Sacrificial zinc anode

[Nathan Johnson]

I feel this belongs in SWG. Customers ladders showing no signs of corrosion with a pool tool inline, grounded zinc anode. Every other salt pools ladders have bad corrosion. I recently read a thread debunking any efficacy of zincs. All his equipment is hayward so I'm assuming his ladders are too. Replaced filter this week and couldn't re use old anode. I've used the 'throw in' models and totally agree they're all hype buy this guy's ladder rails speak volumes. Thoughts?

 

[ajw22]

A properly targeted and installed zinc sacrificial anode can be helpful. Zinc will corrode before the ladder's aluminum.

Sacrificial anodes need to be designed and installed correctly to work. Hanging a zinc slug in your plumbing and hooking it up to the bonding does nothing to protect your pool or equipment.

Comments are often thrown out as generalizations here. In general, putting a sacrificial anode on a pool bonding grid is worthless. Targeting a zinc anode connected to an aluminum ladder or cover rails can work if correctly installed.

 

[ajw22]

Correct installation of a sacrificial anode involves matching the surface areas. The areas of the cathode (your steel pool wall, or aluminum ladder, or aluminum cover rail) and the anode (your chunk of zinc), need to be equivalent. Otherwise, you will completely passivate the zinc metal with a zinc oxide/zinc hydroxide layer, and it no longer conducts current. The anode becomes "polarized" (which is just a fancy way to say it is non-conductive and charged like a capacitor), and it no longer protects anything. At that point, the only thing that keeps the anode going is by mechanically disturbing the surface and hoping that enough passivation flakes off so that it can conduct again and develop a cathodic current

 

[1poolman1]

I feel this belongs in SWG. Customers ladders showing no signs of corrosion with a pool tool inline, grounded zinc anode. Every other salt pools ladders have bad corrosion. I recently read a thread debunking any efficacy of zincs. All his equipment is hayward so I'm assuming his ladders are too. Replaced filter this week and couldn't re use old anode. I've used the 'throw in' models and totally agree they're all hype buy this guy's ladder rails speak volumes. Thoughts?

Hayward doesn't make hand rails/ladders. It was probably an SR Smith ladder, they are the largest supplier of that type of product. They are stainless steel, not aluminum.
Properly installed anode? Good.
The rest don't do much of anything.