Need feedback - Jandy TruClear - Plumbing design

[hseeng]

Hi folks, I would like the forums feedback on my thoughts. I like to add back a SWG to my pool system. I have limited options (space) to add in a SWG cell after the heater and return lines. See pad layout below.
As you can see by below diagram it believe the Jandy TruClear cell will fit nicely and will only take a few mins to install.

I know the cell output capacity meets the specs for my pool size however I know it should be over sized to 1.5 to 2 times
Jandy Pro Series TruClear manufacturers specs

• Maximum Output of Hypochlorous Acid is 420 g per Day @ 3000 ppm
• The maximum volume of water with one TruClear is 132,000 liters (35,000 gallons)

I read somewhere I will need .35 to .5 pounds per day for every 10,000 gallons. And for my 20,340 gal pool thats 322 to 462 grams per day needed

For a short Canadian pool season ~180 days and my pool size
Will a Jandy TruClear be sufficient or undersized? I assume I will need to run the unit at 80 to 100% all of the time. (read below)
If not the anyone recommend a different unit that will fit in my pad and piping?

Thanks


Specs
Inground, vinyl liner pool
20,340gal or 77,000L
Test kit is Taylor K1004 with added FAS DPD kit
Sunlight will hit 92% of the pool for about 85% of the day.
Live in Canada - pool run time time is ~180 days or ~4320 hrs per season

In 2021
New liner replaced in Aug and fresh water with zero CYA
Pool pad was rebuilt with new heater, all new 2" piping, new 2" head/sand filter and New Jandy Vs FroPro, new water feature pump
Pad setup in unique since it has 2 pumps. VS pump for 24hr circulation/filter the other pump is for the water blade feature that can be turned on demand with remote options.

Original Chlorination before rebuild
Was using a DelOzone Tro Pure 20,000g unit SWG Cell and 2 Ozone cells. Unit worked great for 10 years (1ppm FC all year was all I needed). Unit was old and had several issues, It was discontinued so I retired it. I also have a hayward 3" dispenser which I use to open the pool for the first 2-3 weeks and end of season when the water temps are below 60F when the SWG is not recommend to use at that temp. I also use the CYA in the pucks to get it back to 40PPM after winter drain. Never an issue. Water sparkled

COVID and 3" puck dispenser
Last year during COVID and closed stoes etc... I thought I try to only only the 3" puck dispenser (first year) and use liquid on days when pool needed an extra boost or to shock. Well that was a disaster. The neighbor cut all the trees down that shaded my pool all year. This was great for keeping the pool warm but learned a new problem. Late July CYA was way to high and by Aug it was over 80+. I dont have a test for CYA, put used the pool store to do water sample. One test was 90 the other was way off and I did not trust the spin disk tester. I assumed CYA was 90 to 110 but never sure. Another store used Taylor drops said CYA was 80 late July.... I ended up having algae reappearing ever 5 to 10 days after shocking many times and discovered I would lose the pool clarity very quickly (algae bloom forming over night). At that time i was keeping FC @ 3-5. CC was always zero until I lost control of the bloom after i was away for the weekend. I then kept FC ~15ppm for the rest of Aug and SLAMed to 20-27. Too scared to SLAM to over 30ppm since it was a brand new $5000 liner. Stopped using pucks first week of Aug after I cam back from holidays. I was burning up 1-3L (pool store CL @12% maybe) per day and seemed like a 20L carboy every week.


Cut out Injector T and union and put in a Truclear

 

[HermanTX]

If you search the forum, the Jandy TruClear has had performance issues. The Jandy AquaPure SWCG is the better product. They have a model AP1400 which is good to 40k gals which works well. This is the SWCG I have on my 15k gal pool.
The length of the unit may be longer than the TruClear.

 

[newdude]

If not the anyone recommend a different unit that will fit in my pad and piping?

Look like you have enough pipe on either end to add a loop and have as much space as you need for any unit.



The flow switch whether internal or stand alone needs to be on the up pipe so that if/when it fails, gravity doesn't close it without flow letting gas build up risking an explosion.

 

[PoolGate]

I've installed the Tru Clear. It's a straight forward installation. It's very sensitive to high calcium and if the swg blades get calcium buildup you'll have issues. Keep an eye on your CSI. It does suffer from early failure but Jandy is good about sending replacements.

 

[BC78]

Can you move that check valve to the vertical pipe?

 

[hseeng]

Thanks for the feed back. Updated my pool in 2020 that was 30 years old. new heater, pump, filter, piping, liner. I had a SWG for 12 years. Was worn out so tried to maintain the pool using liquid and triclor pucks for 2 years. I liked the ease of use with a SWG

Be interesting in the real science on if sacrificial anode is needed in a pool or is it a placebo or snake oil marketing. We know they work for certain applications. (e.g boats, water heaters)
A purpose of sacrificial anode is to protect other metals in the system from corroding first.

