It's finally starting to warm up in the north, and we just had our pool opened yesterday. I inherited the pool with our home purchase last fall, and immediately found high CYA as the pool builder (and previous cleaner) just kept feeding it trichlor pucks. When I bought the house and stopped using the pucks, CYA was at 130. It's been raining since we opened the pool, so I'll get out there tonight to measure the levels. The builder put in 3 gallons of liquid chlorine upon opening, and the pool looks great.
I had the builder open the pool and the first question he asked was if I needed more 3" pucks. I told him I was concerned with the CYA from last year and was just going to use liquid chlorine in the meantime and he repeated what he said last fall - we only look at pH and Chlorine - CYA isn't important. I asked about converting to salt water, and he said he doesn't do that, and if I do, he will no longer open/close for me. The builder has a reputation in the area as one of the top pool builders, and will only open/close pools that he has installed, but I suppose I can move to someone else to open/close.
Sorry for the preamble, but looking for advice on converting to salt water, and what to consider, given I have a desire to move to automation in the future. We currently have a Sta-rite intellipro variable speed pump, and would like to add an automation panel that can control it, plus a SWG, and I'm also looking at adding a slide, which I'd like to automate the valve for. We also have two incandescent pool lights that I'd like to swap to color LEDs.
1) advice on what automation panels to consider? I'd prefer to install myself, so that may limit my ability to source, as I believe some are dealer-only?
2) given my pool and preference toward automation / self-install, what SWG should I be looking at?
3) I'm looking at SWG so I can slightly lower my maintenance time on the pool - perhaps a liquid chlorine automation system would also do this - should I possibly look that way instead of SWG?
Thanks!
I had the builder open the pool and the first question he asked was if I needed more 3" pucks. I told him I was concerned with the CYA from last year and was just going to use liquid chlorine in the meantime and he repeated what he said last fall - we only look at pH and Chlorine - CYA isn't important. I asked about converting to salt water, and he said he doesn't do that, and if I do, he will no longer open/close for me. The builder has a reputation in the area as one of the top pool builders, and will only open/close pools that he has installed, but I suppose I can move to someone else to open/close.
Sorry for the preamble, but looking for advice on converting to salt water, and what to consider, given I have a desire to move to automation in the future. We currently have a Sta-rite intellipro variable speed pump, and would like to add an automation panel that can control it, plus a SWG, and I'm also looking at adding a slide, which I'd like to automate the valve for. We also have two incandescent pool lights that I'd like to swap to color LEDs.
1) advice on what automation panels to consider? I'd prefer to install myself, so that may limit my ability to source, as I believe some are dealer-only?
2) given my pool and preference toward automation / self-install, what SWG should I be looking at?
3) I'm looking at SWG so I can slightly lower my maintenance time on the pool - perhaps a liquid chlorine automation system would also do this - should I possibly look that way instead of SWG?
Thanks!
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