Salt Water pool?

[williambowe]

Good afternoon, my old (3 years old) PolyPro Elite pool gave up the ghost. The horizonal support brackets rusted through. Unfortunately, the manufacturer no longer makes them...surprise surprise surprise. Plus, Amazon and ebay don't have enough. I need to purchase a new above group pool kit.

So, a few questions for you folks.

1. My local pool store, small business, told me they don't recommend salt water pools. I was told to avoid using them. Opinions? I really don't want to go into the buying pool chemical routine.

2. Pool Factory has a kit to install a salt water pool. I understand the surrounding metal is actually steel and prone to rust. I'm just hoping the interior with the liner against it can survive for 10 years (my best hope.) The top of the frame has a plastic cover and I'm assuming this would keep the salt water away from the more at risk components. Total cost of their pool kit is about $2,500. The cost of the cheaper PolyPro (which may have gone out of the big above ground pool business) or an Intex product is anywhere $600-$800. However, if I have to replace the pool every three years...I still am spending about $2,400. Thoughts?

I would rather go with a salt system but still need to do analysis. Oh, he also told me that chlorine is going to go through the roof this coming season. Most of it comes from China and the cost is going to be an additional $30-$50 per bucket. That adds to the cost of ownership along with the other chemicals necessary to go the more traditional route.

Bill

 

[mknauss]

Welcome to the forum.
Quality pool construction will work fine with a SWCG. Cheap pools will rust with any water near them.

Since TFP sees solid chlorine as a non-sustainable form of chlorination, the prices for trichlor will not effect us much. Liquid chlorine is made here in the USA. SWCG prices are rising due to rare earth metals used in their construction.

 

[JeaniB]

I can't imagine the trouble keeping up with my pool without my SWG. I have a relatively cheap Intex XTR frame 32'X16'X54" pool. I bought it before COVID shook the world, so the pool, pump, sandfilter and SWG was less than $2000. This is only my second season, so I can't speak to longevity, but so far I have not noticed any rust. The cheap Intex SWG keeps up until the very peak of heat and swimmers when I have to add a bit of bleach. The cost of chemicals when managed the TFP way is very reasonable. I used about $25 of salt, maybe $60 of muriatic acid(my pH runs high), $30 liquid bleach, $10 of CYA, $25 of Borax and will add $25 of polyquat when I close in November. I will have bleach and muriatic acid left over. Much cheaper than what my local pool store recommends each season!
Best of luck to you!

 

[Tko818]

...

 

[Dirk]

Hi, and welcome to TFP!

Sorry, I can't help with the buying advice, but just wanted to point out: all pools are salt water pools! If you use chlorine, acid or humans in your pool, they all leave salt behind. That salt doesn't evaporate, but rather accumulates, and after a while your "fresh water pool" will have plenty of salt in it. So if an AGP frame is going to fail by using an SWG, it'll fail anyway if you don't.

And of course a pool store doesn't recommend salt water pools! Because they know you're going to be making your own chlorine instead of buying it from them. Not only that, but because you won't be in as often to buy their chlorine products, they're not going to have as many opportunities to sell you all their other "magic" potions. Like their recommended weekly "shock" product. Did you know, that if you maintain a proper level of FC all the time, you never have to shock a pool? Ever. Guess what makes maintaining a proper level of FC really easy...

 

[Dirk]

Here's a thread you might want to follow:

'Saltwater' Ready Above Ground Pool Wall

Hello all! :geek: We just retired our Intex Ultra pool due to the frame rusting into 1,000 pieces and are looking for something more permanent. I installed a SWG in early spring and it didn't take it long to rust the pool apart. We couldn't keep up with the standard chlorine pool and the SWG...

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[Tko818]

I can't imagine the trouble keeping up with my pool without my SWG. I have a relatively cheap Intex XTR frame 32'X16'X54" pool. I bought it before COVID shook the world, so the pool, pump, sandfilter and SWG was less than $2000. This is only my second season, so I can't speak to longevity, but so far I have not noticed any rust. The cheap Intex SWG keeps up until the very peak of heat and swimmers when I have to add a bit of bleach. The cost of chemicals when managed the TFP way is very reasonable. I used about $25 of salt, maybe $60 of muriatic acid(my pH runs high), $30 liquid bleach, $10 of CYA, $25 of Borax and will add $25 of polyquat when I close in November. I will have bleach and muriatic acid left over. Much cheaper than what my local pool store recommends each season!
Best of luck to you!

