It's now a full season after converting from Baquacil to a salt water chlorine generation system, so I thought I would post my results here.

I feel so grateful for this forum and what I learned. Maybe this post will help others.

I have an inground pool, about 28000 gallons. I have lived in this house for three summers now and the pool was here when I bought it.

The first summer I went to a local dealer's "pool clinic" where I first learned about Baquacil. Then I found out my brother used it in his much smaller above ground pool and loved it. So I thought it sounded great and started using it.

The first season was great, although expensive. I probably spent close to $1,000 on chemicals. However, the water looked good, felt good, and few algae episodes. All was well.

The second summer was very different. The pool NEVER looked clear. I spent well over $1000 on chemicals, shock, etc. I did whatever the pool store told me to do. I got episodes of pink stains on the plaster. I had algae frequently. No matter what I did the pool was always cloudy, sometimes worse than others but NEVER as clear as the first year. It was extremely frustrating, especially since I was supposedly doing everything right.

At the end of the year, I decided to convert to chlorine based on reading in this forum. I further decided to go with a salt water chlorine system to minimize maintenance.

Bottom line: I couldn't be happier. I spent about $1000 on the SWC system, and about $120 on salt. It was easy enough that I could install it myself, and I'm no handyman.

Since then, I've spent less than $100 on chemicals the entire year. And much more importantly, the pool has looked absolutely gorgeous EVERY DAY!
No cloudiness. Never had a spot of algae. Never a complaint about a "chlorine pool" feel. No swim suit damage or "green hair". Never had to keep the kids out of the pool because I just shocked it.

Further, I spent very little time on maintenance. I bought the pool test kit from this forum, and used it almost daily when I first started up. As I got comfortable with the system and got my settings dialed in, I found that testing it weekly was fine, and even then I almost never had to add any chemicals. The SWC just kept humming along, adding a nice, low but safe level of chlorine that did what it was supposed to do.

I bought 4 gallons of shock bleach at the beginning of the year just in case I had an issue. I still have three gallons of it left at the end of the year. That's how well the system worked. I also had to add a little muriatic acid a few times to keep the PH in line. That's because SWC systems tend to increase PH slightly over time. But that's it.

I only shocked the pool once, at the very beginning, before I had my setting dialed in and was a bit low in chlorine. But never again after that time.

Economically, this year I spent about the same as last year, but that includes buying the SWC and the initial salt. Next year I will be surprised if I spend a total of $100 on chemicals. The SWC has already paid for itself, and I'll probably only need one $5 bag of salt to replace what gets pumped out during winterizing. SO next year will be about $900 cheaper than when I was using Baquacil.

More important than the money is the fact that I know the pool will look great all year with minimal maintenance on my part.

I should mention that I also have an Aquabot and that I totally love it. I think I manually vacuumed the pool once or twice in the beginning of the year after opening, and that is it. Aquabot handled it all for the rest of the summer. Just throw it in for a few hours on a weekly basis, and that's all there is to it.

Between the SWC and Aquabot, I really spend FAR LESS time on maintenance of this pool than I thought I would. Plus, now with the SWC, a lot less money, too.

I believe one of the issues I had with Baquacil is that my pool is simply too big for Baqua. At least that's what I have been told. My brother seems to do fine with his after several years. But if you have an inground, and are having these types of issues with Baqua - or are sick of the expense, then consider going the route I did.

I couldn't be happier with my decision, in terms of money, maintenance and, best of all, a crystal clear, comfortable pool.

Jeff in NH