What did you do to your pool today?
- Thread starter Patrick_B
- Start date
@Newdude I'm currently at 6% on the SWG with a 24/7 runtime. My CYA is at 80 and FC appears to be happy sitting around 7. We've had a lot of hot sunny days here lately though.
What are u going to take ur cya up to? I usually don’t go above what I think 60 is. Seems to work for my climate. I run my pump 24/7 at 1700 rpm unless one of my programs kick in.
@Newdude i think I'll hook my swg up tomorrow. Not even sure what the pool temp is. Haven't pushed water through the heater yet. I'm already tired of luggin n juggin. 
I'm shocked mine is working because my daytime highs have been barely enough to make it work on paper, and most of the day is well below that so the water temp is at best a high 40 or low 50. But I'm not questioning it. No ma'am. I went and thanked Ivana IC60 and told her she was a good girl.
60 would work fine for me up here as well. I'll do 70 to start, especially expecting the April showers to hit anyway now.
I plan to experiment all summer with the new pool to find it's sweet spot.
- Nov 12, 2017
- 12,654
- Pool Size
- 12300
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
The IntelliChlor's sensor array has always been its weak spot. Maybe the sensor is allowing your IC to generate, because it's misreading the actual water temperature, but it's not actually generating all that well, because the water is actually too cold. I'm not sure how you'd test for that. I'm just saying that just because the lights are telling you the temp is OK and the cell is active, doesn't mean either is true.
When the water is too cold for an IC, will it just produce less chlorine, or can it be damaged by trying? Or maybe not damaged, but are you using up its hours and not really getting enough "chlorine per hour" to justify running it? An IC is supposed to produce X amount of chlorine during its lifespan. But is that only so when operating at above 50°? Maybe some things to look into...
I'll know more tonight if it produced like it's claiming.
Many in the warmer climates leave theirs on (all brands) for the winter and it either produces on a given day, or doesn't, and they're reminded to pay attention for when it doesn't. If it harmed anything, we'd rec pulling the units at the first onset of cool water. So I'm pretty sure there's no harm at lower temps and it either works or doesn't. Some of the units switch to 20% production regardless of what the lights say, but again, I'll have a good judge on it tonight after trying.
i jumped in the pool today. The water temp is about 67°F, but it was needed after mulching our garden beds, helping a neighbor pour and finish concrete, and planting two trees.
Turbo1Ton
Gold Supporter
- Dec 26, 2019
- 1,995
- Pool Size
- 14500
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
OPENED today!! Best/quickest/earliest opening to date. My new pool company is outstanding. He lets me do a lot of the stuff myself because I'm wanting to learn more and more which is cool. All 6 pumps are working great (3 Jandy single speed, 3 Pentair VSPs), water was trucked in and filled 36,000 gallons to be exact, which is about 2000-3000 gallons more than I thought my pool had. Verified all water features are working, beach/bubbler/fountains, both waterfalls, water slide, disappearing edge, etc. We had an issue with the Jandy/Caretaker in-floor head system not working at all but we troubleshot that together and figured out the issue (and we both learned alot more about how that system operates so it was a win-win and knowledge in our heads for the future). I also ran the calculations on what setting is needed on my variable flow Stenner pump (for MA dosing) and we verified it's pushing MA through the line correctly which should add about 1.75 gallons per week into the pool (it's so cool watching the Stenner pump dose!).
Only issue we found is on a pipe coming out of the heater, is leaking. I think we might have caused that earlier this Spring when we installed a heater bypass and might have flexed/stressed the pipe enough to cause a problem, but we'll fix that in a few days, no biggie for now since I'm not using the heater yet anyways and we have the bypass enabled.
Seriously, the best opening ever for me. My pool guy/company is outstanding. Knows his stuff and more importantly, admits what he doesn't know and we figure it out together. He's totally good with me managing chemicals myself (though he always offers to use his Taylor test kit each week for me too). Chemicals are already looking great from the trucked in water (-.18 CSI right off the bat without having to adjust anything). I'll take care of my CYA later this week and some other minor adjustments but, so very happy so far!!
Only issue we found is on a pipe coming out of the heater, is leaking. I think we might have caused that earlier this Spring when we installed a heater bypass and might have flexed/stressed the pipe enough to cause a problem, but we'll fix that in a few days, no biggie for now since I'm not using the heater yet anyways and we have the bypass enabled.
Seriously, the best opening ever for me. My pool guy/company is outstanding. Knows his stuff and more importantly, admits what he doesn't know and we figure it out together. He's totally good with me managing chemicals myself (though he always offers to use his Taylor test kit each week for me too). Chemicals are already looking great from the trucked in water (-.18 CSI right off the bat without having to adjust anything). I'll take care of my CYA later this week and some other minor adjustments but, so very happy so far!!
