Indoor Pool SWG irregular use

[zubin3333]

Hi,

Our pool has been sitting for a year without sanitiser (long story) but remarkably it is crystal clear probably because it get no UV light and is indoors. Anyway I want to start up the pool now properly for the first time. Once I get the pool working we will have very irregular use, there might be no swimmers for a week then maybe a few on one day ect... While it isn't used, it is covered by a hard opaque plastic cover, ie no UV.

I was thinking about a SWG, it seemed appealing since I didn't want to add chlorine everyday, and then I had a read here and it said you have to be careful with SWG in indoor pools because it is easy to generate too much chlorine since sun isn't constantly burning it off.

Say a pool was perfectly balanced, and completely covered and indoor, any idea how long free chlorine would last? Are we talking days or weeks?

Anyone have experience with an SWG on an indoor pool with no UV light? Does your SWG operate everyday?

Thanks so much!

 

[Costas > DownUnder]

Say a pool was perfectly balanced, and completely covered and indoor, any idea how long free chlorine would last? Are we talking days or weeks?

It would last for more than just a few days if no organic matter enters the pool ie no bathers etc.

Anyone have experience with an SWG on an indoor pool with no UV light? Does your SWG operate everyday?

Don't have any experience with an indoor pool but only with my new outdoor pool which was filled with water in late April.

Over the winter months I actually had to turn my SWG totally off for a few days (3 to 4) here and there as even with my pool uncovered and with a bit of leaf/dirt debri on the floor, the UV was so low that my chlorine levels would stay constant for a couple of days and it was all too easy to have the chlorine climb high with my SWG set to its lowest output level.

Note that I was running my pump for 4hrs total during the day to keep the skimming action going simply to maintain a clean water surface.

So with an indoor setup and very irregular use you will find that the SWG will need to be switched off on occasions - The great thing is though, that it is very simple to switch the SWG output on/off without impacting anything else on most chlorinators.


With the SWG set to a low output level it is not as if the chlorine will rise by a huge amount over a 2 to 3 day period (even for an indoor pool) so it is relatively easy to manage when testing your water regularly.


Do you have an appropriate testing kit for your pool water?

 

[kimkats]

The SWG operates when the pump runs. It does depend on the % you have it set on as to how much FC is produced. Now you could set it to 0% when your FC is okay. Then set it to ?% when you need more FC. I will tell you I think it would easier to find your pool's FC needs and use liquid chlorine to manage it.

Kim

 

[zubin3333]

Thanks for the insight! If your outdoor pool is doing that, then than I can't imagine how my pool will go, it literally gets zero light for the vast majority of the time. I will probably have the thing turned off most of the time. Maybe I need to look into one with more advanced scheduling (have it turn on once every week when the pool isn't used, etc...) or maybe they sell a chlorinator that does 1% duty

I don't have one yet, but I am in Australia so I might need to look for something thats available here.

Perhaps liquid chlorine would be the go, but I thought SWG has some benefit to minimising CC production due to super chlorination in the cell? I may be wrong. As this is an indoor pool I don't have a huge number of options in getting rid of CC

 

[Costas > DownUnder]

Perhaps liquid chlorine would be the go, but I thought SWG has some benefit to minimising CC production due to super chlorination in the cell? I may be wrong. As this is an indoor pool I don't have a huge number of options in getting rid of CC

While the SWG does provide a level of 'super' chlorination - all it really means for your indoor pool is that you just run a slightly higher level of chlorine on a normal basis if not using a SWG.

Refer to the CYA chart (link in my signature) and you can see that with a non-SWG equipped pool you just run a slightly higher level of chlorine.

If you monitor and maintain your pool correctly you will not have any CC to worry about.


As you currently don't have a test kit - I recommend you purchase a kit from Clear Choice Labs which will allow you to test your pool water regularly and accurately. Clear Choice Labs Simple. Accurate. Fast.

The Clear Choice Labs Kits and the Taylor kits are the only ones generally recommended on this forum - The Clear Choice Labs kits are the only ones readily available here in Aus.

 

[zubin3333]

Thanks for link! Will get one of those kits

 

[Dirk]

My automation/SWG system is capable of producing chlorine anywhere between 1% to 100% of the time, in 1% increments, anywhere between 1 minute a week to 100% of the time, in one minute increments. The technology is available. Just a matter of what you want to spend to get it done, and what is available to purchase where you live...

That said, as suggested, you might find learning your pool's "chlorine rhythm" first, how much chlorine it needs based on your irregular use patterns, by manually dosing chlorine for a season, might be the way to go. Before you spend thousands on automation, you might find your pool would only require manual dosing on a timetable you'd be perfectly happy maintaining.

 

[Rollercoastr]

My pool is in a light-filled room. On sunny days it gets small patches of direct sun for several hours. I recently wanted to lower my FC levels for a project. I think I started at 6-7. With no swimmer load, it took a couple of weeks for levels to drift down to my goal of FC1.

I leverage the natural attrition of CYA to use pucks when I need/want to. By doing that, I have no desire to have anything automated - it's just too easy to manage. My pool is relatively small, so a fresh puck can cause the FC to spike. I'm considering retrieving pucks from the floater at various sizes and saving them to fine-tune the dosing they provide, but I'm not even sure it's worth the effort. I certainly can't justify the expense of installing a SWG.