Traveling?

[amattas]

So I've been a faithful follower of TFP since we bought our house with a vinyl-liner pool 7 years ago, and knock on wood, in those 7 years I only had one funky chemical issue when I was traveling for work and my wife didn't put any chemicals in and I ended up with CYA reducing bacteria.

Since then we've bought a cabin, that we periodically go to during the summer that is a fair distance away from our house. The last couple of trips I've had a neighbor handle the chemicals, which they did alright but missed a couple of days but it wasn't hard to recover from.

Longer term I feel like I can't keep asking my neighbors though, so I've been considering converting to a SWG. My pool service guy (I use for major repairs, opening, and closing just because they can do those things better and faster than I can) isn't a fan because the older vinyl pools weren't designed for salt and salt is corrosive. His concern is its harder on the metal walls (I'm not sure I buy that unless there is a vinyl leak), the anchors for the ladders, the metal coping, and reduces the life of the liner overall.

So I'd love to get some thoughts here on:

1. Has anyone else converted an old vinyl liner pool to SWG and had any issues?
2. What have you done when you travel (1 to 2 weeks at a time) to keep things fairly balanced.

One thought I have is to get a float with CalHypo tablets and tie it between the two loops use for hooking the float rope across, that way it stays towards the middle of the pool, and I can hook up the hose to a pool sentry to make sure the water levels stay good. And then maybe I can reduce the amount of times the neighbors have to do something to once or twice.

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

Ignore your pool guy. He doesn't know what he's talking about. If you haven't had any significant water exchanges in the last 7 years, your salt level is probably close to 2,000 ppm. Chlorine and other chemicals add salt as a byproduct. A salt water generator runs on levels 3,000 ppm and up. By comparison, the salt level of the ocean is 35,000 ppm. Adding a SWG will allow you to travel without having to worry about chlorine levels falling below recommended minimums. If you normally see a rise in pH, you could float a trichlor tablet to control pH rise.

 

[amattas]

Ignore your pool guy. He doesn't know what he's talking about. If you haven't had any significant water exchanges in the last 7 years, your salt level is probably close to 2,000 ppm. Chlorine and other chemicals add salt as a byproduct. A salt water generator runs on levels 3,000 ppm and up. By comparison, the salt level of the ocean is 35,000 ppm. Adding a SWG will allow you to travel without having to worry about chlorine levels falling below recommended minimums. If you normally see a rise in pH, you could float a trichlor tablet to control pH rise.

We just replaced our 19 year old liner, our salt was at 2500 ppm prior to that, so that's a good point, we were already there basically. He wants me to use a much cheaper ionizer instead (which the pool had until it got struck by lightning and I of course didn't replace it). To me Ionizer = Green Hair and only helps with algae and not necessarily bacteria or other nasties AFAIK.

The reason I was thinking Cal Hypo tabs is because we have new water, and the CH has plenty of headroom and then I wouldn't have to worry about Cya rise with Tricolor.

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

Cal Hypo is not a bad choice. My recommendation for using the trichlor tabs was for your time away on vacation only. The tabs are acidic and would help to control pH in your absence.

 

[amattas]

Cal Hypo is not a bad choice. My recommendation for using the trichlor tabs was for your time away on vacation only. The tabs are acidic and would help to control pH in your absence.

Ah! I rarely use them so I had no idea they're acidic - that's a really good recommendation then because our city water's PH is around 8.0-8.2 so any water that gets added is gonna make it creep up, along with my bleach I usually add.

 

[Mdragger88]

When going on vacation for about a week I raise fc to or near slam level & fill a floater with trichlor tabs.
I do this even with a swg because things can happen. Power outages, equipment failures etc.
if it’s just a couple days you can add whatever your daily fc loss is + a tab or two in the floater if you’re ph & cya can handle that.
Use the effects of adding tab in
PoolMath to calculate what each dissolved puck does. 3” tabs are usually 8oz.

That said, a swcg is fantastic if you travel much or even if you stay home!
You’ll wanna get one rated for at least 2x’s your pool’s volume .
You have a vsp so you could run it at a lower percentage around the clock & always be making chlorine.

 

[amattas]

I was looking at the AquaRite 940 w/ OmniHub Smart Pool Control, my thought is my 3 year old RayPak heater is failing, so going this route I could get the Hayward heater next time and be able to control it when I'm traveling as well.

Does anyone know anything about the Hayward units?

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

Do a little searching in TFP Wiki. The link is at the bottom of the page. You'll find some articles there on Hayward chlorinators and heaters. Keep in mind that the Hayward systems are limited to 40,000 gallons. With your pool, you might consider a SWG rated at 60,000 gallons. That limits you to Pentair, Circupool, or Pure Line systems.

 

[Mdragger88]

How long is your pool season?
What is your typical fc demand/day in the peak of summer?
You might be able to get by with the 40k rated hayward system depending upon your summer demand.
While Those in the south/ or hotter areas would have a harder time with that & need to run it more with a t15/940cell & your sized pool.
The max that cell can produce in your pool is 6.9ppm fc/day if run 24/7.


Whereas here’s what the pentair ic 60 would yield you in 24/hrs.

The bigger the cell, the less you have to run it thus the longer it should live as they all have a finite lifespan of roughly 10k hours at 100% or effectively 20k hours if run at 50% and so on.

 

[amattas]

How long is your pool season?
What is your typical fc demand/day in the peak of summer?
You might be able to get by with the 40k rated hayward system depending upon your summer demand.
While Those in the south/ or hotter areas would have a harder time with that & need to run it more with a t15/940cell & your sized pool.
The max that cell can produce in your pool is 6.9ppm fc/day if run 24/7.
View attachment 508659

Whereas here’s what the pentair ic 60 would yield you in 24/hrs.
View attachment 508660
The bigger the cell, the less you have to run it thus the longer it should live as they all have a finite lifespan of roughly 10k hours at 100% or effectively 20k hours if run at 50% and so on.

If the pool is being used daily I put 1 jug of in a day, and that mostly keeps me where I need to be and I rarely have to shock it. If it's a heavier bather load (like a party) then of course all bets are off.

If no one is swimming and there isn't some other event contaminating the water, I can do 1 jug every other day (or every 3 days if its 12% and the weather is cooler).

 

[Mdragger88]

So 2.5- 5ppm/day give or take.
@PoolStored is in your region lets see what he thinks would work best with your situation & automation/heater needs.
As mentioned bigger is generally always better.