Hello! Happy to become a part of such amazing community.

[posya]

Hello, I live in Brisbane and finally decided to get a fiberglass pool. Very overwhelmed by all the options and possibilities and was hoping to find some help on this forum.
My main dilemma currently lies with a choice of a Sanitiser. My children have extremely sensitive skin and eyes so I was hoping to go with an alternative pool system, possibly ionised like bionizer or enviroswim. I am struggling to find unbiased information about alternative sanitation though. It's either very old, super bad or super good. I'm hoping that people that have experience with such systems can point me in the right direction.
Thank you!

 

[mknauss]

Welcome to the forum!
The best sanitizing system is chlorine. Unless your children have very rare conditions, a properly chlorinated pool will be the best chance at making it clean, sanitary, and comfortable. The 'alternatives' all require chlorine anyway, and typically just make pool water chemistry management more difficult.
Read How to Chlorinate Your Pool - Trouble Free Pool
I suggest you read ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry.

 

[Texas Splash]

Welcome to TFP!

 

[posya]

Thank you for welcoming me!

I know that chlorine and salt systems have been around for ages and have proven to work and be straight forward to maintain.
But I was hopeful that the progress doesn't stop at "the good old" and that new technologies are worth exploring.

I read a fair a bit about ionised systems and the ones that have an oxidisation component do not require any other chemicals but the pH regulators (acid and bicarb I believe) unlike the ionisation systems that need to be supplemented with additional chemicals like chlorine or salt. Which is where the bad reviews are mostly from(the older versions).
It's hard to see what is a biased sales pitch and what is a true review. Really hoping to find someone to talk to with real experience with such systems.

 

[Donldson]

But I was hopeful that the progress doesn't stop at "the good old" and that new technologies are worth exploring.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that "new" equals "improved". ALL ionization systems need to be supplemented with chlorine. To do otherwise is unsanitary. Metal ions do not sanitize water, no matter what the marketing you are reading tries to convince you otherwise.

The bottom line is that if you want good information with the data to back it up, you're in the right place. If all you're looking for is someone to tell you how great these alternatives are, you're going to have to keep looking. We don't deal with unsanitary systems, nor should any parent.

Regardless of the direction you pursue from here, welcome to TFP and best of luck with your research. Always consider the source.

 

[setsailsoon]

 

[posya]

Thank you for your comment.

I'm definitely after the naked truth, good or bad. But I feel like only people that have had experience with such systems can really say whats the deal. did they end up having trouble and what sort of and how they ended up handling it. Did they end up having to supplement it with other chemicals etc.

The claim of the systems is that they have a ionisation unit and a oxidisation component within the system, which removes the need of supplementing it with chlorine or salt or an other supplementary system, which has been the case in older versions of the units and some not hybrid ionisers.

So their initial claim is that the ionisation part of the system sorts out the algae etc. and the oxidisation part sorts out the grease, oil, sunscreen etc. After reading the technical part, it does sound reasonable to me and makes sense but I am definitely after people with real experience if that all worked out as promised.

So if you seen any posts on this forum that are talking about it but not from like 2008 I would appreciate if you could point me there, I'm still trying to work out the navigation on the forum.

My children have very sensitive skin and eyes so they are not allowed to swim as often as I would like them to and the fact that it seems more environmentally friendly is also a bonus. So I'm trying to make a most educated decision possible.

 

[mknauss]

Google search results

www.troublefreepool.com

Google search results

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[setsailsoon]

pos,

My wife has very sensitive skin and a lot of problems with allergies. We used TFP liquid chlorine methods for about 5 years and we swim several days per week year round. She did have some minor skin irritation after an hour or so. Then we switched to a salt pool. Made a world of difference for her. No more irritation at all! After the first 30 min she said "I want a salt pool from now on! Please don't ever change this back". Our kids and grand kids have the same comments. That was almost 2 years ago. Bonus for me is it's much easier to care for. A salt pool isn't like the ocean, salt level is much lower about the same level as human tears. I notice the feel is better as well. Maybe this should be a consideration for you. If you think you might be interested you can always increase the salt level to try it out before you purchase the equipment. There's nothing really mystical about it. The system has a salt generator that makes chlorine out of the salt. So it's still just a chlorine pool that uses the same proven chlorine method for disinfection. I'm not sure why the water feels so much better but it does. Maybe this is why spas often use the same salt level.

I hope this helps.

Chris

 

[scottts]

A properly chlorinated pool that follows the FC/CYA ratio recommendations has far less hypochlorous acid concentration to create harshness than other chlorine pools you may have swum in. Until recently the FC/CYA ratio was never taught by any mainstream source. So you often had pools with 3-4ppm of FC and very low CYA, which IS very harsh. It's really amazing how well this fundamental balance works if you maintain it.

Further, proper pH control is also important to prevent irritation to eyes and skin.

 

[Newdude]

The claim of the systems is that they have a ionisation unit and a oxidisation component within the system, which removes the need of supplementing it with chlorine or salt or an other supplementary system, which has been the case in older versions of the units and some not hybrid ionisers

so here is the deal. It’s great on paper but is an epic fail in the real world. All of those systems do in fact sanitize the water, but only the water that passes through them. At any given moment that is literally half a gallon of tens of thousands of gallons. With no residual sanitizer in the water, there is nothing actually sanitizing the water in the pool, which is sitting there festering. It could take days for certain areas of the pool water to make it through the UV/Ozone and some of it may never get there. In the end they have you ‘supplement’ the system with chlorine but claim you don’t need as much. You actually need every last drop as much like a regularly chlorinated pool or the viruses, bacteria and pathogens will run wild. Person to person contaminates are the biggest worry with pools. Algae while unsightly is not a sanitary issue.

The ionizers which are a whole different animal add metals to the water to inhibit algae but do absolutely zero to sanitize it. So you’ll have clear water that makes you sick. Or worse. After some time the metals will stain the pool surface and give swimmers green hair to match. Most people stop long before then when they get the bumpy rashes that non sanitized water brings. Then they end up here and it’s an almost daily discussion with a newbie. Feel free to search away, you will find your exact sentiments restated a thousand times.