hi kevin..i'm in southern alberta..aside from humidity, same boat as you with may to october season. i had an inline chlorinator and hated it..i felt it did a very average job of chlorinating my inground 18 x 30 pool and got tired of pucks and the expense. i am in the process of putting in an SWG and assuming it performs as advertised which i fully expect it will, it's the way to go. heck, even jugs of bleach is better from an expense standpoint combined with CYA to hold the bleach level. at 60 CYA, i find that my bleach consumption even with our hot temps this summer as you've had as well holds at 3-5ppm for 4-5 days, so i'm basically using a gallon of bleach a week. at a 1.97 for a jug from walmart, pretty cheap.

you're biggest expense with going to an SWG system maybe the electrical if you're not set up for it already. most if not all SWG systems appear pretty easy to hook up yourself, but in my case, i also have a new heater to install and at the same time, i'm putting in a new pump i got a heck of a deal on. the rub is that my original setup was not up to code or the installer didn't do it right using 14/2 wiring. the specs on the current pump say it should be 12/2wiring. my electrician said i was using every bit of the capability of the current wiring and the wiring in the shed in general is an octopus that needs to severe cleanup and organization.

so, i have an swg, a pump and a heater that require a good timer unit, a relay to shut off the heater in advance of the pump shutting off so i don't melt any pipes. i am going to have a rewire job right from the breaker box and converting at the same time from 110 to 220 volts for various reasons. so i am going to require some new breakers, 2 new wiring runs, a timer box that will hold everything i want for controls, shut off switches for the swg, heater and pump.

it's not a new installation, but my electrician says it's pretty darn close..i agree the cost..1600 for the electrical job, 600 for the ngas guy to do his thing.

the swg at 699 u.s. seems cheap at this point. if my wiring had been ready to go, i would have thought the expense relatively cheap.

i bought 10 bags of water softener salt on sale at canadian tire and it cost me under 40 dollars. it required 7 bags to get my pool up to 3500-3600 ppm. i have 3 spare bags in the garage for top up if i had to add a large amount of water to the pool.

i should mention one of the best investments for me this year for 350 u.s. was a solar pool cover and reel. the amount of evaporation and in turn chlorine loss, went down dramatically and that for sure saved me some money.

i look forward to a low expense, up to date pool setup for next season!