Trying To Tighten The Hinges



I’ve added a link to the Honor Roll. It’s to the Trouble Free Pool forum. I don’t know too much about it yet, but a lot of the people who post, or posted, at the old Pool Forum post there, so that’s a good sign. And it’s open for new members, unlike the Pool Forum.

I came upon it while I was reviewing my site meter, to see how folks were getting to the blog. I saw a spike of referrals from a thread at TFP’s forum and followed it back to here

They were talking about my blog, and then my old nemesis, Lex Luthor – I mean, Sean Assam – started going on again, talking out of both sides of his mouth about how I’m just wrong about salt damage, but the good thing to come out of my blog “is better maintenance of your pool patio due to the ‘potential’ of damage from the salt.”

To be honest, I’m not shocked to see a salt rep holding two opposing thoughts in his head at the same time – the first being that I’m all wrong about salt damage to the pools in my care & the second being that there’s a definite risk to decks and coping from salt damage – but it is a bit unhinged to see those warring opinions advanced in the same paragraph.

He became even more animated and unhinged when I took the time to join the forum and introduce myself right here

It’s a neat thing that Sean B – the Site administrator and not to be confused with Pool Sean, the Salt Peddler – has provided for the Newbies to get over their first post jitters and give the Old Hands a chance to post a welcoming response. Which everybody did. Seven people responded to my post. Six of them cordially. And then there was Pool Sean…

“There is no logic to your blog entries, other than hatred to salt systems. I think it's because you have no one else to blame for these problems because everyone else you can blame (deck companies, plasters, stainless steel ladders and handrail manufacturerers [sic] ) have all denied responsibility?”

This guy is his own worst enemy, isn’t he? I mean, would you buy a salt system from a guy like this?

To take his rant one point at a time – the parenthetical part about me having no one to blame for the damage to pools – let’s start with decks. AutoPilot’s own Owner’s Manual finally admits that salt concentration due to evaporation can cause deck damage. Here’s the excerpt from page 11 of the Pool Pilot DIG-220 Owner’s Manual:

“CAUTION: Splash out water can leave a high salt concentration as the water evaporates. To prevent any potential salt damage, periodically hose off the deck, rails, and fixtures to dilute the salt concentration.”

And how did that little ditty wend it’s way into their literature? On 1/29/07 Sean Assam, in an e-mail to me about THIS blog post said, “Deck damage due to salt? I agree with Delzone in that simple maintenance of hosing down your patio weekly will prevent these types of issues and should be mentioned to the homeowners and pool dealers. As a result, I will be including such statements in our owner's manuals.”

And right there is where I get crazy with these guys. This is THEIR TECHNOLOGY. THEY INTRODUCED IT. Determining and describing incompatibilities and limitations and the maintenance procedures to mitigate them was their job from Day One.

But it took a pool cleaner from Dallas, Texas, who finally figured out after a few years of watching his customer’s pools disintegrate because of salt, to come along and badger and cajole and insult them into including what turns out to be some pretty goddamned important information into their Owner’s Manuals. What about all the years that they didn’t say anything to anybody? What about all the years they were selling these salt boxes and telling everybody that there was no down side; just soft water that was easy on the eyes. How do they get a free pass on all the damage that they now admit to having caused in the past?

Let’s take a for instance. Let’s say you bought a salt system for your pool before these guys began to admit that you might ought to hose down your hardscape just about every time you use the pool. And let’s say that you had a contemporary design with about $30,000 worth of perfectly milled limestone decks and coping. So, you missed that memo and didn’t know about the hosing down the decks part. And two years later, you’re stuck pulling off the salt system and redoing all that deck and coping.

Now, that nearly happened. I have a customer in Hghland Park, Texas who put tons of Leuter’s limestone decks and coping on his contemporary negative edge pool. I showed up two weeks after start up and the first thing I did was point out to him how the salt was already starting to eat away at the area where his kids normally get in and out of the pool. We pulled the salt system and drained and refilled and dodged that bullet.

So, that’s how a salt system that cost a couple hundred dollars to put together can cost you $30,000. And I’m the Bad Guy? And where do I get off with the idea that these things only cost a few hundred bucks to put together? Well, first, Intex sells a salt system that produces the same amount of chlorine as most of the salt systems out there designed for pools up to 25,000 gallons, and they sell it for $149.00 online at Cabela’s. And second, Sean Assam wrote to me later that same day, 1/29/07, and in response to this statement from me, “You guys have had it all your way for too long. You've all made a fortune off the misfortune of pool owners by not disclosing the whole story about salt and not giving them all the facts before they made their buying decision.” Sean said, “Damn them for being profitable! How dare they buy cheap Chinese products and sell them for a gazillion % margins! …Sorry for the sarcasm, but it's true.”

