SWCG and spa use

[dykes26]

I have notices something interesting and wanted to know if its my imagination of something real.

When I run my spa ( uses the same pump as the pool ) The chlorine "smell" seems to get pretty strong and my son get that red eyed look that you see in pools that are over chlorinated. Is it producing a high level of chlorine and if so should I turn off the generator when using the spa?

 

[257WbyMag]

Properly chlorinated pools and even pools with overly high FC have practically no smell to them at all. The red eyes and chlorine smell is not because you have too much chlorine. Rather, it is because of the presence of combined chloramines (CC). Strong chlorine smells and high CC levels (greater than 0.5) indicate that you probably do not have enough FC in the water and you need to shock your pool to rid it of the CC. Red eyes and irritation can also be related to a pH that is too high or too low. Our normal human body pH is between 7.35 and 7.45 so anything outside of this range can be irritating to us and our eyes.

I would run a panel of tests on your water and see where things are at this point.

 

[Guest]

If you have the SWCG set to supply the pool with adequate amounts of chlorine and you go to spa mode you are effectively introducing the same amount of chlorine to the spa as you would the pool. Since the spa is a much smaller body, and the SWCG does not know that, you are "over-chlorinating" the spa, and you will smell/experience the effects of too much chlorine.

I believe that the proper way to install a SWCG is to the pool only. The water will have chlorine when it goes to the spa via the spa bypass, so in day to day application the spa will maintain a chlorine residual also. Since most people do not use their spa daily (or even weekly/monthly/yearly, in some cases!), this is generally true. Folks that may have high spa usage may not be able to use this, but I have not found that person yet!

 

[lborne]

My SWG is only in the pool return line and when in spa mode, it gets no flow so shuts down.

We use our spa mostly at night on the weekends. So I typically will heat it up during the day using solar which means the pool gets no chlorine that day. So then I need to run in regular mode the next morning to make up for that.

 

[Bama Rambler]

Next time you use it test the FC & CC just before you get in and just after you get out. That may give some insight in to what is happening.

 

[dykes26]

My SWCG runs if uses the same line as the pool : ( My FC and CC numbers are great thus my SWGC is super chlorinating the 600 gallon spa. Ill turn it off when using the spa.

Thanks for the input!