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Mr. Luddite

On 2/25/2014 5:28 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 25 Feb 2014 13:55:59 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 2/25/2014 1:32 PM, F*O*A*D wrote:

What little I have read of this thread reinforces my long-held belief
that owning a swimming pool requires more effort than it supplies fun.

Naw, we are just debating how a pool gets chlorinated using a salt system.

I am no pool expert but curiosity has prompted me to try to understand
the process. That said, and having had three conventional pools (two in
Florida and one up here) and one salt based system at our current pool
the advantages of the salt system are crystal clear to me (pun intended).

1. Far less maintenance. Pretty much automatic.
2. Cheaper to operate. Salt is cheap. Pool chemicals aren't.
3. Clearer water.
4. Softer water.
5. No need to inventory or store dangerous chemicals.

Only disadvantage is a higher initial cost.

I should mention however that all salt systems are not the same.
Some are manual systems and need more checking, adjustments and
intervention. We opted for the fully automatic, microprocessor based
system that senses and adjusts as requirements and demand dictate.

At the beginning of the summer season the cell is operating
approximately 55-60 percent of the time that the pool pump is on.
By the middle of the season it has dropped to about 45 percent of the
time and towards fall it is operating about 30-35 percent of the pump on
time.

How often do you need to clean or replace the generator element? That
seems to be a consumable here where we have hard water.
I know the water in the North East is a whole lot better.

I guess I might look at it if I ever decide to change what I am doing
now . It just sounds like I would be spending about 10 years worth of
chlorine to install it and salt isn't free. I would still have to
screw with the pH and that takes more time than the chlorine.

It is still only a few minutes a week. (testing pH, total alkalinity
and doing the calculation on what I need to add to fix it)

I am not trying to convince you of anything. I am just sharing personal
experience from having both systems, 3 conventional pools and 1 salt
system pool. I ended up filling in the first in-ground pool we had
years ago because the liner ripped, nobody used the pool much and I
didn't feel like (or couldn't afford) having a new liner installed. A
contractor offered to fill it in with clean fill and I put loam on top
of that and planted grass.

I used to spend some period of time every week testing, adding
chemicals, filling the chlorine basket thing and adjusting the handle to
allow more or less water to flow over it to adjust the chlorine level.
Sometimes it would go out of wack for whatever reasons and I'd be
over-shooting one way or the other to bring it back.

The salt system fixed all that. I don't test the water myself at all.
Once a month or month and a half I take a small sample from the pool to
the pool joint down the street and they check it. It's very rare when I
need to change or add anything.

For some reason, the pH doesn't change much over the course of the
summer like it did in the conventional pools. I think only once in the
past 7 years operating the pool did the test call for a minor adjustment
of plus or minus and I think it was after a month of heavy rain. The
only other thing we add is a small jug of stabilizer once the pool is up
and running and the salt and chlorine levels are all set.