We've had a pool for about 5 years (came with the house) and I've been maintaining it. Last week I had a pool guy come out to basically go over a list of questions I had accumulated and to assess the pool surface. The pool was originally salt water but was converted to chlorine before we bought the house. I had been having issues with the inline chlorinatorwhich was just flat out old and needed replacing. Anyway, long story short I went ahead an had him put in a new one and re-plumb things to take out the salt water cell that wasn't even used anymore.

Now I'm stuck with a question about the new chlorinator. This is the model that was installed.



On the top is a window to see into the cylinder and on it is a sticker that says to "fill with water and bleed out any extra air before first use". This wording makes it sound like the cylinder should be filled with water all the time. That makes sense to me since it's a water tight closed system. Logically I think to myself "there shouldn't be any air, and if there is it should be forced out by the pressure of the system." However, the instruction for the model (link) state that The water level inside chlorinator will be 3 5 inches under normal running conditions. That makes it sound like the cynlinder should mostly be filled with air when it is operating. So which is it? The sticker and the instructions seem to conflict, or at least they confuse me. What should be in the cylinder so that I know it's working?

I've Googled how an inline chorlinator works and I think the correct answer is that there should be 3-5 inches. That there is a valve on the bottom of the cylinder (the check valve) that lets water down but not up, thus why the pressure of the system doesn't fill the cylinder and air remains. It would just be nice to have some reassurance on that.

Initially I filled it with water with the hose, put on the cap and started the system. The next day (at ever since) there is no visible water when I look in the window at the top. There could be 3-4 inches like the instructions suggest but I can't see that far down with pucks in it.

The installer was just a couple guys who came and left through my gate and never said a word or knocked. Just finished and left. Left me no instructions. I had to Google those for myself. And if you are wondering why I don't ask the company. Well I've tried. It took 3 calls and a FB message to ever get a hold of someone to come out in the first place. And now I've texted, called, and FB messaged my question and no response. This is the third pool company I've dealt with in the 5 years I've been maintaining a pool and everyone of them has SUCKED when it came to communication. Is it just a disease of the industry? They all seem to be horrific at answering calls. [/rant over]

Does this one use the big chlorine tablets? I'm not familiar with that model but have used something similar to chlorinate irrigation water.The irrigation one I've used requires you to add the tablets then fill complete with water. This places a foot of head on the bottom valve so when the water is on it has the initial pressure to starting pulling the chlorine solution into the feed line. the water level will drop after the system runs for a while as it chlorine chamber comes to equilibrium with the supply line

Been running my pool on bleach for a year now, and no way would I ever buy any more pucks or used an inline chlorinator. I have considered converting to a salt water generator setup, but I just haven't set aside the money yet.

I know you just installed it, and I know these aren't the questions you are asking, but the pucks you will put in that thing are going to drive up your cyanuric acid so badly that it will cause the chlorine to be ineffective, which will eventually cause you to have to drain your pool.

Most pool guys and most pool stores do not do a good job of explaining the relationship of chlorine to cyanuric acid, which is why the aforementioned problem inevitably occurs with most everyone using their products.

I highly suggest you check out Trouble Free Pool, start testing your own water, do not use that inline chlorinator, switch to bleach as your primary source of chlorine, and stay out of the pool store forever. Your pool water, your wallet, your spouse, and your sanity will thank you later.

OK. Sounds like it's working fine. I was just curious about the water.

For what it's worth I have no problems with my pool, it's well maintained and I keep the water quality.

I don't think I would ever consider salt water. The handful I have swam in I hated the feel of the water. I grew up doing swim team and I am used to the chemical feel of a swimming pool. Salt water always feels too soft, almost slimy, to me.

Lots of good advice here. Download the trouble free pool app. I use only liquid chlorinator bleach from Home Depot. When we bought our house last year, the cya was off the charts from chlorine pucks. I only use them if I'll be out of town for a week or more

Just keep CYA in mind as mentioned above. Trichlor tablets add 6ppm of CYA for every 10ppm of chlorine added. If your CYA gets too high your chlorine will be ineffective.

