Alright, many moons ago, I was a member here -- but I've been inactive for *years*, and am just now re-joining. 'Course, my pool has *also* been inactive for years, victim to the mayhem which ensued when hurricane Gustav dropped a tree on my house. Personal crisis, rebuilding, etc., and my poor pool got moved waaaaaay down the list of priorities.

Now, finally, I'm on the cusp of getting it reopened, much to the dismay of the toads which turned it into their personal breeding pond.

However, as I settle in to the process of being a proud new dad to a SWCG, I'm a bit puzzled about one issue: The Sun.

More particularly, I know that sunlight nukes chlorine (er, hypochlorous acid, it isn't like the sun breaks down the chlorine atom into some simpler substance) and it nukes it very quickly. For those of us whose pools are in full sunlight for a substantial portion of the day, is there *really* anything complicated going on with our free chlorine levels on a daily basis? What I mean is, it kind of sounds to me like whatever stabilizer level you have dictates your free chlorine -- and that with a SWCG, provided I run it at a reasonable level, my FC is going to simply settle at whatever is its "natural" level. Provided I don't have extreme bather load, or run my sewer line to dump into my pool, the SWCG should burn off any chloramines, and chlorinate the water to the point where the sun destroying that chlorine is the limiting factor...

What this really seems to mean, to me, is that I don't really need to do anything once I find the power setting on my SWCG which seems to be able to burn off chloramines. Accidental super-chlorination won't be a problem, because Mr. Sun will simply burn off any excess. If I ever want to really "shock" the pool, I'd just dump in a couple gallons of bleach at dusk, just as I did back in my BBB days.

So... What am I missing? Why do we spend so much time testing and tracking FC, once we own SWCG units? Habit? Inertia? Do we really need to check? More importantly, if the unit is functioning, is it even *possible* for us to have too much chlorine, with the sun eating any not protected by CYA? And with that chlorine being constantly released, provided we don't see signs of algae or other disaster, can't we usually assume that the continuous supply of fresh chlorine from a properly functional SWCG usually be enough to keep our water sanitary 'n safe?

Could be I just don't get it -- but it sure seems like a SWCG becomes a sort of self-regulating device. Like using a brick as cruise control because your car has a regulator set at 55 miles per hour.

If anyone would like to smack me upside the head and explain where my thinking is faulty, I'll be happy to take my lumps. I'm the first to admit my failings, and when they come to caring for my pool, those faults are many. Most born of an innate laziness which makes me highly resistant to any sort of maintenance which seems like "work."