SWG ratings

[ajw22]

It’s really not fair to companies like Hayward to have to compete against products made in China with stolen intellectual property and products marketed with exaggerated claims.

In many industries there have been and there are today bad actors who compete with unfair and often illegal marketing and financial practices.

In the 1990's AT&T executives were baffled as to how they could not compete with Worldcom. This ultimately lead to the breakup of AT&T as their problems were blamed on mismanagement. in the early 2000's it came to light that Worldcom was cooking the books with accounting frauds and eventually its CEO Bernie Ebbers was convicted of securities fraud and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

AT&T could not compete against a company committing accounting frauds on a grand scale. If not for the illegal activities it is likely the telecomm industry would be very different today.

There are similar stories to be told in the energy industry with Enron and electronic equipment with Tyco.

Bad actors even today continue to make it difficult for companies who play by all the rules to compete. Eventually the scams come to light but often leave carnage of bankrupt companies, ruined careers, and lost jobs in their wake for those who followed the laws and regulations.

The Biggest Stock Scams of Recent Time

Where there is money, there are swindlers. Protect yourself by learning how investors have been betrayed in the past.

www.investopedia.com

 

[JamesW]

That's all true and its a manufacturing and ip problem well beyond pool equipment

People should not purchase products that they know are not competing fairly.

FBI and MI5 Chiefs Issue Warning on China IP Theft

'The Chinese Government Is Set on Stealing Your Technology,' Says FBI Director Wray

Beijing has a long-standing practice of stealing trade secrets in its bid to compete as a 21st-century superpower, whether through advanced persistent threat groups or a Chinese national caught digging out genetically modified corn from Iowa farm fields.

“The Chinese government is set on stealing your technology - whatever it is that makes your industry tick," said U.S. FBI Director Christopher Wray.

It "sees cyber as the pathway to cheat and steal on a massive scale," he added in prepared remarks delivered Wednesday at the London headquarters of the U.K.'s Security Service, known as MI5.

"By volume, most of what is at risk from Chinese Communist Party aggression is not, so to speak, my stuff.

It's yours," said Ken McCallum, MI5 director general, before an audience of business and academic leaders.

 

[HermanTX]

I was in the energy sector with a tier 1 service company with product manufacturing. We only put components to China relating to different end assembled products. Also outsourced to India and Thailand and Malaysia with same strategy. We brought all components back to a central hub in yet a different country to assemble, test and ship. The only complete products we made in China where those that we coordinated with a design team in China and they owned the product and we became a sole distributor. We gave rights for them to sell in China and in some other countries we felt we could not service but held sole rights for all major countries drilling for oil and gas. This worked for our needs to lower costs, but we were very stringent on QA procedures and many times had our own QA guys sitting in their mfg. facilities overseeing processes. We had a dedicated contract team to ensure the terms would be followed and any breach of trying to copy product (even just the components that could be sold as a spare part) were severely dealt with by moving that part to another country. It was a lot of effort but gave us the benefits we needed and yet retained product ownership with minimal copy issues.

 

[trivetman]

After lugging 4 cases of LC into my basement yesterday, I am quickly reminded of why I tried the SWG in the first place. I am sure my second try at this will be a much better experience!!

Can anyone confirm that the Hayward cell and all the Hayward design imitations out there use the exact same cell size and more importantly- all have compatible threads on the PVC? If I went with that design whether it be Hayward, Calimar or something else it would be good if I could count on not having to redo any of the PVC. Heres hoping!

 

[trivetman]

Hayward T-15 has been on for a day. It delivered EXACTLY the amount of chlorine the specs predicted overnight last night. Very happy after 24 hours.

I don’t know what happened with my Circupool unit. I am just calling it a dud unit as I know others have had better luck.

I do need to get a vsp in now as even though the Hayward is looking good, its going to need more runtime than I want to give with my single speed.

 

[Texas Splash]

I don’t know what happened with my Circupool unit. I am just calling it a dud unit as I know others have had better luck.

