Should I use and automatic chlorinator?

I'm thinking about putting an automatic chlorinator inline on my pool, are they worth it or should I just keep using the floater?

Do you travel a lot? Automatic chlorinators are convenient but those pucks have CYA in them and overuse of them causes the CYA level to get too high. Do you know what your current CYA reading is. (Don't check it with test strips. Or as we call them --- 'guess strips.')

Welcome to the Pool Forum!

I have an inline chlorinator on my AGP. It holds 7 or 8 3" trichlor pucks (stabilized chlorine source) and it has a dial to adjust how much it injects into the water.

When I open the pool in the spring I add enough liquid chlorine to get 10 ppm FC and enough stabilizer to get 20 ppm calculated–since I can't measure 20 ppm with my test kit. After that, I run the chlorinator for several weeks. My pump is only on for 6 hours out of every 24. At that rate, and with the chlorinator dial set to 1/2, my pool maintains FC = 5 ppm and pH = 7.5.

We opened the pool April 15. Yesterday the CYA tested at 40 ppm. I've gone through 8 trichlor pucks. I am going to continue using it until the CYA gets to 50 which will probably be by the end of June and am then turning it off and will use just liquid chlorine.

I like the inline chlorinator because it gives me a lot of control. Between the limited pump run time and the ability to dial in the output it does and excellent job managing my pool's sanitation. I do test CYA once a month, the R-0013 refill is inexpensive when bought in the pint size. The chlorinator goes back online whenever we're out of town, at a very low setting. At the 1/4 setting it keeps 3 ppm FC in my pool with 6 hours running, so it's an effective piece of equipment for my situation.

I also have an inline chlorinator on my pool. As long as you understand the effects of trichlor on your water, it can be used to help make the maintenance on your pool much easier. People get into trouble with them when they think that it can be the only source of chlorine for the pool and just keep feeding it tabs throughout the summer. You have to realize, like Anna and Watermom pointed out, that your CYA levels will rise when using trichlor tabs. If you're needing to raise the CYA, then it's a good option. Or, like me, if you want to turn it onto a low setting just to have "some" chlorine feeding into the pool everyday, it's also a good option. And I think it's better than a floater because you don't have to worry about it floating to the side of the pool and staying there to stain the liner, or creating pockets of highly clhorinated, low pH water that would be dangerous for the kids to swim through, since the inline chlorinator is not going to run without your pump.