I have had a salt pool since 2010 and am considering going to a chlorine pool. I have gone through two Pentair IC 40 cells and now my IC60 needs to be replaced, and they have gotten very expensive. Prices of chlorine have also gone through the roof. My water comes from own well and it high in Iron, calcium and phosphates. My pool requires lots of acid to keep the PH levels correct, but I still generate lots of scale. Even with my salt system I still have to periodically add liquid chlorine to fight algae. Has anyone ever gone from salt to chlorine and found it beneficial?
Going back To Chlorine
- Thread starter johns6
- Start date
Liquid chlorine has been more expensive the last several years. It's only beneficial as it's purchased in smaller batches than several years at a time with a SWG.
With 35k gallons, each jug of 10% is 2.9 FC for you. Most found the cheapest chlorine at Walmart this last summer at over $6 each with tax.
Here's the comparison:
An IC60 will create 6.8 FC in 24 hours for you (35k gallons), or 2833 lifetime FC. You only need the $1510 unit and it's a 5 min swap.
That's $0.53 per FC.
$5.67 for 2.9 FC is $1.95 per FC
The IC60 is equivalent of 977 gallons of 10%.
977 gallons at $5.67 (walmart) would cost $5539.59.
The Round Top TX sales tax on the IC60 is $124.57
The sales tax on 977 gallons of Walmart LC is $457.01
You'd save $322.44 in *sales tax* by buying another SWG and then $4029.59 over the course of the life of the IC60 (barring an early failure).
But that doesn't make the funds available today, so sometimes folks have to take the hit and use LC.
John,
I'd give up my first born before I'd give up my saltwater pools...
You have a 35K pool, so an IC40 is way, way, too small for your pool. Even an IC60 is less that the 2 X the volume of your pool that we recommend. Especially in Texas!!!
Tell us what problems are you currently having with your IC60???
What is your normal CYA?
Where do you try to keep your FC?
How many hours a day do you run the pump?
Do you monitor your water CSI??
Thanks,
Jim R.
Check out circupool.com. Their SWGs have a 7 year warranty. Pentair only offers a 3 year warranty on theirs.
Your pool math logs reveal a couple things:
1. Using dry acid will kill a SWCG faster. The manuals usually say not to use it. You need to use muriatic acid.
2. You don’t have any test results logged. If you start doing that, it’ll help find out why your device is scaling up (assuming it is) and why they keep dying. We can also help point out anything that may be an issue.
- Jun 1, 2018
- 14,010
- Pool Size
- 26000
- Surface
- Vinyl
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Hayward Aqua Rite (T-15)
It sounds like you’ve gotten an average lifespan of 4.33 years out of each cell. In sunny hot texas with long seasons & such a large pool this is not too terrible. The average lifespan of a cell is 7-10k hrs @ 100%. With the ic40s you likely burned through your 7-10k hrs alot faster as it needs to run more to produce sufficient fc.
As mentioned above there are steps you can take to prevent scaling of your cell & your surfaces even with hard water.
Even without a swcg if you don’t keep csi in check you will have scaling so you should do something about that regardless of the chlorination path you choose going forward. When csi is not managed well you may also have to aggressively clean your cell (with acid), this reduces its lifespan every time you do it. Best to maintain the water chemistry instead.
As far as the algae goes- that means at some point you dipped below minimum for your cya & it proliferated, once that happens a swcg simply cannot overcome it. They are designed to be maintainers - that is all.
You must do the SLAM Process with liquid chlorine & eradicate it completely or any swcg will struggle as its like a tiny iv drip of fc over a long period of time.
Without any logs to refer back to its just a guess of what all occurred in the past.
Your cya may have been too low & the sun was eating the fc as fast as the cell was making it, could have had a party & the swcg didn’t keep up, who knows.
I have to imagine the ic40’s surely needed supplementation in peak of summer as the max an ic40 can produce in your pool volume is 4.8ppm/day if run at 100%. In your neck of the woods that can be an average fc loss during the highest uv dog days of summer.
In my opinion, when properly sized & chemistry is properly maintained, swcg’s are the easiest & most cost effective (in the long run) way to feed a pool. The larger the pool the more savings you usually realize vs manual chlorination.
Cooler weather is coming so you can jug lug over the fall & winter then decide in the early spring if you want to replace the cell or maybe even the whole system with one that has cheaper replacement cells or just keep lugging…
As mentioned above there are steps you can take to prevent scaling of your cell & your surfaces even with hard water.
Even without a swcg if you don’t keep csi in check you will have scaling so you should do something about that regardless of the chlorination path you choose going forward. When csi is not managed well you may also have to aggressively clean your cell (with acid), this reduces its lifespan every time you do it. Best to maintain the water chemistry instead.
As far as the algae goes- that means at some point you dipped below minimum for your cya & it proliferated, once that happens a swcg simply cannot overcome it. They are designed to be maintainers - that is all.
You must do the SLAM Process with liquid chlorine & eradicate it completely or any swcg will struggle as its like a tiny iv drip of fc over a long period of time.
Without any logs to refer back to its just a guess of what all occurred in the past.
Your cya may have been too low & the sun was eating the fc as fast as the cell was making it, could have had a party & the swcg didn’t keep up, who knows.
I have to imagine the ic40’s surely needed supplementation in peak of summer as the max an ic40 can produce in your pool volume is 4.8ppm/day if run at 100%. In your neck of the woods that can be an average fc loss during the highest uv dog days of summer.
In my opinion, when properly sized & chemistry is properly maintained, swcg’s are the easiest & most cost effective (in the long run) way to feed a pool. The larger the pool the more savings you usually realize vs manual chlorination.
Cooler weather is coming so you can jug lug over the fall & winter then decide in the early spring if you want to replace the cell or maybe even the whole system with one that has cheaper replacement cells or just keep lugging…
One week in the spring every year is enough 'seeing how the other half lives' for me.
It takes about that long for the pool to warm up enough without the cover, and sourcing LC can be an hour+ long project here on the wrong week.
Thanks for everyone's input I'll probably get a new IC 60 which is what I have been using.