SWG cheaper than liquid chlorine?

[Rattus Suffocatus]

A SWCG pulls about 100W for a 40Kgal unit (measured) WHEN ON, so lets say worst case you'd use 125W. (55K unit and 27K pool) The cell would need to be on for 8 hours to use a KWh. At that rate worst case you'd run it probably 6-7 hours on, so yeah, you'd spend 0.35-0.45 cents a day IF you ran it during the day. You can actually run it at night if you wanted, it would just then be more like dumping in the bleach in a batch in the evening (i.e. high FC in the morning and it would run down to the evening), which is how I ran my pool for the first season anyway dumping in LC due to my schedule. Not ideal, but it certainly could work. Or a hybrid of that. Maybe on during the peak hours of daylight around noon and on at night?

But even at $0.45/day * 365 = $164.25 / year... I bet it's still a wash or only a little more.

Off season, and shorter winter days would reduce that even more. I bet you could get that down under $100/yr if you were creative about scheduling.

All are valid ways of managing the pool, and you could say that a SWCG is a "luxury" but it's like upgrading from a Yugo to a Chevy and not a Yugo to a Lamborghini... It's well worth not driving the Yugo, IMHO.
Like I said I might rig up a peristaltic pump for acid next season. I started the project last year and never got around to finishing it. The cool thing about that is I can dilute the acid 4:1 or even 10:1 if I wanted to be safer running unattended.

And by the way, if it were me that Mdragger88 was referring to, I was buying my LC for far less than $3.74 a gallon back then. I was getting 12% for like $3.50 (we have a pool store here in Tucson that had punch cards, etc., so in bulk it was cheaper than Wal-Mart) or 10% (Wal-Mart) for about 3.25 back then (I still use 10% Wally LC for my detached hot tub)... realistically I wouldn't count on a cell lasting more than 5 years, but the electronics hopefully will last through at least two cells. And the replacement cells are about 2/3 the cost of a new unit. In the Midwest, your TA should be reasonable, so 5 years is probably a given.. maybe 7. You'd be lucky to get 10 out of a cell. I figure I'll get 3-4 out of my cell but my fill water TA is terrible.

So it could be cheaper. It's possible.. I am saying every time I have done the calculations -- it has been a wash. I will admit that a couple of times the tablet guys in the neighborhood asked me about it-- especially when they do CYA based water changes and when you couldn't get chlorine of any type for several weeks earlier this year. It's just freaking nice to not have to worry about that, honestly. but the initial price tag always scares them off. It's nice to be a net saver, then you can justify paying up front for something like this.

Just do it. Has anyone ever heard of someone saying "I wish I never bought a salt cell?" Ever? It's NIICCEE...

 

[ti_chris]

Pool heat exchangers are made from copper. Mine is 8 years old. What would salt have to do with the copper line?

Also, a main drain is not needed. So plug it off if you are concerned.

It's true that it's not needed, but I would assume that it improves circulation given that the jets are all at the top.

As for the heat exchangers, there's 2 common materials for them (copper, cupro nickel). The first one tends to be used in cheaper exchangers and tend to have lower warranties. The second alloy is more tolerant to salt and tend to have longer warranties. With a warranty of only a few years; most of these can afford to break down due to salt after 10 years where as I'm not really interested in quickly reducing the life of my already 40-50 years old main drain line leak due to the damage of increased salt levels over many years. Every local resources I've talked to including the ones that would be motivated to sell me an SWG have discouraged against it due to the main drain's material.

 

[mknauss]

Are you monitoring your salinity now? If you use chlorine, you add salt continually to your water.

 

[ti_chris]

Are you monitoring your salinity now? If you use chlorine, you add salt continually to your water.

Yes I am. It's at 700. 5x less than it would need for an SWG right now.

 

[TexEdmond]

Yes I am. It's at 700. 5x less than it would need for an SWG right now.

Your pool is about the same size as mine and I was about 200ppm lower than you starting out. I think I've put 18 bags of salt in my pool and they were about $6 each at Home Depot.