Swimming Pool Tips and Reviews

 I think that there are a lot of myths associated with the pool industry like a saltwater pool is not a chlorine pool. Another one that I often hear is that a Variable Speed (VS) pump does not save you any money nor are they very effective. The pool pump can be the highest energy hog in your house, passing your Air Conditioner and Refrigerator just by the sheer amount of hours it runs each day. If you have a 1 ½ or 2 HP pump installed and you run it 8 hours per day, not to get into complicated conversions of kWh (Kilowatt Hours) and how you are charged each month by your Electric Company, just imagine it as having 20-100 watt light bulbs on every hour. That is a lot of electricity each day and if your bill is tiered by usage, meaning the more you use the more you are charged, your bill can get very high very quickly. On average a pool pump in the Summer will be about 40% of your total electricity bill. So the best way to save money is to cut into your monthly electricity bill and t...

 I’ve had the JMC16 on this pool now for over a year and it is doing an amazing job of reducing the dirt that is entering the pool filter. It is doing an amazing job of preventing anything I put in the skimmer from also entering the filter. I tested it with a scoop of DE, a scoop of Cal Hypo, and some baking soda even and all of it is trapped in the Multicyclone. There of course is an issue and that is that it works too well. The parent company WaterCo was supposed to make a bypass for this device so that you could bypass the Multicyclone and add say D.E. to recharge your D.E filter. It was invented for the Australian pool market and they have sand filters & cartridge filters over there and not D.E. filters. That part never came to market but I have a photo f it and a crude diagram of how to add it to your setup here in this Google Drive folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1tsm2-BgLpMp8gfOy9s925q9Ib6OleR7M?usp=sharing Here is more about the JMC16: The Jacuzzi JMC16 M...

There are of course Automated pool systems that let you control your pool & spa, heater, lights, and more with a touch of the button. In the last few years, this has moved over to phone apps and if you are driving home from say 50 miles away, you can get on your phone (while not driving) and with the app put your pool in the spa mode, turn on the heater to 100 degrees and have the pool and spa light on so that when you get home you can just go right into your spa. This was thought to be the height of automation. But it gets much better. I used InteliChem in my example in the recording, but there is the RolaChem and a few other devices that can automatically adjust the pool’s pH and chlorine levels. Of course, you still have to fill up the buckets with chlorine and acid, but once set up if the pH were to get to 7.8 these devices would activate and pump acid into the pool to lower the pH. This makes for very easy pool chemistry. A saltwater generator does something similar but it of ...

 The BWT BC40 is pretty compact, okay it is outright tiny. I didn’t think this thing would work at all. I’m being honest here. It works amazingly well. To my surprise. It does lack in size but makes up for it in suction power.  A few things that I would have liked, are swivel wheels, a larger base, and maybe a finer mesh bag. You kinda have to move it and tilt it in the pool and since it is so small you can’t move it around super fast. I wanted to start with these nit-picky points because other than that I can’t any other fault this little leaf vacuum.  Order the BWT BC40: https://bit.ly/3cb1RRc The fact that the battery chamber is sealed and that it is rechargeable is great. It is also backed by a 1-year warranty which means the battery seal is probably really good. It has a 2000 mAh battery that will give this cleaner a 75-minute run time. I am using it without charging it to see the actual runtime but if it gets anything over 1-hour that is pretty awesome. The fact tha...

 A vinyl pool in-ground or above-ground is quite different from your traditional plaster or concrete pool. The differences don’t stop on the actual vinyl material but on many different levels including which chemicals to use in the pool, how to clean a vinyl pool to which automatic cleaner is safe to use. A vinyl pool’s surface is a piece of plastic. Unlike a plaster pool which is cement, a vinyl pool can be easily stained by chemicals. You can stain a plaster pool with chemicals but it is much more resistant than a vinyl surface. This means that you cannot put Cal-Hypo, Trichlor, or any other granular chlorine directly onto the vinyl surface. Liquid chlorine is safe and so are Cal Hypo Tablets in the skimmer and cal hypo directly in the pool skimmer. Caution is the key word here and just think whenever you add anything, Will this stain the surface?” Since the vinyl pool surface is a piece of plastic it will have a lower acid demand. This means that the pH in the pool will tend to ...

The PAL EVENGLOW light system is shown here for a pool and spa retrofit and the PAL Light 64-PCR-2Z-65 PAL 65W Multi Color Dual Zone Rem Ctrl Transformer 24VDC is a great upgrade to the original system. This upgrade kit will allow you to control two zones independently like a pool and spa light combo. You can have one color or programmed show in the pool and a separate one in the spa.  PAL EVENGLOW PCR-2Z Dual Zone Controller Horizon # 57-330-1360:   https://www.horizonparts.com/store/main.aspx?p=ItemDetailStyles&item=57-330-1360 PAL Lighting – over 30 years of experience in aquatic lighting and are the leaders in the state of the art engineering and manufacturing. The EvenGlow lights are designed of course for new builds but are also made to retrofit into your existing pool and spa niche. There are millions of standard incandescent lights right now in pools and spas across the country and the PAL EvenGlow lights would be a perfect upgrade. The Dual Zone control option wil...

 Every Chlorine has some type of by-product. By-products are in everything really and it is no different in the pool chemicals we use to add chlorine or sanitize our pools. Liquid Chlorine (Sodium hypochlorite) – by-product is salt (Sodium) 17 ppm per 10,000 gallons of water with 1 gallon of liquid chlorine Liquid Chlorine or Bleach is the tried and true standard chemical of choice for most pool service professionals. It is easy to use and relatively inexpensive and it has the least side effects of any of the chlorine you can choose from. It is usually sold in 12.5% active chlorine per gallon with Bleach coming in at about half that strength at 6.5%. It will raise the pH slightly, but it does not contain any Stabilizer or Conditioner making it ideal for all pool types. This means that when you add a gallon of liquid chlorine and your Conditioner level (CYA) is 50 ppm it will stay at 50 ppm even if you add 20 gallons of liquid chlorine. Pros: Fastest acting of all chlorine types Wil...

BWT (Aquabot) Cosmy the Bot is a flashback in a way and a nod to the earlier compact robotic cleaners that put Aquabot on the map a decade ago. There is a huge market for robotic cleaners like the Cosmy the Bot 250 that weigh only 12.5 lbs and come with just enough features to keep it in the mid-priced range a little more than a premium suction side cleaner but much less expensive than other premium robotic cleaners with more bells and whistles. To order a Cosmy the Bot 250 please email BWT directly: info@bwtpool.us or call 833-469-2782 Although the messy split between the brand's names a few years ago looks like something straight out of Marvel's multiverse of madness. You had one company Aquabot with two internal companies, Aqua Products, and Aquatron. When Fluidra purchased Zodiac Pool Products the European Union forced the break up of Aqaubot (Aqua Products and Aquatron). Aquatrons parent company BWt owns the rights to the Aqaubot name in the USA with Fluidra keeping the Aq...