Hello from Houston, TX

[gtacs01]

I think i'm about to go down the rabbit hole of switching to a swcg. I'll take @PoolStored advice and start a new thread with pics so i can get a little advice on setup.

 

[PoolStored]

You won't regret it.

 

[gtacs01]

You won't regret it.

Do you have a pool heater with the SWCG? Reason I ask is because a guy I work with, his neighbor, claims he had a salt water pool and it ruined 3 pool heaters and caused any metal furniture or items to rust or corrode so he switched back? I instinctively want to say he levels must have been off but, I also lived in Maine and know how damaging salt is to metals.

Thanks,
Frank

 

[PoolStored]

Do you have a pool heater with the SWCG?

Yes.

Reason I ask is because a guy I work with, his neighbor, claims he had a salt water pool and it ruined 3 pool heaters and caused any metal furniture or items to rust or corrode so he switched back? I instinctively want to say he levels must have been off but, I also lived in Maine and know how damaging salt is to metals.

Read the manual on the heater. You will see listed, in the chemical levels section, a range of values for SALT.

My Salt level was 1800 BEFORE I converted. A chlorine pool IS a salt pool.

Salt pools operate at ~3400ppm salt. That's about 10X lower salinity than ocean water. Metal corrosion is caused mostly from builders using sub-standard or incompatible materials like low grade stainless steels or Aluminum tracks for liners. So if your pool water is properly balanced, you have no worries about corrosion.

Corrosion of metal is dominated by Low pH. After that, it's probably high oxidizer levels, i.e. high FC with no CYA (Very high HOCl), and the use of sulfates (like dry acid) will ruin heaters.

1. Avoid Dry acid (or any product containing sulfates),
2. avoid high HOCL (i.e. use stabilizer (CYA) and maintain your FC for your CYA (link-->FC/CYA Levels)),
3. maintain at least 200ppm of CH, and
4. maintain your pH above 7.4.

You should be just fine. 10s of 1000s of us here maintain our heaters just fine with our SWGs.

 

[gtacs01]

Yes.

Read the manual on the heater. You will see listed, in the chemical levels section, a range of values for SALT.

My Salt level was 1800 BEFORE I converted. A chlorine pool IS a salt pool.

Salt pools operate at ~3400ppm salt. That's about 10X lower salinity than ocean water. Metal corrosion is caused mostly from builders using sub-standard or incompatible materials like low grade stainless steels or Aluminum tracks for liners. So if your pool water is properly balanced, you have no worries about corrosion.

Corrosion of metal is dominated by Low pH. After that, it's probably high oxidizer levels, i.e. high FC with no CYA (Very high HOCl), and the use of sulfates (like dry acid) will ruin heaters.

1. Avoid Dry acid (or any product containing sulfates),
2. avoid high HOCL (i.e. use stabilizer (CYA) and maintain your FC for your CYA (link-->FC/CYA Levels)),
3. maintain at least 200ppm of CH, and
4. maintain your pH above 7.4.

You should be just fine. 10s of 1000s of us here maintain our heaters just fine with our SWGs.

so i should be good with the metal that is in the pool too? My pentair led lights have a meatal ring and I also have a metal handle that touches the water where the steps go into the pool. If it wont corrode the heater it shouldn't corrode those...

 

[PoolStored]

Correct. Low pH is the big cause of corrsion.

Elemental copper develops a patina of copper oxide, which protects the copper from further oxidation.

Low pH is what strips off the copper oxide and exposes the elemental copper to oxidation from chlorine and oxygen.