As has already been mentioned, tons of good advice on this thread and more at TFP.

Bottlerocket said:

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Lots of good advice here. Download the trouble free pool app. I use only liquid chlorinator bleach from Home Depot. When we bought our house last year, the cya was off the charts from chlorine pucks. I only use them if I'll be out of town for a week or more

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Fellow bleacher, get yourself a Stenner pump with a 15-30 gallon tank and thank me later. Unless you already have one then well done!

Another bleacher here...troublefreepool and bleach was life changing for me.

Those of you who use bleach, what type do you use. Like Clorox or is it something special.

MizooAg94 said:

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Go to Trouble Free Pool, stay away from the pool store. You will have the nicest pool water and it costs barely anything. A salt water pool is a chlorine pool btw. I spend less than a hundred bucks on salt, bleach, muriatic acid, and borax per year.

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Second this. I think I am still a gold sponsor there since they provided great information and made my pool easy to operate.

the pit man said:

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Those of you who use bleach, what type do you use. Like Clorox or is it something special.

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Nothing special. Make sure it is not the "no-splash" or scented bleach. If my local pool shop is running a sale on the 10% stuff I pick up a couple of cases from them. Otherwise I take a couple of boxes and pick up Kroger 8.25% bleach and fill my tank.

If you get the Pool Math app from Trouble Free Pool it has a bleach calculator for you can punch in the price, container volume and strength to see whichever is available to you is the best value for your money.

Home Depot has a bleach made for pools. It's $9 for 3 121 oz jugs. Located in the oool section outside

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Fellow bleacher, get yourself a Stenner pump with a 15-30 gallon tank and thank me later. Unless you already have one then well done!

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You've given me a Memorial Day project! Thanks

the pit man said:

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Those of you who use bleach, what type do you use. Like Clorox or is it something special.

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I was using regular Clorox from Sams all last season, but all the bleach bottle in DFW have changed from 8.25% to 6% bleach, but the prices stayed the same. So now I have to buy more to keep my pool chlorinated.

I switched over to the "chlorinating liquid" in the Walmart garden department. Its 10% bleach, and when you do the math, its cheaper than buying the store brand Clorox.

jayelbee said:

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I use HEB Bravo. It's pretty cheap at $2.64/121oz, it's always fresh, and it's easy to get.

If you have a pinch a penny pool store close, their bleach is really cheap.

I don't know how some of you are getting your chems down to $100 a year. I use bleach on a fairly small pool and I probably use 4-6 jugs a month depending on how well I keep up with it and I feel like I'm always having to add CYA because of rain spill over. Acid is cheap enough, so I'd estimate I'm closer to $300/year.

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When you have a saltwater generator, you don't have to add as much bleach. Its a large upfront investment, but it keeps day to day maintenance down.

I'm in the same boat as you. My pool is 20,000 gallons, and I go through 8-10 jugs a month in the summer. And I run my CYA at 60, trying to keep the sun from eating up my bleach.

best thing I EVER did regarding my pool chemicals was to add borates to the water....plain and simple 20 Mule Team BORAX. Borates destroy the food source for the algae and do absolute wonders to the look and feel of the water. Pool stores sell it under fancy and EXPENSIVE names but it just plain ole borax. You will need to add aton ( depends on gallons but might be close to 100 lbs for a large pool) and some acid but you will never go back.
Many pool stores won't even sell berates cause it destroys a ton of revenue for algaecides and all manner of chemicals.
I have had my programmer fail and turn the pool off for as long as a week in high summer in full 95 deg sun and only had a few traces of green in corners and on the rocks etc. Without borates in the water the pool would have been completely full of algae in a couple of days.

PTXaggie08 said:

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jayelbee said:

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I use HEB Bravo. It's pretty cheap at $2.64/121oz, it's always fresh, and it's easy to get.

If you have a pinch a penny pool store close, their bleach is really cheap.