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Why did you drain ? I remember you did alot of equipment/pad work but the pool itself was looking amazing in September.
Had to drain because we needed to replace some lights in the pool that couldn't be pulled/fished through and needed special fixing on the wiring, also had to paint the walls/ceiling inside the grotto, and needed to lightly acid wash the entire pool from some copper staining (made the mistake of using a non-polyquat-60 algeacide) and also because we needed a light acid washing to bring out the black in the brand new plaster from last Summer, which alone was way worth going to bring out the true plaster colors. And lastly because I felt safer having a total drain for winter closing because I was working with a new pool company and just wanted to be safer until they were more familiar with my pool overall (same company also opened for me this year, but it was the first closing/opening with me so I made a judgment call). There was also a few threads/plugs that we needed the pool emptied to fix/repair those areas from the hack-plaster job that was done last summer. So in short, LOTS of reasons, lol, but hoping this coming Fall to not drain and instead just lower and air-lock.
We walk several folks through their first solo opening/closing, every season. When you are ready to try, we will help.
And that's quite the project list to get this far. Hopefully it's all sitting back and enjoying now.
And that's quite the project list to get this far. Hopefully it's all sitting back and enjoying now.
I hope so too!. It's just too much "time" involved if it were just me handling all of it by myself. I'm happy to have the help of a good/honest pool company, and an owner that doesn't mind showing me how to do things and doesn't get worried that I'm working alongside him with priming the pumps, acid washing, painting, plumbing changes, etc. I also do some of the electrical, he does some too (we basically cooperatively re-wired both Jandy panels for my RS-P16). He 's okay with me hooking up my 9 RS-485 devices and installing the multiple Jandy multiplexers I needed, as well as letting me do the Jandy programming, etc. he's just really easy to work with and never gets upset if I take something off his plate and do it myself (whether its to save $ or so I can learn it on my own), or when I add more stuff on his to-do list. But yeah. maybe one time when I retire and have more free time I'll attempt an entire opening on my own but that's awhile out yet.
TFP is the best resource for -anything- I've found on the internet. You guys help me learn so much stuff over the last 2 years related to my pool and we do it here at TFP without typical forum drama either, it's awesome.
but that's awhile out yet. TFP is the best resource for -anything- I've found on the internet. You guys help me learn so much stuff over the last 2 years related to my pool and we do it here at TFP without typical forum drama either, it's awesome.
Passed my OCLT with 0 loss. The gain test is inconclusive as I didn't gain anything but I also didn't lose anything. If one of the 12 hour self tests was cold, the unit shut off and it matched the 2.5 daily loss the other 12 hours, which would be about right. Or it's inefficiently producing at half strength due to cool water. I doubt I lost a polarity with the unit stored inside for the winter, but it's a possibility too as I produced exactly half of what I was expecting.
- Nov 12, 2017
- 12,654
- Pool Size
- 12300
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
Which is kinda what I was getting at, but don't know enough about. Your IC will produce chlorine for X amount of hours before it dies. And it will produce Y amount of chlorine during that time. If your IC will run when the water is too cold for it to produce the optimum of chlorine per hour, does that runtime count against X, or Y, or both?
Say you have a brand new IC with 10,000 hours to go. And you run it for an hour in cold water and it only produces 50% of the chlorine it would have if you had run it in warm water. Do you now have 9,999 hours left? Or 9,999.5 hours left? By running it in cold water, are you going to "wear out" your IC before it produces all the chlorine it could have it you didn't run it cold?
Because the total number of runtime hours you get doesn't really matter. It's how much chlorine it made for you over its lifetime. Are you losing total output by running cold? That'd be like buying a gallon of chlorine and pouring half of it in your pool and the other half down the drain.
Put yet another way, it's the plates that wear out. Do they wear out just as much if they're working optimally as they do when they're struggling to produce 50%, due to cold water? Maybe @JoyfulNoise knows...
This is a little off topic, but not by much. This is the time of year when everybody is opening. If they're turning on their SWGs as soon as they can, and allowing them to figure out when they should run, or not, based on water temp, are they using up their SWGs more than they should? Or should they wait a bit and only turn it on at, say, 60° (which is what I did this year).
Me either. However, with a large pool that costs about 1/3 less in SWG lifespan proportionate to Liquid chlorine cost, I can waste half of the production (if it's the case) and still come out on top.
Time for a swim.
Warmed the water up to the high 80’s— for the grandchildren to be comfortable. That is my logic and sticking to it!
Will have some TexMex and enjoyable afternoon before the “grown“ kids go to Taylor Swift concert at NRG stadium in Houston
We get to babysit!
Warmed the water up to the high 80’s— for the grandchildren to be comfortable. That is my logic and sticking to it!
Will have some TexMex and enjoyable afternoon before the “grown“ kids go to Taylor Swift concert at NRG stadium in Houston
We get to babysit!