Firing up SWG for the first time.

[Otis B.]

Good morning and Happy Mothers Day to you all!

I had my pool remodeled 4 yrs ago and had a SWG installed at the time of the remodel. (Hayward Goldline AquaRite) The remodel went into mid-Summer so never fired up the SWG because the plaster needed to cure, and still never fired it up to this day (life got in the way!) Anyway, I have a few questions that I'm hoping you can help with.

1) Should I be worried about the cell? Should I take it apart and clean it?
2) How much salt will I need for a 16,000 gallon pool?
3) Is there anything else that I should look out for?

Thanks in advance!

 

[mguzzy]

Wow.. four years of life in they way.. I have to say I know how that goes.

-First off what size cell do you have? can you send us a pic?
-You are going to need a test kit to find out how much salt you already have in your pool. Go to tftestkits.net and order a K-1766 test kit
-How have you been chlorinating since then? Pucks? liquid chlorine? Because they all add a certain amount of salt
-Once we find out how much salt is in the pool then we will know how much to put in.
-Has the unit been turned off at the controller the whole time?
-You might want to take the cell off and inspect it for gunk or if there is any deposition on the plates.

THEN once you confirm it is good we will add salt to the level for that cell. Most Hayward/Goldlines want a range of 2700-3400.. but I would keep it on the low end of the range. Mix the salt in BEFORE you turn on the controller to ensure there is an even level of salt across the whole pool. That will usually take a day or two with the pump running. Then bring your FC up to target with liquid chlorine and flip the switch to let the SWG take over. We will fuss with pump run times and SWG % outputs later.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Mark's advice is spot on. I just want to say if you take the cell out to inspect it and you feel it needs cleaning, try plain hose water first. Try anyway you can to dislodge calcium build up.
Using acid to clean the cell is your last resort because each time the cell is cleaned with acid you shorten its lifespan.

Maddie

 

[mguzzy]

Thanks Maddie...

Ya know.. @Otis B. can you can take a pic of your cell plates when you open it up. I can't think of a similar scenario where a brand new SWG sat fallow for this long. I would be curious to see if there was any kind of build up on the plates after four seasons.. like maybe from residual current, of some other process we don't know about. I hope you don't mind if we use you as a guinea pig for a bit!

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Ha! Mark, I'm *not* the person to ask. I've never cleaned my plates. My first cell lasted 9 years and had reverse polarity where any calcium that built up would fall off when the polarity changed. That only happened once when new and the pool store (grrrrrrrr) had me add too much calcium.

My new cell is brand new replacement generic cell. I'm crossing fingers on it because I had to jack it up to 40% which I've *never* had run it on such high percentage before.

I have very soft water (40ppm) here.

Maddie

 

[mguzzy]

I meant that request for a pic for the OP... since the cell has been setting there for 4 years apparently not powered up I would think it would be interesting to see what the cell plates look like. I will edit my post accordingly

 

[Otis B.]

I'm happy to be the guinea pig! And thanks!....I could use all the help I can get!

About to take the bride out for Mothers Day dinner. I'll post pics when I get home from work tomorrow.

Thanks again!!!

 

[Otis B.]

Happy Monday!

@ Mark...following up on your questions:

It appears that the cell is a T-Cell-15 (pic attached)
Test kit was ordered last night!
Liquid chlorine
Unit was never wired up until a Friday.

I'll be taking the cell apart on the weekend when I hopefully pull the cover. (Been chilly here in SE PA!) I'll post a picture then. Hopefully the test kit arrives by then.

Thanks again!

 

[mguzzy]

Amazing.. so it sat there with the cord wrapped around it for four years. So yea pop that bad boy open and make sure no stickes or gunk is hung up on it. Theoretically the plates should be clean!

 

[Otis B.]

Happy Friday! Well, for some....(I'm working tomorrow...)
Popped open the cell and it looks clean as a whistle to my untrained eye. Thoughts?
Salt test kit came but haven't checked it yet. Hoping to get to that tomorrow or Sunday.
Hope you all have a great weekend!

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Sweet! Test your current water for salt, add if necessary. Then after a day of waiting allowing the salt to dissolve and mix in well, go ahead and plug in the cell and turn'er on!
Have your FC level at your desired level using liquid chlorine, then let the device maintain it. It may take some tweaks up/down with pump or cell to get to that sweet spot.

Maddie

 

[mguzzy]

That looks pretty clean.. test your salinity and lets fire that bad boy up!

 

[Otis B.]

Just pulled the cover and tested the water. Assuming I did this correctly here are the numbers.

Sodium Chloride - 1400ppm (7 drops until it turned brick red)

TC - 0
PH - 8.2
TA - 110
CH - 1075 (I did this test 3 times!...43 drops of R-0012)
CYA - 25

I haven't plugged any of this in to the pool math yet. Thanks in advance for any guidance and suggestions!

 

[Otis B.]

Pool math is recommending that I replace 60% of my pool water to lower CH. Is it safe to assume that should be my first plan of attack?

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Yeah, I can imagine that especially being in PA. I would do that first so that you're not later draining off whatever new chemicals you need to add.

 

[mguzzy]

What the Yipster said... Darn CH.. cause the rest of your numbers looked good! BTW if you are getting close to 50 drops on any drop test it creates a testing error that makes the results unreliable (Per Taylor). Try doing it again with half the sample size or by diluting with distilled water (that should have no Ca in it) and changing your multiplier accordingly. That is if you are curious... at 1075.. or even 1000 or even 900 you still need to drain and refill. So might as well do it before you add more chems that will just get drained off.

 

[Otis B.]

Thanks Mark & Yip! Going to throw the pump in now and start draining.
Should I do a CH test on my tap water for the heck of it?

 

[mguzzy]

Fir sure.. you want to know how hard the water is that you are adding

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Also, how high is your ground water there?? Don't go too low lest your pool floats. Take it in stages (drain, fill, drain again, fill again) if you have high water table there in your part of PA.

Maddie

 

[Otis B.]

Going to test the water from the faucet soon.
Not sure how high the water table is here....I've had the pool pretty low before without pulling the plugs (I had know idea back then...)

On to another issue. Could the high CH and PH have caused this white scale look on my plaster? It's not as noticeable whit the water in the pool but very noticeable now. Should I consider an acid wash?