I don't know how some of you are getting your chems down to $100 a year. I use bleach on a fairly small pool and I probably use 4-6 jugs a month depending on how well I keep up with it and I feel like I'm always having to add CYA because of rain spill over. Acid is cheap enough, so I'd estimate I'm closer to $300/year.

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When you have a saltwater generator, you don't have to add as much bleach. Its a large upfront investment, but it keeps day to day maintenance down.

I'm in the same boat as you. My pool is 20,000 gallons, and I go through 8-10 jugs a month in the summer. And I run my CYA at 60, trying to keep the sun from eating up my bleach.

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Something that doesn't often get taken into account in salt pools is the SWG cell is inevitably going to crap out every 3-5 years at $500-600 a pop. I'm not saying that is a bad thing, just that salt pool owners often don't factor that in with chemical costs.

The Original AG 76 said:

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best thing I EVER did regarding my pool chemicals was to add borates to the water....plain and simple 20 Mule Team BORAX. Borates destroy the food source for the algae and do absolute wonders to the look and feel of the water. Pool stores sell it under fancy and EXPENSIVE names but it just plain ole borax. You will need to add aton ( depends on gallons but might be close to 100 lbs for a large pool) and some acid but you will never go back.
Many pool stores won't even sell berates cause it destroys a ton of revenue for algaecides and all manner of chemicals.
I have had my programmer fail and turn the pool off for as long as a week in high summer in full 95 deg sun and only had a few traces of green in corners and on the rocks etc. Without borates in the water the pool would have been completely full of algae in a couple of days.

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A much easier way to add borates is to order a 50 pound bucket of boric acid granules from some place like Duda Diesel and use that. It is pH neutral when it hits the water so just measure out how much is needed, dump it in the skimmer and go about your day.

This is on my to-do list. I want to add borates one day, and the boric acid process seems to be the easiest way.

On the salt cells, the metal plates that facilitate the chemical reaction are coated with an alloy that makes the reaction possible. This coating slowly gets eaten away by the acid in the water flowing over it. That is what usually goes bad with the salt chlorinators. If you leave them installed they will last 3-4 years.

During the winter months the chlorinator does nothing when the water temperature is below about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. The chemical reaction doesn't happen at temperatures below that. When the water is cold I remove the salt cell, rinse it out and put it in a closet. I replace it with an old worn out salt cell. If you take the cell out 6 months a year it will double (nearly) its life.

I let the salt burn down late in the summer/early fall. It is not good for my stone coping and water features etc. Throughout the winter I throw in bleach and/or pucks depending on the cynuric levels. So it is a "salt pool" in the summer and a "chlorine pool" in the winter.

I probably spend $100 per year on acid, $50-$75/year on salt, and maybe $50/year on baking soda. I replace the filter annually (I hate cleaning them.) They are about $150 for a set of 4 on Ebay.

I might try the borax thing. I've never seen algae in my pool but occasionally I do have the damn little back-swimmers which bite. Maybe that will cut them down.(?)

We have a SWG and have really liked it. Pretty much only had to add acid every week or two and salt only when it rained a lot. Almost never any issues with algae or other contaminants. It would eat through the salt cells every three years pretty much to the day was the only disadvantage. Now, there are a number of things in the system that need to be replaced (looking at +$1k), so we are giving the TFP protocol a shot.

With borates keep in mind it is not some miralcle algae preventative. It helps but minimally. The primary benefits are water feel and pH buffering.

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With borates keep in mind it is not some miralcle algae preventative. It helps but minimally. The primary benefits are water feel and pH buffering.

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So it's not worth it to use borates for algae prevention alone?

maverick12 said:

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With borates keep in mind it is not some miralcle algae preventative. It helps but minimally. The primary benefits are water feel and pH buffering.

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So it's not worth it to use borates for algae prevention alone?

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It might buy an extra day or two if you run out of chlorine but no, algae will still grow in a borated pool.

Y'all have convinced me. I bought a house with a green pool and I've been trying to get it back. Finally got it relatively clear but it won't hold chlorine. Been reading Trouble Free Pools for help, but I'm going all in now.

