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Ron,

Welcome to TFP! And we love questions so fire away. You've got access to experts and enthusiasts on everything pool here and a few have already weighed in. They also have absolutely nothing to sell so you can trust their advice.

After 6 years of liquid chlorine pool I switched a year ago to SWG. We love it and have absolutely no issues with corrosion or salt spray at all. We wish we had switched to salt right off the bat. The water feels great and we'll never have a non salt pool again. Many people and pool builders just don't understand salt at all. After a few years of traditional chlorine treatment many owners have a salt level over 1000 ppm anyway. They just never tested for it so they didn't know. This fact also sort of turns most PB objections upside down.

The salt level for most SWG systems is about the same level as human tears (10% of sea water). We find it's more comfortable in ours and most visitor's eyes. My wife says it feels like a spa.

Again, welcome and we look forward to your test results!

Chris
 
Ordered an advanced test kit yesterday. Used a test strip and it indicated my CYA was below 40, last Leslies test put it at 50. Haven't put a tab in the pool in over a week. Picked up some 10% Great Value liquid chlorine at Wally World. Gonna go the liquid route until SWG is installed. Talked to Pentair this morning. They won't warranty the equipment unless it's installed by a licensed "professional" so I have a call in to the PB. Is there a calculation as to how much of what percentage of chlorine to add?
 
SWG installed this morning! They put in a Pentair IC40. I'm headed down in a bit to get some saltwater test strips and a sock for the skimmer basket. The wind howled pretty bad last night, pool has plenty of sand in it, plus the salt has yet to dissolve. I'm gonna let the pump run for 24 hours and brush periodically. Their is a light blinking light on the cell indicating high salt content, installer (who built the pool) said this was normal and would go off when things settled down. One thing that perplexes me. There is an electrical port on the side of the pump that I thought would interface with the SWG, turning it on and off, but no. They installed a mechanical timer. WTF I ask myself, in this day and age why are they still using a mechanical timer? Installer Pentair does not make something like that, which I am going to verify by calling. Pretty excited to see how the water feels. Temp was rising herefor awhile, pool got up to 70, but now it's back to the low 60's :). Guess I need to enjoy it while it lasts.
 
The port on your Intelliflo pump is to hook to a Pentair automation system, such as the Intellitouch or Easytouch. You need the mechanical timer as you do not have one of those systems. Always be sure the SWCG is powered off when the pump is scheduled to be powered off.

You should also remove power from the SWCG while dissolving your salt in the pool. High salinty water flowing through a powered on SWCG is not a good idea.
 
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Ronbo said:
I'm headed down in a bit to get some saltwater test strips ...
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Salt test strips are ok but you should have the K-1766 Taylor Salt Test for most accurate testing.

Ronbo said:
There is an electrical port on the side of the pump that I thought would interface with the SWG, turning it on and off, but no. They installed a mechanical timer. WTF I ask myself, in this day and age why are they still using a mechanical timer? Installer Pentair does not make something like that, which I am going to verify by calling.
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The data port on the side of the Intelliflo is a RS-485 data connection to a Pentair automation panel - Easy Touch, IntelliConnect, IntelliTouch, IntelliCenter. The IC40 Power Center can also connect to the automation. When they are both connected the automation will turn the SWG off when the pump is off. Without an automation controller you need the timer controlling the SWG.
 
mknauss said:
The port on your Intelliflo pump is to hook to a Pentair automation system, such as the Intellitouch or Easytouch. You need the mechanical timer as you do not have one of those systems. Always be sure the SWCG is powered off when the pump is scheduled to be powered off.

You should also remove power from the SWCG while dissolving your salt in the pool. High salinty water flowing through a powered on SWCG is not a good idea.
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The pool guys dumped the salt in, installed the components, turned it on and split. I've been brushing it and the sand around since they left, salt is dissolved and blinking "high salt" light is now solid. I would have installed the thing myself but it wouldn't have been warrantied.
 
Just because they install something doesn't mean they know squat about how to use the product. Doubtful the guys doing the work even have pools, y'know?

ANY time you're adding large amounts of salt in the pool turn the SWG off entirely for a day and get the salt brushed good. This step will help extend the life of your device and cell.

Maddie :flower:
 

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Ronbo said:
The pool guys dumped the salt in, installed the components, turned it on and split. I've been brushing it and the sand around since they left, salt is dissolved and blinking "high salt" light is now solid. I would have installed the thing myself but it wouldn't have been warrantied.
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The SWCG only reads the salinity every 12 hours or when you first turn it on. So once you believe the salt is well mixed and your salinity test kit confirms that, then turn on the SWCG and it will read what it believes the salinity is.
 
Cell is off, pump is running and I have a good test kit that includes salinity test. I know every pool is different, but anyone have a general idea of a starting point on the cell?
 
Ronbo said:
Cell is off, pump is running and I have a good test kit that includes salinity test. I know every pool is different, but anyone have a general idea of a starting point on the cell?
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PoolMath has Effects of Adding for you to calculate this...

Your pool needs about 3 ppm of chlorine a day as we get into spring. Running the IC40 at 100% for 7 hours you will get 3.3 ppm/day. Or you can run at 50% for 14 hours. Or you can run for 28% for 24 hours/day.

All depends on your pump runtime.
 
Without a Pentair automation system you can only adjust the chlorine generation in 20% increments when above 20 %. So you will need to pick a % generation and adjust pump run time to create the level of FC needed.
 
wireform said:
What Yippee said. The SWCG is there to maintain once the FC is in the proper level. Shut the SWCG off till the slam is called done.
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The water isn't "cloudy" per se, it's just not as crystal clear as b4 the addition of salt. Chlorine levels were good b4 the addition of salt and the SWG. Plus, as an added bonus, there were 2 days of strong winds which blew fine sand everywhere, including my pool.
I have a decent test kit which includes salinity. The weather is much improved. Hoping the water temp reaches 70 this weekend. I'll post some numbers soon and try to plug them into pool math. This version on my laptop confounds me but being confounded is not a new development.

Has anyone anyone any experience with digital salinity testers?
 

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