help newbie with SWG in winter

[szcakes]

hi, I bought a home this past summer with Autoclear Plus (polaris) SWG, in -ground vinyl liner. After much dismay all winter as to why I was not producing chlorine ( no help from pool store guy), I called the Polaris tech line and they told me it will shut down at about 55 degrees. ok I get that. So what do I do now to keep chlorine up? Can I use those puck chlorine things you put in the skimmer every few days? or is that a no no? I have never used the bleach thing I read about in here cuz the SWG took are of all my chlorine needs this summer. What chlorine level do I want to keep it at for the winter? I have shocked it a few times per pool guy advice but I get zero chlorine result after a few days ( of course). Please give me specific intrsuctions as to how I should address this chlorine issue; I am new and a little dense LOL)

PS: I just cleaned the cell, so that is not the problem I hope.

PSS> I want to add that my stabilizer level is reading low, but the pool guy said don't worry about it until swimming season, is he correct???

Thank you in advance for your help.

Sharon in New orleans

[chem geek]

Sharon,

The amount of chlorine you need without the SWG running is the same as you would need if you were just using bleach and didn't have the SWG and these amounts may be found in Ben's Best Guess CYA chart. If you are losing chlorine quickly, then this may be due to your low CYA if your pool is exposed to sunlight. Just because it's winter doesn't mean the sun doesn't ever shine (especially if you're lucky). Chlorine will still get used up in the winter, but it lasts longer due to the less strong (lower in the sky) and less frequent sunlight.

I suggest getting your CYA level up to at least 30 ppm and then you could probably get away with the 3 ppm "Min" column number for Free Chlorine (FC) level since your water temperatures are cold. Just use ordinary unscented bleach to raise the FC level. If you do need to increase your CYA, using the Trichlor pucks is probably the easiest way to do that as this will provide both CYA and FC for you, but with the cold temps the tabs will be slow to dissolve. You'll also have to add base (such as Borax) to compensate for the drop in pH that will come from using the Trichlor tabs. You could instead use Washing Soda (Sodium Carbonate -- same stuff in pH Up) to raise the pH since you'll probably want a higher Total Alkalinity (TA) level when you are using the pucks (say, closer to 120 ppm instead of the 80 ppm you may be at now).

I am a bit surprised that your chlorine level went away so quickly with the water being so cold and the sun in a low winter position (and fewer hours of daylight, etc.). Perhaps you actually have high chlorine levels and don't know it. What kind of chlorine test kit are you using? Is it the OTO test that has a yellow color? Or is it the DPD test that has a pink/red color? Or is it the FAS-DPD test that counts drops until the pink/red disappears? You can dilute your pool water with distilled (or bottled, but not tap) water and retest to see if it shows a chlorine level.

If you give us a complete set of water chemistry parameters, we can tell you what you need to do. That would include pH, Total Alkalinity (TA), Calcium Hardness (CH), Cyanuric Acid (CYA). It sounds like you may not have a good test kit and should consider a Taylor K-2006 or similar kit as recommended on this forum.

By the way, if you had a pool cover, then that would cut down the loss of chlorine to almost nothing.

Richard

[szcakes]

Thank you Richard. This whole thing has me quite perplexed. My pool store guy says he has the exact same SWG I do, and that he has never heard of it cutting off at 55 degrees; and in fact his produces chlorine all winter ( scratching my head on that one).

I am embarrassed to admit, that up to this point I have no real test kit. I have been using the dip sticks , just as a general guide for me, and letting the pool guy do the weekly testing with his droppers and stuff for me. I am on a rapid learning curve as I have only owned this pool since July, and figuring out stuff as I go. Thank goodness for finding this forum to help me out.

I am a little confused by your question as to whether I may in fact in have high chlorine. Would I and my pool guy not be getting a reading if it were high?

I thought i might try this:

run my pool heater for a day or so to get the water temp up and see if the SWG kicks in at that point. Then I would at least know if it is operational or not. Is that a good idea?

I have to admit I am a bit frustrated by this way of chlorinating. Seems to me the reason to get a SWG is to have low maintenance for the owner; what is the point if I have to manually balance the pool half of the year anyway?

