How to successfully select & operate a Salt Water Chlorine Generator system for pools

[PoolDoc]

I’ve shared this site and TFP with some other pool owners, but they think, and the pool store tells them, that we’re just a bunch of Internet nuts who don’t know what we’re talking about.

Marketing and assumption beats rational thought almost every day of the week!

Regarding long life for SWCG units, I've been by product support techs at two SWCG makers, that SWCG cell life is a pure function of "on-time". So a SWCG that is 2x the recommended size will normally last 2x as long. Also I've been told using the 'boost' or 'shock' function results in accelerated cell death. And, I've been told that operating the units near the minimum water temp ALSO damages the cells.

[JimK]

Marketing and assumption beats rational thought almost every day of the week!

Regarding long life for SWCG units, I've been by product support techs at two SWCG makers, that SWCG cell life is a pure function of "on-time". So a SWCG that is 2x the recommended size will normally last 2x as long. Also I've been told using the 'boost' or 'shock' function results in accelerated cell death. And, I've been told that operating the units near the minimum water temp ALSO damages the cells.

So true!

Yep, that’s my understanding of cell life as well. Of course none of this is mentioned to customers who buy these units. They’re just told it will fix all their pool care issues and save them tons of money.

[wishIcould]

I have a k 38k gallon pool and i think it's time to replace my jandy nature2 (we don't use the metals side) with a new salt system. You say to double the size so what could I use? Seems every year we have issues. sadly we have little electrical knowledge. On open it said 172, 185,186 and we cleaned the salt cell and it said it again. So we cleaned the nodes and now it says 170 and it won't change.

This plus our jandy heater says upper hi limit... electrical is not our thing but I know replacing the salt system I could possibly budget for, just can't fix both in same year.

Thanks for all your knowledge.

[PoolDoc]

None of the salt systems seem to last as long as they originally promised a decade ago, and the salt corrosion problems are worse than they claimed, but . . .

I do not have comprehensive comparative knowledge of salt systems, but from the information I do save the Hayward AquaRite units seem to do better than most and are widely distributed making parts and service more available than for many other brands.

Good luck!

[wishIcould]

thank you as always. I will look into replacing with Hayward... I know the Hayward lights are doing better than Jandy/Zodiac did at least.

[wishIcould]

Seems they don't make the aquarite for a larger pool, only up to 40k gallons and our pool is like 37-38k.... I was told pentair intellichlor by someone but, it requires an extremely high amount of salt which makes me worry that it will cause other issues.... any other ideas? Thanks.

[JimK]

Seems they don't make the aquarite for a larger pool, only up to 40k gallons and our pool is like 37-38k.... I was told pentair intellichlor by someone but, it requires an extremely high amount of salt which makes me worry that it will cause other issues.... any other ideas? Thanks.

A friend of mine uses an AutoPilot unit (I’ll ask which model). He hasn’t mentioned having any issues with it.

https://autopilot.com/

I see they offer cells rated up to 80,000 gallons.

Another option is to run 2 units.

[Toybuilder]

Hey wishIcould,

Yes, JimK is correct. I'm on my 4th season with the AutoPilot with the RC42 cell (42k gallon pool), and it's still running beautifully. To be honest, it was a bit tricky in the beginning, but once I got the hang of it, it's been a good choice for out pool.

I think either one Aqua Rite or AutoPilot is a good choice. I have not seen many complaints about either. I have seem quite a few complaints about the Pentair Intellichlor which was what our pool builder recommended.