We bought a house with a Baquacil pool this year & now that it’s finally clear, it had two inches of rotted leaves on the bottom when we opened it up. With a chlorine shortage how do I move forward with the conversion? The pool store has granular chlorine available but no liquid locally. I’m converting to chlorine so I can then install my Edge 40 SW, what’s my best plan moving forward?
How to convert during shortage?
- Thread starter fishwater
- Start date
- May 3, 2014
- 58,303
- Pool Size
- 6000
- Surface
- Fiberglass
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
Ocean State Job Lot located in the City you show as your location has 12.5% Liquid Shock for $3.99 per gallon
Wow, I didn't even know that store existed in town, grabbed 4 cases of 12.5%. The pool is about 20k gallons, any estimate on how many bottles I'll need?
- May 23, 2015
- 24,381
- Pool Size
- 16000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
We haven't added anything at this point, the previous owner's ran it as Baqua & didn't disclose any information on previous care.
- May 23, 2015
- 24,381
- Pool Size
- 16000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
My personal suggestion, feel free to ignore it, is that I would drain 3/4 of the pool, refill, then convert. Any CDX product is going to cause horrible chlorine demand and will drag the conversion out for a long time. We’ve seen it time and time again. I realize draining a pool and refilling seems like a waste but you’ll spend weeks babysitting that pool during a conversion. Drain, refill and convert will make it go a lot faster.
Just my 2¢ …
Just my 2¢ …
It’s a toss here;
If you drain and add fresh water the process will go much quicker as you’re only going to need to convert the little Baqua that’s left over after the drain. This will mean the amount of liquid chlorine you’ll need is greatly reduced. That said, seeing you’re on the East coast there’s a large possibility that your Baqua level is already low after a long winter thus the need to drain isn’t as vital compared to some pools. Regardless, the best bet here is fresh water, the question remaining is has the fresh water already been added over the winter or do you still need to add it.
If you drain and add fresh water the process will go much quicker as you’re only going to need to convert the little Baqua that’s left over after the drain. This will mean the amount of liquid chlorine you’ll need is greatly reduced. That said, seeing you’re on the East coast there’s a large possibility that your Baqua level is already low after a long winter thus the need to drain isn’t as vital compared to some pools. Regardless, the best bet here is fresh water, the question remaining is has the fresh water already been added over the winter or do you still need to add it.
My original intent was to drain as much as possible but we have an extremely high water table here & one of the pool walls is caved in from a frost heave so I don't want to lower the level much below the skimmer so to prevent any possible issues.
- May 23, 2015
- 24,381
- Pool Size
- 16000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
DO realize that if you go with an SWG you'll want to consider upgrading your pump either to a variable speed pump OR convert the pump motor to a 2-speed that is large enough to run the SWG on LOW speed. SWG's add chlorine very slowly and so you'll be running that single-speed pump upwards of 8-10 hours or more per day to produce enough chlorine. That's going to drive up your utility bill. VSP's or 2-speed pumps on low use considerably less energy.
- May 23, 2015
- 24,381
- Pool Size
- 16000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
The wall should be fixed as soon as you can afford to do so ... does your homeowners insurance cover the pool? A structurally compromised pool wall is not safe.
The local pool company inspected it & it looks like it's been that way for sometime so without digging they advised that we keep an eye on it, the joys of new home ownership.
Moving forward though the goal is to get from Baquacil to chlorine & then to salt so I'll need to fight it without draining water more than I've been doing with vacuuming to waste & back flushing.
So in haste I said the wall was caved in, it's not caved but there's a bulge that's been inspected as I mentioned above.
- May 23, 2015
- 24,381
- Pool Size
- 16000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
You can still drain in my opinion. Just do a slow differential (“no drain”) water exchange -
www.troublefreepool.com
Draining - Further Reading
www.troublefreepool.com
So I decided to just go for it on Saturday, started with 4 bags of shock (no cya) from the local pool store while I drove all over town sourcing liquid chlorine. The water turned a pretty shade of green with foam that I tried to skim off while running the filter, I didn’t see a mention of keeping it in recirculate when reading the original article. After a few backwashes it was running clear. Started Sunday morning at 7.2 ph & 0 FC with a pretty clear pool, just a slight tint of green so I started dumping 10% LC yesterday & monitoring levels. Used 11 gallons of 10% yesterday then brought it back up to 15 FC before bed. Woke up this morning to 15 FC & 7.5 PH but the pool looks clear, looks better than before I started. I’ve been running Fred the robot & brushing constantly, I can still see white goo on the bottom & in Fred’s basket but I think it’s coming right along, looking good!
I think it’s been beneficial that I’ve been vacuuming, backwashing & refilling as levels drop for the last three weeks as I fought the 2 inches of rotted leaves on the floor of the pool. The local store tested when I first opened the pool & came up with 30ppm of sanitizer so it looks like the long winter/spring helped kill some of the Baquacil prior to starting the conversion.
I think it’s been beneficial that I’ve been vacuuming, backwashing & refilling as levels drop for the last three weeks as I fought the 2 inches of rotted leaves on the floor of the pool. The local store tested when I first opened the pool & came up with 30ppm of sanitizer so it looks like the long winter/spring helped kill some of the Baquacil prior to starting the conversion.
Attachments
- May 29, 2018
- 154
- Pool Size
- 13700
- Surface
- Fiberglass
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- CircuPool RJ-30 Plus
I just went through the whole process. I had stopped adding chemicals last August. I may have had some CDX in there but no way of testing. My baquacil content was about 16-20ppm. It took 13-15 days, adding enough 12.5% to keep up to 15ppm. I believe I went through 25 gallons (yep, your eyes aren't deceiving you) in my 13,700-13,800 gallon pool. Somewhere on here is my 7 page posting. Just bought 10 50lb bags (got the 11th for free!!!). I need to start dumping salt and get the generator installed.
- May 23, 2015
- 24,381
- Pool Size
- 16000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
Just be aware that adding a lot of salt to a pool all at once requires a lot of brushing to mix it up. If the salt is simple softener salt, then you'll want to add in batches and be ready to vacuum up any dirt that might come along with it to avoid staining. Pool grade salt typically is finer grain (like table salt) and will dissolve more rapidly. In all cases, you're going to need to wait 24-48 hours to allow for mixing ... salt water is more dense than the pool water it develops in and so it can take a lot of time to fully homogenize the water. We have had people add salt and then try to turn on their SWG only to get random low and high high salt warnings until the water has had time to fully mix. Using a robot cleaner our throwing kids in the pool can greatly help to mix the water up.
I can’t believe how good the water looks! Been running the robot every day for a few cycles every day & staying on top of FC. Last night was the first night that we didn’t loose any FC, I may not be out of the woods yet but I think I can see the light!
Deb04
LifeTime Supporter
- Jul 12, 2008
- 650
- Pool Size
- 19000
- Surface
- Vinyl
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
I’m in your area. If you’re still sourcing liquid chlorine, there are Ocean States in Newington (across from BJs) and in Stratham. There are others on the Seacoast too, but those are “my” stores.
Ocean State has been a total win for us, I didn’t even know that we had a store in town. I was just there yesterday to grab more LC & they had a fresh shipment in stock. I have 40 gallons in my stash at this point which should get me through the rest of the conversion & keep me going until I have time to install the SWG.