Pool store tested it "off the scale" for CYA multiple times. After reading this I ordered a a good test kit and drained half the pool this weekend.

Any tips on getting sediment out of the pool. I tried a vacuum but that did nothing. My cartridges will get it out, but if I stir up the dirt and run the pump, the cartridges fill up in a 2 or 3 hours. Two weekends ago I cleaned the cartridges 5 times and barely made a dent.

'03ag said:

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Y'all have convinced me. I bought a house with a green pool and I've been trying to get it back. Finally got it relatively clear but it won't hold chlorine. Been reading Trouble Free Pools for help, but I'm going all in now.

Pool store tested it "off the scale" for CYA multiple times. After reading this I ordered a a good test kit and drained half the pool this weekend.

Any tips on getting sediment out of the pool. I tried a vacuum but that did nothing. My cartridges will get it out, but if I stir up the dirt and run the pump, the cartridges fill up in a 2 or 3 hours. Two weekends ago I cleaned the cartridges 5 times and barely made a dent.

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For your CYA issue your only solution is to drain and fill. I wouldn't do a full drain but start at 50% then fill until you get CYA back in range.

Regarding the sediment, while it is a pain, keep doing what you are doing. There is no magic bullet to get it out. Clean the filters, run the pump and brush to keep it stirred up.

Recovering a pool that has been neglected is a long and tough process.

dlance said:

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maverick12 said:

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With borates keep in mind it is not some miralcle algae preventative. It helps but minimally. The primary benefits are water feel and pH buffering.

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So it's not worth it to use borates for algae prevention alone?

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It might buy an extra day or two if you run out of chlorine but no, algae will still grow in a borated pool.

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All I know is that from my own experience is that borates ABSOLUTELY will do wonders to help in the fight . As stated I have a 20k gallon pool in Houston exposed to full unshaded sun from sun up to sun down, I fought the green constantly in the first 10 years of my pool. I kept the filter clean, chlorine at the optimum levels and used the too damn expensive algaecide . IF I accidentally allowed the chlorine level to drop or worse..had my programmer fail while out of town for a week I was treated to a full green horrible pool. Once I added borates I have had ZERO NADA ZILCH algae issues. I have run out of chlorine, had a pump fail, went over a week without the pool running in FULL summer and had very minimal algae issues, slight growth in some corners and around the rocks easily removed in about 5 minutes. Plus the water feels amazing and has a " shine" the seven my wife and family noticed. I advent added any type of algaecide in 8 years since I added borax and my chemical bill has nosedived.

dlance said:

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'03ag said:

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Y'all have convinced me. I bought a house with a green pool and I've been trying to get it back. Finally got it relatively clear but it won't hold chlorine. Been reading Trouble Free Pools for help, but I'm going all in now.

Pool store tested it "off the scale" for CYA multiple times. After reading this I ordered a a good test kit and drained half the pool this weekend.

Any tips on getting sediment out of the pool. I tried a vacuum but that did nothing. My cartridges will get it out, but if I stir up the dirt and run the pump, the cartridges fill up in a 2 or 3 hours. Two weekends ago I cleaned the cartridges 5 times and barely made a dent.

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For your CYA issue your only solution is to drain and fill. I wouldn't do a full drain but start at 50% then fill until you get CYA back in range.

Regarding the sediment, while it is a pain, keep doing what you are doing. There is no magic bullet to get it out. Clean the filters, run the pump and brush to keep it stirred up.

Recovering a pool that has been neglected is a long and tough process.

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For about $50 you can get a pool vac that works on the return suction and has its own debris bag. This is an effective way to remove a ton of sediment without filling your filter. Might give this a try.

The Original AG 76 said:

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dlance said:

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For about $50 you can get a pool vac that works on the return suction and has its own debris bag. This is an effective way to remove a ton of sediment without filling your filter. Might give this a try.

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I bought one and tried vacuuming to waste this weekend. Not sure why but my skimmer line doesn't have great suction. I tried a snake. Tried pumping water into it from the pump side. It has suction, just not very much.