Plan for Fall Draining of Painted Bromine Pool

[Denniswiseman]

The calculation from your dimensions are
13562 are UK gallons
16288 are US gallons
Don't forget SWCG rated output is based on 24/7
I would definately double up so you don't have to run it flat out continously

[mknmike]

The calculation from your dimensions are
13562 are UK gallons
16288 are US gallons
Don't forget SWCG rated output is based on 24/7
I would definately double up so you don't have to run it flat out continously

Thanks. I agree. I think I should get the 40k when considering 25k vs 40k. If there was a 30 or 35k version, I guess that’s exactly where I should be.

So it’s looking like SWCG is the way to go.

I assume salt is really cheap. So eliminating the price of bromine and the hassle of chlorine, and spreading the cost of the SWCG over the life of the system, it does sound like SWCG is the most economical and convenient option.

[Denniswiseman]

Salt is only added once, it's not used up
You only need to add when topping up the water due to physical loss not evaporation

[mknmike]

Salt is only added once, it's not used up
You only need to add when topping up the water due to physical loss not evaporation

Intereting. I still need to find where to buy the salt. I assume my local pool supply store would have it. When I search online, I’m inundated with SWCG cells.

Clean & Pure Pool Salt (40 lb Bag) https://a.co/7MZBZ7P

Ok. So salt is maybe $25/40lbs bag. Using this site, and entering 0 for the current salt content, it says I will need 449 lbs. So I guess most likely 11 40lbs bags to start (440lbs) and one extra. So a dozen bags, or about $300 worth of salt will be required. I am (at this point) assuming you dump it all in the pool, and then let the SWCG turn salt into chlorine for you.

So $300 for salt.

Almost $1800 for a 40k gallon Hayward SWCG:

Hayward W3AQR15 AquaRite Salt Chlorination System for In-Ground Pools up to 40,000 Gallons https://a.co/bR0kyrC

What else will I need besides PVC fittings?

My friend mentioned that the Amazon versions of these things don’t have the PVC T with the black piece to measure salt content. So that’s a concern with this particular item, and maybe it’s easy to buy this system elsewhere.

[mknmike]

https://youtu.be/__4wIh_CIEU
This video was pretty informative. It looks a bit like I would essentially need to make my pool a chlorine pool temporarily to achieve these starting values…

Salt 3200
Free chlorine 1.0-3.0 ppm
pH 7.2-7.6
Cynuric Scid (stabilizer) 70-80 ppm
Total Alkalinity 70-100 ppm
Calcium Hardness 0-300 ppm
[img]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220924/76d16e8811537731e41170ca043ed8f1.jpg[/img]
^^ picture is just a screenshot of those values I typed above taken from the above video.


I wonder if there’s a video on converting from a Bromine pool to Salt Water. Surely that’s less common.


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[mknmike]

This doesn’t seem like a smart or practical thing, but there are salt water Brominator cells / systems too apparently. It looks like NaBr Sodium Bromide is relatively insanely expensive. So this just doesn’t seem practical at all. http://www.rainbowpoolproducts.com.au/c ... ators(Salt)_Davey(EcoSpa).htm


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[Teapot1]

Water softener salt is fine and easily available, it doesn't contain CYA though so you'll either need to add some of use dichlor pucks for a while whilst you build up the level. Real pool salt often contains CYA but in most cases is still more expensive. The industry does try to make out that pool salt is special but its not.

[mknmike]

Got ballpark number from my pool guy to grind the walls and redo the plaster surface. He won’t paint. Said $15,000-18,000. Painting myself is looking really good when the pool-store guy said paint is about $500 for 5 gallons.

Edit: and my pool-guy recommended re-doing the tile and coping first, which he (before serious inflation) said would be $12,000-18,000. I assume there’d be some discount for doing all that at the same time. Still, with three kids in private school and heading to college soon, those numbers aren’t making much sense to me to spend right now.

[Teapot1]

Final warning that pool paint is rubbish as it fails quite soon (2-3years) better alternatives are around.

[mknmike]

My pool guy said there’s no need to do coping or any big refinishing job, but did encourage me to do the coping and tile before refinishing. So even if paint would only last a few years, that might be the appropriate amount of time required anyway. I don’t know.

In any case, schedules are looking too full to do anything this fall beyond playing with the solar cover and attempting my own pool closing when it gets down to freezing temps. I’m guessing that with the cover and cooler temps I can cut off the expensive bromine soon.

[mknmike]

So I don’t have time for this this fall. I’m not switching to salt this fall.

I’m nearly out of bromine. Bromine prices appear to be 20% off now for the hydraclear brand for $350-365 for 50lbs. I bought 50 lbs for ~$230 once from my local pool store less than a year-and-a-half ago (~August-September I guess). This past spring it was $340, and then $445 which it still is today. I guess I should buy a bucket since it’s unlikely to drop to $230 again. I hate to waste more money on Bromine, but figure it would be worst to not have the pool usable since I’m almost out of Bromine, maybe not having enough to up the bromine level in the spring. Hmm…

Trying to decide whether to toss another $350 worth of cash into this pool or just bite the bullet and buy equipment to convert it to a salt water pool. But what if the spring is too rainy to drain the pool? What if I don’t have time to get the paint job done? I’d hate to be the man that made the pool unswimmable.

I might be in for one more year of bromine, and postpone resurfacing no switching to salt water for next fall. Maybe if I buy at $350 now, I can let the market determine whether I buy a second bucket. If prices drop more, I will buy a second bucket to make sure I get through the whole year, but if prices go up, I will bite the bullet and convert to salt and paint the pool.

[mknmike]

Bromine 50 lbs bucket is down to $308. Do I buy MORE now?

https://a.co/evshJoU

How low can the price go? I bought it for ~$235-265 the first time in summer 2021, after chlorine prices went up.


If I buy more, it means I will continue running a bromine pool until I run out to finally convert to salt, something I will probably also do when I drain and paint the pool.

So I guess I don’t want to have more than 100 lbs of this stuff since I don’t think I use 100 lbs in a season.

[WillieApola]

I need to drain my pool for repairs has not ran in over a year.

It is an in ground gunite pool. I have a backwash position with a hayward de filter. I am replacing the salt mod, controller as well as the filters. I would like to drain it using the backwash mode.

Any tips or tricks to this?

[Teapot1]

Once the water level has dropped in the skimmer you will begin sucking air so will loose prime on the pump. You could, put a bung in the skimmer so you draw from the main drain if you have one. You could make a tight fitting pipe from the skimmer hole to the bottom of the pool if you dont have a main drain but this needs to be air tight into the skimmer. You could use a garden hose and start a siphon action if the land and pool arrangement allow and I had to do this on one job as we could only discharge the water slowly, it took 2 days but worked well.

[mknmike]

My pool system has shutoff valves next to the pump for both the skimmer and the threaded side suction port. I am fortunately able to screw a PVC fitting to the side port and use flexible PVC to collect the water from a point lower in the pool.

The biggest problem I have with this approach is that once the water level is more than a foot below normal, the pump will no longer self-prime, so I’ve got to fill the entire system to get the pump primed. I think that I’d I was really trying to drain the entire pool, I would need to simply not stop the pump, just let it run once it’s started.