Salt Water Chlorine Generators and Sacrificial Anodes

[ShallowWater]

Are they necessary to prevent corrosion or are they snake oil?

 

[PoolStored]

Are they necessary to prevent corrosion or are they snake oil?

Looking for advice, salt cell cracked, and multiple erosion spots 24 month post build

Hi everyone, I haven't been on much since I posted our pool build July 2015. I had the worst pool builder experience ever, and have since been to court with them. Well - we just had our new pool company open the pool and we have a few issues again. 1. There is rusting on both the railing and...

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Snake oil

 

[Newdude]

Maybe if you had salt water, but you have pool water, so.

If they mattered at 3500 ppm instead of the 35000 ppm of seawater, they'd install them on all the liquid chlorine pools that get to SWG range after a year or two.

But call it a salt pool and everyone loses their minds.

 

 

[ShallowWater]

What I thought. Seems if it is kept in balance there shouldn't be a problem. I never had a problem with my previous SWCG pool for nearly 8 years when we sold the house. I had that on the cell we installed upon purchase and it was still working fine too.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I think installers like to put them in because (A) they get to charge you more money for something that probably costs them very little to purchase, and, (B) it covers them from any “corrosion” liability issues because they can say, “Gee, couldn’t be anything we did cuz we installed that anode doo-hickey device on your pool and it protects against corrosion cuz they use them on steamships and buried tanks and stuff …”

I have had an SWG pool for 10 years with no anode and my pool hasn’t turned into a giant pile of rust … yet …

 

[ShallowWater]

I did use Brass Rail Inserts but only 304 Stainless for the rails because frankly I was running out of money (Owner Built still cost me nearly $100,000 out here in California). If the rails go I can replace those. I'm running between 7.2 and 7.8 on pH with TA at 80 now that I've got the TA/pH balance dailed in. My CSI is staying slightly negative for the most part but I think it is okay.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I did use Brass Rail Inserts but only 304 Stainless for the rails because frankly I was running out of money (Owner Built still cost me nearly $100,000 out here in California). If the rails go I can replace those. I'm running between 7.2 and 7.8 on pH with TA at 80 now that I've got the TA/pH balance dailed in. My CSI is staying slightly negative for the most part but I think it is okay.

That’s a good choice. A lot of people will opt to put in cheap aluminum inserts and they corrode like crazy. Brass will work fine. The 304 stainless will be ok in the pool. Just keep an eye on it especially if there are any fastener screws or bolts as those are almost alway cheap grades of steel and will corrode. As long as you’re not dumping chemicals in the pool around the rails, you should be good.

You could, if you wanted to, bolt a small zinc anode or magnesium anode onto the rail in an inconspicuous spot and that will galvanically protect it. Kind of like how mag anodes are bolted on to outboard motor propellers.

 

[ShallowWater]

Only one rail is in the pool. The rest are on the deck. I can go to West Marine and get a marine grade stainless bolt for the compression fastener.