Is Soft-Swim really that bad???

[prh129]

It might not be so much of a "wrong way" as "the best you can do" as far as a public pool goes. In a residential pool, you have a pretty regular bathing load and (hopefully) control of kids urintaing in the pool. Also you can test anytime you want and treat the water as necessary any time you want.

In a public pool, I would guess you can only treat the pool in the off hours then that has to last the whole time the pool is open regardless of how many people are in it so you end up having to overchlorinate to keep things safe.

At any rate, for that reason I wouldn't use a public pool as experience for using chlorine.

Peter

[CarlD]

I no longer like to get into public pools. Over Memorial day, my BH and I went from the right coast to the left coast to the San Diego area. I was stiff and sore from a day's walking around, and my back and knees were killing me. It was a REALLY nice hotel, so I got into the hot tub, then the pool, then the hot tub....and came home with SUCH a bad cold they thought it might be strep.

I did go into the Hilton Airport pool in Philly just to get some exercise and didn't get sick, but I would NOT go it their H/T--it was truly gross and something fluid was floating on the surface like an oil slick

I SO like our pool...It's always clean and sweet...

[lizzie64]

but I would NOT go it their H/T--it was truly gross and something fluid was floating on the surface like an oil slick

Ewwww, just Ewwww

[mariner09]

I 2nd the eWWW...

Unfortunately, I've seen many hotel facilities like that too. I just don't take a suit when I travel on business because I know I'll regret any attempts at swimming or soaking in a hot tub.

Owning your own tub and pool really makes you think about what goes on out there....

[bcb1]

Is Softswim/Baquacil really that bad? Well...yes and no. It has a lot of disadvantages, and to the best of my knowledge, only one advantage.

Disadvantages:
1. It's very expensive if you keep the water sanitized and shocked to their recommendations.

2. You'll probably need to shock the water more than the official recommendation of once per week at a gallon per time. I was going through 2 to 3 gallons per week - $35 to $40 every time I shocked the pool.

3. Baquacil gums up your filter. You'll need to change your sand every year, or at the very minimum every other year. No pool dealer will admit to this.

4. Baquacil is a reasonably effective sanitizer. It is not an oxidizer or an algaecide. Chlorine does all three, is more effective, and is much cheaper.

5. Once you start having problems -- and you will start having problems eventually -- get ready to empty the contents of your wallet at the pool dealer each week. All of the floc, filter cleaner agents, Baquashock, Algaecide....the pool dealer laughs all the way to the bank.

6. You will eventually get "pink algae", which is actually a fungus, not an algae, and it is resistant to Baquacil. Good luck once you get that.

The only advantage:

Baquacil will not fade your vinyl pool liner.


We installed our inground pool in 2004. Like a fool, I listened to the dealer without investigating on my own, and went with Baquacil. I ended up having nothing but problems, and we could rarely see the deep end - it was always cloudy. I ended up converting to chlorine just 2 months later. But just in that short time, I spend hundreds of dollars trying various Baquacil crap to get the water clear.

Since we've been using just plain old bleach to chlorinate with, our water is always 100% crystal clear, and I spend maybe $100 to $150 for chemicals for the entire season.

[gwrace1]

Oh, and as far as my current cost goes, I installed a salt water chrloine generator which ran me around $600.

I now spend between $1-$5/mo on pool chemicals.

Same here. Picked up a new SWG last year on Ebay for $425.00. I keep FC at about 2-2.5 PPM. You can't smell it yet the pool stays crystal clear. I have zero CC and water is soft. Only chemical cost is a weekly addition of muriatic acid. That's it.

[ILHoz]

I'm new to this sight. However I am not new to baquacil.

We used Baquacil at our old house w/new 24' AG 13500. Lived there for 2 yrs without problems. When we moved, Our new house also had a 24' AG 13500, we took water in to the pool store to check chemicals. The tests showed no signs of chemicals. So at that time since we had had no problems with baqua before we went with it again. year 1 fine, year 2 pink algae. $400 in Baqua chem. and a new$100 cartridge for filter. White mold came next. $400-500 in chemicals another new cartridge all of this on top of regular maintance costs
$75-100 a month (shock, sanitizer, algaeside) unable to use our pool for 2 months last year.Closed the pool for winter. Open spring year 3 water always cloudy, a lot of green algae vaccuuming every other day. White mold again, burned out pump from trying to filter out white mold last year and this year.
Bought new pump and filter.$400-500. Once you develope a problem with Baqua It is almost impossible to fix it. We are now switching to CL. We refuse to battle the Baquabeast again!

Leslie