No regrets. It's good that you are happy with your new cell, after all, it's a healthy bit of money. As James alluded to much earlier in this thread and others, there could be several factors attributable to the production differences, most notably realistic gains versus ideal scenarios and inflated advertisements. As for me, I modified my chemistry a bit with my RJ-45 and it seems to be doing much better for daily production. I doubt the overnight gains would equal what it should produce, but I'm doing well. Glad you are out of the liquid business and back to enjoying the pool again.

 

[bbillingsley1985]

Congrats on the hayward! I think you will be very happy with it. Trust me when I say nobody stressed themselves out more than me trying to decide which swg brand to go with lol. I over researched it all. Was very close to getting a circupool and was actually going to buy the edge 40, but at the last minute I found a great deal on The Hayward w3aqr15 system decently discouted, that made it a no brainer. I thought of circupool as a middle ground, the cheap knockoffs as obviously the dirt cheap short term life route, or Hayward (top of the line).

I've had it running now a little over a week and I've tested my FC daily during that week making sure it's dialed in and its outputs matches exactly with what the pool math calculator thinks it should produce. I really do believe this system is very much in the ballpark of what they advertise, unlike other cheaper brands.

Hopefully it lasts us a long time. If you're like me and done the math on what we've spent on chlorine just for this year, I dont see how we don't come out ahead or at least come close to breaking even from a $ standpoint over time and that doesn't even include the much easier time we will have maintaining/better feel of water on skin, etc.

 

[CedarChuck]

Congrats on the hayward! I think you will be very happy with it. Trust me when I say nobody stressed themselves out more than me trying to decide which swg brand to go with lol. I over researched it all. Was very close to getting a circupool and was actually going to buy the edge 40, but at the last minute I found a great deal on The Hayward w3aqr15 system decently discouted, that made it a no brainer. I thought of circupool as a middle ground, the cheap knockoffs as obviously the dirt cheap short term life route, or Hayward (top of the line).

I've had it running now a little over a week and I've tested my FC daily during that week making sure it's dialed in and its outputs matches exactly with what the pool math calculator thinks it should produce. I really do believe this system is very much in the ballpark of what they advertise, unlike other cheaper brands.

Hopefully it lasts us a long time. If you're like me and done the math on what we've spent on chlorine just for this year, I dont see how we don't come out ahead or at least come close to breaking even from a $ standpoint over time and that doesn't even include the much easier time we will have maintaining/better feel of water on skin, etc.

Can I ask where you saw one on discount? I took ownership of a pool last winter which this unit of 9 years, it stopped working and looking to get the same to replace it.

 

[bbillingsley1985]

Hey Chuck,

Sorry I just now saw this post. So here's what I ended up doing. Everywhere I looked the aquarite with the T15 cell (w3aqr15) was $1789. I found my way to ebay and noticed there was a pool wholesale seller that every few days would post a brand new w3aqr15 sealed in box for a 1 day bid and started the bidding at $800 and they'd usually end in the $1400 range. I attempted to bid but would lose out to higher bidders. I didn't want to bid much higher than $1200ish. I ended up taking a chance because his ratings were 100% and on his history I had seen favorably reviews from other new in box pool stuff like polaris vacuums etc. I ended up winning the bid for around $1200 on one and when I got it in....sure enough everything was sealed up, official hayward stuff was on it. The serial numbers showed 3 year warranty and it was manufactured in April of this year. I still may have trouble if a warranty issue arises since I did install it myself and bought it from a wholesaler, but figure I'd cross that bridge when I get there. I'd actually be curious if anyone knows....if a warranty issue does come up, do they just go by the serial number or do you have to show all kinds of paperwork etc.

As far as getting one, I did check ebay and that seller and he appears to have sold out of those. Didn't notice any others on ebay. Sorry I wasn't much help to you. If you can afford to wait, I'm betting at the end of the season there may be discounts and you can also periodically check places like Ebay, but obviously have to be very careful with what you buy there and vet any sellers etc.

I'm sure you're aware of alternatives as well....circupool has had good feedback here etc.