And please do not get me started on my in ground liner woes ( that is a whole other story).

But this is what I inherited, and I do love my pool, so I just have to learn how to care for it properly.

thank you for any continued advice; it is much appreciated!

Sharon

[mas985]

Sharon,

Most SWG controllers will automatically shut off with low temps. Mine does at 50 degrees. The pool store guy probably never noticed that his automatically shut off during the winter.

When mine shuts off, I usually don't bother adding chlorine since algae has never been a problem for me below 50 degrees. Your situation may be different but I suspect that you will not need much chlorine if any at all for temps below 55.

[szcakes]

Sharon,


When mine shuts off, I usually don't bother adding chlorine since algae has never been a problem for me below 50 degrees. Your situation may be different but I suspect that you will not need much chlorine if any at all for temps below 55.

Ok, so just to clarify; you let your pool go with zero chlorine over the winter with no problems? do you keep Ph and Ca etc in balance during winter months?

thank you for replying!

[chem geek]

Just ignore my question about the chlorine being too high and not showing up on the test. That's probably not happening if the pool guy was doing the test. I was just concerned if you 1) added more chlorine than you thought you did and 2) bleached out the test you made. Since that's not what happened, ignore my question.

I don't think you need to run your heater to see if the SWG goes back on. The shutting down of the SWG at colder temps is normal (as Mark said above).

As for what to do in the winter, you have essentially two choices. You can add bleach, probably not more than a large dose once a week since it SHOULD last that long during the winter (with a cover it would last MUCH longer). Or you can not add any chlorine and risk opening your pool next season to algae -- which is just a risk and not a certainty. There are pictures of algae under ice somewhere on this forum so cold temps do not guarantee that algae will not grow, but it is far less likely (usually algae doesn't grow below 50 though some users reported small growth in the 40's). If you get algae, then you'll need to kill it at the start of the season as seen in this post which shows opening in the spring with algae and using bleach alone to kill the algae in less than a week. With added chlorine bleach AND an SWG running 24/7 (when killing the algae), it should get killed faster, possibly in half the time or less. Oh yes, there's a third alternative and that would be to not add bleach regularly, but just add a large dose of PolyQuat 60 algicide which will help to inhibit algae growth. It might not last the winter, but would certainly help.

As far as thinking that an SWG means you don't have to do any maintenance, that simply is not true. You still need to check your pool water chemistry. During summer use, the chlorine demand changes throughout the year based on bather load and sunlight so you have to test chlorine and adjust your SWG output accordingly. Once your SWG is set so that the chlorine level is relatively stable, you won't have to check it as often, but you still have to check it at least weekly. You probably have to check your water more frequently than that because the pH will rise and you'll need to add acid to compensate and that may be more than once a week. Your pool sides and surfaces still need brushing, either manually or by a pool sweep that climbs walls (well, LIGHT brushing for your vinyl liner and I'm not sure automated pool sweeps do that well with vinyl). Maintenance simply does not go away with an SWG -- only the regular daily or every other day addition of chlorine goes away, that's all (though that's a lot!). During the winter things are easier and yes, you probably don't need to adjust most chemistry parameters, but if your SWG comes back on for some reason, you'll need to check chlorine and pH, at least.

My own pool (with no SWG) has a cover on it and I only have to add chlorine about once a month during the winter and could even just dump more chlorine in and go two months without checking if I had to. All other water chemistry parameters (pH, TA, CH, CYA) are rock solid and do not change at all over time (except CYA might drop -- I'm checking on that this winter). My water temps are between 45 and 50. That's why I was surprised that your chlorine didn't last just a few days after "shocking" which implies a high chlorine level when you shocked. That is VERY unusual in the winter time, even without a cover.

Richard

[mas985]

Ok, so just to clarify; you let your pool go with zero chlorine over the winter with no problems? do you keep Ph and Ca etc in balance during winter months?

thank you for replying!

Yes, the last two months, my pool has had zero chlorine in it. However, not every pool will be able to do this. It really depends on how much stuff drops in the pool over winter but algae had very difficult time growing in cold water so for most pools it is ok. I test PH about twice a month but it does not seem to change much. CH I don't bother with since there is not much I can do about it anyway (mine is always high).