Finally got my little SWG hooked up last season and wanted to share my experiences.
Background: Purchased a second home in June 2011 which had a badly neglected in-ground pool (details posted elsewhere on TFP). Spent the first two
months "cleaning" the pool, before closing the pool two weeks later for the winter season. 2012 was better, but still had algea out-breaks (plural)
and was testing/monitoring/cleaning the pool every 1-2 days. Started 2013 the same, with algea on pool opening and then significant sand filter issues
(also detailed elsewhere on TFP) that led to the purchase of a used DE filter and the opportunity (since I was replumbing for the filter anyway) to
install the SWG I had in storage from a pop-up pool owned in 2009.
This is not like some of the SWG units talked about today, with % settings, and temperature and salt PPM readings. This unit is a little intex unit
picked up at Walmart. It basically has a run/no-run capability, with 4 fault codes (for high salt, low salt, low flow, and power interruption).
Prior to the sand filter fiasco, I had purchased 4 case (4 gallon each case) of the 12.5% bleach. This was designed to get the pool open and maybe 40
-45 days of FC maintenance before I have to invest in more bleach. After plumbing in the SWG and DE filter, I added some 300 lbs of water softnefer
salt (5-10 lbs at a time throught the skimmer with pump running) and started the SWG up. According to my calculations given the output of the SWG I
had, the size of pool and FC requirements, I was looking at an 8 hour a day run-time. For whatever reason, actual runtimes were able to be adjusted
between 2-4 hours as FC levels were holding.
Results:
Only one algea outbreak in 2013, and that was due to rain dilution (and a leak) which caused the salt level too get too low and the SWG to shutoff for
a few days at the end of the season.
Only 6 gallons (of the 16 I had bought) of the bleach used all season!! (SWG was supplemented with trichlor pucks on weeks of heavy use (at about one
puck every other week) and pool kept solar covered when not in use)
Water maintenance (testing/adding chems) reduced from every day/every other day, to twice a week.
Reduced pump times, which probably saved electricity even factoring in what the SWG used.
There was a noticable faint salt taste that was experienced by myself and at least half the others that used the pool. This was at salt PPM of around 2800.
Background: Purchased a second home in June 2011 which had a badly neglected in-ground pool (details posted elsewhere on TFP). Spent the first two
months "cleaning" the pool, before closing the pool two weeks later for the winter season. 2012 was better, but still had algea out-breaks (plural)
and was testing/monitoring/cleaning the pool every 1-2 days. Started 2013 the same, with algea on pool opening and then significant sand filter issues
(also detailed elsewhere on TFP) that led to the purchase of a used DE filter and the opportunity (since I was replumbing for the filter anyway) to
install the SWG I had in storage from a pop-up pool owned in 2009.
This is not like some of the SWG units talked about today, with % settings, and temperature and salt PPM readings. This unit is a little intex unit
picked up at Walmart. It basically has a run/no-run capability, with 4 fault codes (for high salt, low salt, low flow, and power interruption).
Prior to the sand filter fiasco, I had purchased 4 case (4 gallon each case) of the 12.5% bleach. This was designed to get the pool open and maybe 40
-45 days of FC maintenance before I have to invest in more bleach. After plumbing in the SWG and DE filter, I added some 300 lbs of water softnefer
salt (5-10 lbs at a time throught the skimmer with pump running) and started the SWG up. According to my calculations given the output of the SWG I
had, the size of pool and FC requirements, I was looking at an 8 hour a day run-time. For whatever reason, actual runtimes were able to be adjusted
between 2-4 hours as FC levels were holding.
Results:
Only one algea outbreak in 2013, and that was due to rain dilution (and a leak) which caused the salt level too get too low and the SWG to shutoff for
a few days at the end of the season.
Only 6 gallons (of the 16 I had bought) of the bleach used all season!! (SWG was supplemented with trichlor pucks on weeks of heavy use (at about one
puck every other week) and pool kept solar covered when not in use)
Water maintenance (testing/adding chems) reduced from every day/every other day, to twice a week.
Reduced pump times, which probably saved electricity even factoring in what the SWG used.
There was a noticable faint salt taste that was experienced by myself and at least half the others that used the pool. This was at salt PPM of around 2800.
All you needed to do was dump it all in the pool and brush a bit and it would have been dissolved in a matter of minutes. 