How often are you running your SWG? I just hooked mine up two weeks ago, and at the time I also had a lot of shock in the pool to clear it up because my previous pump broke and the pool turned greenish. Yesterday I noticed the water slightly cloudy and the free chlorine was at 0, running the swg 6 hours a day! Do I crank up the swg to a longer run time or do I just throw in some chlorine every week or two to bump assist the SWG? I’m in Florida so we still have some pretty intense heat..

 

[Dirk]

I would set the SWG for 80% output and notch up the runtime until FC holds. That'll leave you a 20% adjustment buffer for hot days or big parties.

Though there are plenty of other strategies that would work, too. So here's one MO to find the runtime:

You know it's too low now, so goose the runtime a half hour (after setting the SWG % where you want it). Test the FC and bring its level to target level using liquid chlorine. Note the time.

Next day, at the same time of day, test the FC. If it's still at target level, you're done. If it's high, turn down the runtime. If it's low, goose the runtime a half hour. Bring the FC level to target level using liquid chlorine.

Repeat until FC is holding. Done!

The idea is to test at the same time each day, and to bring the FC to target using chlorine. That'll get you to the SWG% and runtime the quickest.

 

[JeaniB]

How often are you running your SWG? I just hooked mine up two weeks ago, and at the time I also had a lot of shock in the pool to clear it up because my previous pump broke and the pool turned greenish. Yesterday I noticed the water slightly cloudy and the free chlorine was at 0, running the swg 6 hours a day! Do I crank up the swg to a longer run time or do I just throw in some chlorine every week or two to bump assist the SWG? I’m in Florida so we still have some pretty intense heat..

My SWG runs the full 12 hours during the hot months. The Intex SWG is either on or off, you cannot adjust the output. According to pool math it generates 2.9ppm in 12 hours. So if you are losing more than that a day, you need to add. My CYA is about 60, and I have added borax. My goal is to keep my FC 4-5. For about 4 weeks during the high UV days with 3-4 adults in the pool for 5 hours, I might drop to FC of 3, so I add 35oz of 10% liquid bleach on those days. If we are in the pool a lot, I might add it every other day. It is still way easier than adding bleach every day. It has cooled down here, and I'm running it 4 hours a day and still staying a bit high at 6. I keep my salt 3200-3600. I have never had cloudy water.

 

[mguzzy]

The salinity in a SWG pool is not high enough to cause any significant corrosion to the materials. You may find you have just as high a salinity without an SWG since liquid chlorine adds salt too.

 

[Tjie77]

I have this very dilemma right now. I've just replaced my Bestway Hydrium 3m round with a 5m x 3.6m version and it's now 16300L as opposed to 8kL. Using more chlorine now and going through the chlorine drums more rapidly obviously. I can see this will cost me a bit once summer is over.
Looking into a Bestway SWCG which apparently does 12g/hr. They say it will handle up to a 45kL pool. It will be handy as they accept bestway hose fittings so it will be super easy to set up. Pool shops seem to be out of stock though...

 

[Dirk]

So what is the dilemma? Whether to get the SWG or not? Or that you can't get one yet? Get one as soon as you can, of course!

 

[Tjie77]

No one in Australia has the Bestway SWCG...I spoke to my favourite supplier that sells them and they said they're no longer selling them due to corrosion concerns with metal pools.
My previous bestway freshwater pool was in operation for almost 3 years with no rust...
The only other one is an Intex branded one that also produces 12g/hr. They mention a max pool size of 15000 gallon, so it should suit my 4300 gallon pool perfectly.
I just hope my enviro max pump is not too strong for it.

 

[Chad1979]

Bestway, intex, and coleman i believe are the same thing other than rebranding.

 

[Tjie77]

is anyone using an Intex/Bestway/? brand SWG with a high flow pump other than a intex or Bestway branded one?