Title says it all. I am interested in a reduced salt pool, and the Hayward system has me intrigued. However i am full pentair screen logic automation. Just wondering if pentair offers a similar system.
Does pentair make a reduced salt system?
- Thread starter miatawnt2b
- Start date
Pentair's salt cells operate down to levels around 2800ppm. I have seen no indication of a lower salt version.
Is there a particular reason for wanting lower salt levels other than reducing the pool's chances of high blood pressure?
Is there a particular reason for wanting lower salt levels other than reducing the pool's chances of high blood pressure?
There are other brands which can go lower. AutoPilot can go down to 2000ppm. Hayward has one (1400-1800ppm) but only for sale in Canada at the moment.
Well I live in Tucson and don't get much rainfall. Dumping water from back washing the sand filter into our desert is one of the reasons I didn't go swg in the first place. With the Hayward low salt unit the concentration is cut in half.
Hey Mia - the Pentair can operate below 2800 ppm, all the way down to 2600 ppm before stuff gets super-bad. The major downside of running it below 2800 is a drop-off in efficiency.
Also, the low-salt chlorinators do not handle large pools (yet.) So if your pool is 30K or bigger, you may have a couple years before they put one out for you.
I have not seen all that much interest in them, but that is probably because they are focusing on the Canada market first.
Also, the low-salt chlorinators do not handle large pools (yet.) So if your pool is 30K or bigger, you may have a couple years before they put one out for you.
I have not seen all that much interest in them, but that is probably because they are focusing on the Canada market first.
- May 23, 2015
- 25,781
- Pool Size
- 16000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
It doesn't really make a difference. I live in Tucson as well and I can say that, without a doubt, the desert landscape could care less. I discharge pool water into an an area of my yard that gets little foot traffic behind our casita where on the other side of the wall openings is an empty patch of land. Believe me, the plants and mesquite trees back there are as healthy as any other plant on our property.
Also, all pools in our climate will be salt pools no matter what source of chlorine you use. Bleach, dichlor, trichlor and muriatic acid all add chloride to your water. It is not at all uncommon for a manually chlorinated pool here in Tucson to have water with a chloride content well above 1000ppm and fast approaching 2000ppm. If you don't believe it, simply take a water sample to Leslie's or Patio pools and ask them to measure your salt level. We don't drain/winterize our pools here and backwashing, even very frequently, simply does not remove enough water from the pool to make a difference. Couple that with the fact that Tucson Water (if you use municipal water) provides fill water with ~200ppm of chloride in it to start with and the pan evaporation data for the Tucson climate measures an annual loss rate of surface waters at nearly 90"/year and your pool water will always have high salt levels simply from the concentrating effects of evaporation and refill.
So, in the end, I don't think it really matters if you're discharging your regular pool water or pool water that is raised to SWG chloride levels.
+1 on JoyfulNoise post. You call look at the bottom of the Pool Math page here and see how much salt is added by plain chlorine bleach use - i.e. for my size pool (19,000) if I were to replace 2ppm FCL/day, this would add about 3.3ppm or salt/day - so about 100ppm/month. A SWG is definitely a way to keep that level more stable if you do not empty your pool.
So there are some current SWG that offer lower levels than others.
Another option if your main focus is to reduce the effect of the backwash would be to replace the sand filter with a cartridge filter, which then means no backwash. You instead would rinse the cartridges occasionally, but this would transfer very little salt compared to backwashing - be it a pool with a SWG or without SWG and using chlorine.
So there are some current SWG that offer lower levels than others.
Another option if your main focus is to reduce the effect of the backwash would be to replace the sand filter with a cartridge filter, which then means no backwash. You instead would rinse the cartridges occasionally, but this would transfer very little salt compared to backwashing - be it a pool with a SWG or without SWG and using chlorine.
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