My 2 cents. What metal parts are in an average inground vinyl lined pool that need protecting...
Pool ladder rails - Made of stainless steel. Note: ladder mine is 30 years or and not oxidized yet. I have/had SWG, Ozone and triclor over 30 years
Mounting Screws - Screws in side water loop. To hold on the gasket in place for main drain, skimmer plate, jet return, and stair copings. All stainless steel. No issue in 30 years.
Mounting Screws - Screws in outside water loop. Sand filter, pump housing, diverters, check values, gate valves, diving board, Should be all stainless steel. No issue in 30 years.
Pool light - Most new ones are all plastic with stainless screws holding it together
Plumbing - Should be PVC, spa flex or poly pipe. Gear clamps are metal on outside of water system. Should be all stainless steel. I dug up some on my 30 pool to fix something on the poly pipe. Some of the head nuts started to rust a small amount.
Pump bearings, seals and shafts - All should be stainless. E.g I had 4 pumps in my system. Changed Hayward SPX1250XZ2C Spring Seal. These parts never corroded. Impeller shaft was metal never corroded.
Springs - On inside of sand filter, pool pump impeller spring, heater bimetal bypass valve and a small spring to keep gate closed in check valve. All stainless steel. None ever corroded.
Solar components - dont have any, but be the same as everything else. Rubber, plastics, and stainless screws.
SWG chlorinator - All plastic but except for cell plates. We know the titanium plates will tolerate acid to allow cleaning of calcium build up. Sacrificial anode should be useless here.

Pool steel walls - These should be galvanized walls. Quality is dependent on brand and manufacturing and who dipped the walls. In my setup the walls were in the ground for 25-29 years before I changed the vinyl liner. On the inside of the steel walls there was a a few spots of rust that I rust coated. But very minor. Most of the corrosion was where holes where cut. I had many pin holes in old liner (was 17 years old before replacement) and it was a salt pool. So little corrosion to walls where visible.
Regarding having an anode in a vinyl liner pool. The water in a vinyl liner pool should never have a direct contact with the galvanized wall. These galvanized walls are zinc coated. A sacrificial anode so would be made of Zinc also. So wouldn't the entire outside of the pool be a huge anode? There should be no direct current path from the water in the pool connecting to the steel walls. Example no direct low resistance path between the two, so no reaction. I would a assume there is some sort of "potential" of current between the two. Think of how a capacitor or how batteries work with layers of film. Some sort of inductance... A bit above my knowledge.

Heater core - Depending on brand... the metal heat exchanger core could be copper, stainless, chromium alloy titanium etc.. I would assume this is the only part that needs protecting if you have one.
In a gas fired "in house" water heater they have a sacrificial anode. Raypak is installing them in their Protec heaters. And as an add on. Raypak ProTek Shield Assembly - 017960F

Im not sure its worth the engineering costs for Raypak to design, create tooling, manufacture, distribute, update docs, and support this add-on part if it was just snake oil. I cannot see them making that much more money selling it. So it must solve an issue. They probably make more money selling a smart Wi-Fi add-on so you can monitor your heater from phone or internet.

When I redid the piping, I ran a 4awg copper cable between the steel walls, pump, and heater and new SWG. So everything should be bonded properly.
My last Raypak 266 was 16 years old and replaced. The flame burner tray rusted out completely and caused the burners to sink a bit thus resulting in flames reaching the plastic headers warping it and leaking. If I recall the core was ok and the outside of the core tubes looked worse then inside.

I was debating installing an anode when I install the new SWG in a few months. My Raypak heater does not have the premium heater core.... After writing this Im pretty sure I can go without.

​

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Heater core - Depending on brand... the metal heat exchanger core could be copper, stainless, chromium alloy titanium etc.. I would assume this is the only part that needs protecting if you have one.
In a gas fired "in house" water heater they have a sacrificial anode. Raypak is installing them in their Protec heaters. And as an add on. Raypak ProTek Shield Assembly - 017960F

Im not sure its worth the engineering costs for Raypak to design, create tooling, manufacture, distribute, update docs, and support this add-on part if it was just snake oil. I cannot see them making that much more money selling it. So it must solve an issue. They probably make more money selling a smart Wi-Fi add-on so you can monitor your heater from phone or internet.

When I redid the piping, I ran a 4awg copper cable between the steel walls, pump, and heater and new SWG. So everything should be bonded properly.
My last Raypak 266 was 16 years old and replaced. The flame burner tray rusted out completely and caused the burners to sink a bit thus resulting in flames reaching the plastic headers warping it and leaking. If I recall the core was ok and the outside of the core tubes looked worse then inside.

I was debating installing an anode when I install the new SWG in a few months. My Raypak heater does not have the premium heater core.... After writing this Im pretty sure I can go without.

​

Not even this ....

Most gas fired pool heaters use a copper or copper-nickel (cupronickel) alloy heat exchanger. Most pool heat pumps use a titanium condenser coil to transfer heat into the water and a copper or aluminum evap coil to exchange heat with the air. All of these metals are more noble than ferrous materials and so even if a galvanic couple exists, they will not "rust". Erosion and/or damage to the water-facing coil is almost always the result of bad water chemistry (pH too low), mechanical damage due to too high of a flow rate, or fouling/scaling causing the coil to become plugged up.

Pentair has used a zinc plug on the header body for a long time but it really doesn't do anything. I suspect the Raypak ProTea shield is more of the same - added on to negate the possibility of warranty claims.