FlowTron Ionizer Instead of Pool Chems?

[aylad]

The skeptic in me says (1) if it's too good to be true, it probably isn't; and (2) if it worked that well we'd be promoting this contraption along with the BBB method.

Listen to your inner skeptic. She could take the ionizer off the pool, and find that the pool water doesn't change, as long as she maintains her chlorine. The chlorine is doing the work. If the ionizer actually made a difference in the water, why does it also require chlorine?


Last summer, just out of curiosity, I put an ionizer on my koi pond, which is next to my pool. What I ended up with, within a couple of days, was a nice, cloudy, algae-filled pond. Just practical evidence to confirm that the ionizer doesn't actually do anything to the water, except maybe add a bit of copper or silver, and I don't want either. It certainly doesn't do anything to keep the water clean.

Janet

[elsie]

John and Janet, thank you. Good first-hand knowledge, too, Janet!

I'm not at all surprised. This woman stopped using hundreds of dollars worth of chemicals every month and her water sparkled, and she simply attributed it to the ionizer. It's just one of those misattributed cause & effect things. When her CYA eventually builds up and her pool goes cloudy or she gets algae, she'll probably think the ionizer broke down.

While I probably won't point this out to the neighbor unless he brings it up again, the next time he tells me how all pools do is suck you dry, I'll ask him if the same concept applies to the hundreds of dollars he spends every month on cigarettes and beer. Maybe then the point will finally get across.

[CarlD]

The ONLY gadget that TRULY lets you cut back on chlorine usage is a Salt Water Generator, because it makes chlorine by breaking down salt (Sodium Chloride) into its components: sodium and chlorine.

Everything else is pretty much a scam.

[Sumo1]

Just the other day a customer of mine (I'm not in the pool business) and I were talking about his pool and he told me he's used a flowtron ionizer for several years and he loves it. He didn't mention using any chlorine at all but I had to cut the conversation short. I told him I'd be back to learn more about it, just because I like to learn more about pools. I'll certainly pin him down about whether he uses chlorine as a supplement. He said he uses the flowtron 3 days in and 1 day out, though I'm not sure why.
Hal