a touch of powdered Chlorine anyway, especially when I get 30 hill tribe kids turning up to swim in school holidays.

Also use Borax and keep the water chemistry pretty close, but it is hot and in the sun too and FC drifts down sometimes. The cell produces cludy water so it's generating something, I hope it's Chlorine!

 

[JasonLion]

Welcome to TFP!

"Chlorine powder" could be any of several different products. If it is dichlor, it will raise CYA up way too quickly and you will have problems. If it is cal-hypo, it will raise CH up, which will require monitoring and might or might not be manageable, but if you ignore it could cause calcium scaling. If it is trichlor it won't dissolve very quickly, which could damage the pool surface and it also adds CYA. If it is lithium-hypo it will work fine, but it would cost several times that much.

Do you have access to liquid chlorine/bleach? They will raise the chlorine level without any of the problems the other forms tend to have.

 

[brucey7]

They call the Chlorine powder PAC, I haven't a clue what it is and it's written in Thai which is indecipherable. It does take time to dissolve though.

I can get liquid Chlorine (Sodium Hypochlorite), but it's a lot more expensive at about $10 for 5 gal, I am not sure what strength it is, I can check tomorrow.

I replace about 5% of the water in the pool every week, my fault, I designed the pool with only a 1" drop below the coping stones into the overflow tank along one edge and when kids kump in we lose a lot of water.

The water we have to take from a man-made lake at the bottom of the mountain and pump up to the top, it goes through 2 sand/carbon/managanese filters before the pool.

The pool is concrete (cement, I think you call that gunite?) with 4" tiles on it, except the overflow tank which is pink granite.