New SWG install - late in the season

[JasonBigCountry]

Clean work. Just wondering why you added the valve in after the MPV?

Excellent question - it doesn't serve a lot of purpose. Expediency and part reuse.

That whole assembly, from the gray PVC coming out of the MPV to the gray PVC union half on the other side of the 2" ball valve (most of my plumbing is 1.5") was already put together and sitting in my box of misc pool bits. Last year (before I did the 'pool shed'), it was hooked up to either the skimmer or the return jet. It's mate (same contraption, hidden behind the sand filter in the picture above) is hooked up between the Cell and the return jet.

I'd already decided to use it's mate between the cell and the pool, and I saw it sitting there and thought, "that's about the right size for the other side... longer than it needs to be, but will save me cutting and gluing a piece."
I don't know about you, but every time I can defer cutting and gluing moderately pricey PVC bits together is a chance to avoid making a dumb mistake that costs me $15 and a trip back to the store!

The reason it's a 2" ball valve vs 1.5" is to reduce flow restriction. At the time I did that (1.5 years ago), I was really trying to minimize it. Obviously I was less concerned this last go-round.

My next project will probably be converting to a cartridge filter - but for now this is working. My little 'sprinkler attachment' on the end of my waste hose makes it much less unpleasant than it used to be to do a backwash. If I do that conversion, I'll probably do a major re-plumb, because the hook up points will be quite different.

 

[JasonBigCountry]

Another update - I got my Taylor K-1766 yesterday.

After a few very confusing attempts at testing my salinity, and getting some wild results, I went to youtube, found Taylor's instructional video, and then went back and re-read the instructions a bit more slowly... I was only supposed to add 10ml of water to the 25ml sample tube (not 25ml!). That made a big difference.

I then determined that I had 2000ppm in my pool already. Kudos to Jim who gave me the heads-up:

Since you have been using Liquid Chlorine, you might be surprised at how salty your pool water already is.. Make sure you test it before you add any salt.

I bought some salt, and added 200 lbs (holding 80 in reserve) to the pool. An hour or so later, after stirring it with my brush, and turning my Seagull Pro loose in the pool (without the basket - just wanted it to crawl around and churn the water for me), I decided it looked like it had mostly disolved, so I rechecked salinity. Got a reading of 3200. Woo hoo!

Started up the CircuPool RJ-60+ (at 50% for now), and it got to work within a couple minutes


I've noticed that the salinity indication on the SWG reads lower than the Taylor test. It didn't complain of Low Salt, but the instant PPM was bouncing around near 2600-2800 (I.e., by a few hundred as compared to my 3200). Not too surprising that there's a difference, but do others see a similar offset?

I later added another 40 lb, stirred it in too, and left it for the night.

This morning, I'm reading 3600 on the Taylor, and 3000 AVG PPM on the Circupool. So, the offset is still there. (I'd considered maybe it just needed longer to settle/dissolve)

I've also decided that the salinity test is the messiest one so far! I have to clean the stirring bean and the sample tube with soap and water afterward.

Considering that, I'm predicting I'll start to rely on the indication on the SWG most of the time...

 

[Pauls234]

There will always be differences because the cells use different methods than the k1766 to measure salt levels.

K1766 is more accurate, but general rule is as long as your cell is happy and generating then there is no need to adjust.