 

[randytsuch]

Hey Chuck,

Sorry I just now saw this post. So here's what I ended up doing. Everywhere I looked the aquarite with the T15 cell (w3aqr15) was $1789. I found my way to ebay and noticed there was a pool wholesale seller that every few days would post a brand new w3aqr15 sealed in box for a 1 day bid and started the bidding at $800 and they'd usually end in the $1400 range. I attempted to bid but would lose out to higher bidders. I didn't want to bid much higher than $1200ish. I ended up taking a chance because his ratings were 100% and on his history I had seen favorably reviews from other new in box pool stuff like polaris vacuums etc. I ended up winning the bid for around $1200 on one and when I got it in....sure enough everything was sealed up, official hayward stuff was on it. The serial numbers showed 3 year warranty and it was manufactured in April of this year. I still may have trouble if a warranty issue arises since I did install it myself and bought it from a wholesaler, but figure I'd cross that bridge when I get there. I'd actually be curious if anyone knows....if a warranty issue does come up, do they just go by the serial number or do you have to show all kinds of paperwork etc.

As far as getting one, I did check ebay and that seller and he appears to have sold out of those. Didn't notice any others on ebay. Sorry I wasn't much help to you. If you can afford to wait, I'm betting at the end of the season there may be discounts and you can also periodically check places like Ebay, but obviously have to be very careful with what you buy there and vet any sellers etc.

I'm sure you're aware of alternatives as well....circupool has had good feedback here etc.

Hayward says this:

September 11, 2020 NOTICE: Because Hayward cannot control the quality of products sold by unauthorized sellers, our limited warranties apply only to a product that was purchased from Hayward or a Hayward authorized seller, unless otherwise prohibited by law.​

So seems like you'd be SOL if it broke under the warranty period. But with the money you saved over list price, you could still come out ahead, especially if you could fix it yourself and just need to buy parts.

Randy

 

[bbillingsley1985]

Yea that's about what I figured. My goal when I saw those ebay posts was if I could get it for $1250 or less that justifies it in my mind to take a risk on a warranty issue to save ~$600. So far so good so hopefully that will work out. My luck even if I shelled out $1789 from a website they'd find a way to still fine print me somehow saying it wasn't authorized seller or since I installed it myself I'm SOL etc. Think I read if you self install it's only a year regardless, so hopefully it'll hold out at least a year. Luckily it sounds like about $50 from the hayward repair guy recommended on here would fix most control board issues so seems like as long as the cell holds out I should come out ahead. I did verify it was a legitimate hayward and the serial number is legit with proper date code and all of that.

A future decision will be do I pay the currently $899 prices (probably more in 3+ years) for an official T-15 Cell when mine dies or buy one of the best rated knock offs for half price or so. I guess a positive is more data will be out about the knockoffs then to maybe make a better decision. Knowing me since everything else in my setup is officially hayward I'll probably shell out for the name brand as long as this one does what its supposed to. My math at 30-35% usage is say....8 hours per day for not quite 6 months but I'll round up to that....so 8x180 is 1440 hours per year. 10,000 rated hours divided by 1440 is a shade under 7 years. Way I see it if it can last 5 years before I have to replace it I'll be happy. $900 for a new cell divided by 5 means $180 per year. I would easily spend a lot more than that on liquid chlorine. It it just makes it 3 years I probably still come out ahead from a chlorine cost standpoint and that doesn't even figure the convenience/better overall product.

 

[randytsuch]

I did some quick calcs after installing my SWG. Even at the full retail price, if I get the stated life from my cell, it will cost the equivalent of $3.90 per gal of 10% lc. Current cost around here is $5/gal and I expect it will only go up from now on.
And that was using the full $1800 + tax price of the Hayward Aquarite. Accounts for electricity used by SWG and salt and plumbing parts to install it too.

Price per gal will be much cheaper with a replacement cell, around $2.50/gal

I tend to be cheap, so I might give a "alternate" cell a try. Will do research when the time comes.

Randy