But getting back to Sean’s rant. Plasters. I don’t think I’ve ever said one word about plaster being adversely affected by salt. Have I? I could be wrong. But I don’t think I’ve published a single word calling out salt systems as causing plaster issues. If I have, somebody write to me and tell me and I’ll go back and amend that part of my blog. Really, I will.

There is of course, that one thing: The reason you wait 30 days, if you’re smart, to pour salt on new plaster. It’s because when you pour salt on new plaster, it does the same thing that a salt based water softener does; it exchanges calcium – a pretty important part of the plaster mix – with salt. A couple years later, you’ll be able to see where you poured that salt. And that’s why you wait thirty days until the plaster cures. By the way, this is something else that would have been GOOD TO KNOW WAY BACK WHEN THEY FIRST STARTED SELLING SALT SYSTEMS and is something else that I don’t see in any of the Owner’s Manuals.

Then there’s Sean’s snarky comment about ladder and rail manufacturers. Geez. Is there any segment of our industry that’s been more hard hit by this salt fiasco than the poor ladder and rail manufacturers? They’re usually the same ones who sell the diving boards and diving board stands. And they have taken a huge hit trying to stand warranty for all the damage that salt splash out has done to their equipment.

And all because the Salt Reps didn’t tell their builders and their retailers that they ought to caution their customers to upgrade to marine grade stainless steel ladders and rails and avoid diving boards in their design in places where they sell a salt system.

And they didn’t for one of two reasons. Either they didn’t know any better, and if that’s the case then shame on them, or they knew and didn’t want to admit it and narrow their market.

So, as always, I caution you: Don’t buy a salt system until you’ve looked at every issue that comes along with salt and you’re convinced that it won’t happen to your pool. AND Caveat Emptor on who you buy from, if-ya-know-what-I-mean…

Now, moving on to what I really wanted to talk about this week…

I found a pool with limestone coping and Pennsylvania blue decking that has significant deterioration, just like salt pools do, and it has never had a salt system. And so in the interest of fair play, I thought I ought to post the pics of that pool, too. You can click on any pic to enlarge.



Now, this first one shows the coping at the skimmer. You can see where, over time, the chloride level of the water, splashing and lapping up and saturating the stone, has caused crystallization expansion pressure to pop layers of the stone off, creating a flaking effect. And that’s just from the chloride build up that occurs from melting trichlor tabs and shocking the pool with cal hypo.



This next one shows a badly delaminated section of the flagstone deck close to the splash zone of the pool. Same story here. The pool water, heavily saturated with chloride, migrated to the seams in the flagstone and caused the roofjacking effect you see here.



This one shows a close up of the failed mastic joint. I wanted to show that so that folks out there who know pools will know that this pool is old. Really old. It takes more than a decade for mastic to dry out like that.

In fact, this pool’s coping and deck is over twenty years old. This pool is awaiting remodeling after the home is rebuilt.

So, this is your pool on tabs after twenty-plus years:




This is your pool on salt after two years:




And that’s always been my point about salt damage. Yes, it’s true that, given sufficient time, all chlorinated water will cause damage to stone. It’s just that in salt pools it happens in about two years. In non-salt pools, it takes just forever for it to start showing up. The reason? On salt pools, you start with 3500 ppm sodium chloride. On tab pools, you start with something below the 250 ppm mandated by the EPA as below the level of taste - because you normally fill your pool with drinking water - and build from there, draining and refilling as calcium levels and stabilizer levels dictate.

As you can see by the photos, the tab pool’s limestone coping looks better after twenty plus years than the salt pool’s does in two.

So, who’s got your back? Me? Or your friendly, neighborhood Salt Rep? Because I can promise you two things right now about tomorrow:

#1. The Sun will rise in the East and set in the West... That's right, isn't it?

B. The Salt Reps will still be selling the tired old pitch that non-salt pool’s coping and decks suffer chloride damage just like salt pools do. They will, of course, leave out the part about it taking twenty plus years instead of two.

How Low Can You Go?



I thought that I had nailed it two weeks ago with the report that Wal Mart was selling chlorine generators for $186.00, and E-Bay had them for $199.00. The reason I figured I’d nailed it is because Leslie’s, pretty much the low price leader around these parts, is running a special right now. They’re selling a chlorine generator for $1,100.00 and they’re throwing in the installation for free.

Now, the difference is that this $186.00 Intex system is only for above ground pools. It has no electrical bonding and it relies on the homeowner to do everything exactly right when installing it and using it; don’t use extension cords, only plug into GFCI protected outlets, never use the pool while the unit is operating. That last one is a biggie to me and more than a little bit scary.

BUT it produces an amazing amount of chlorine. Its output, at 24 grams per hour, matches or exceeds just about anything you might be selling right now for permanent in ground pools.

I mean, this is a cost savings of 83% on the acquisition price of that Leslie’s system. The funniest thing is, Leslie's sells Intex above ground pools. They're helping the company that's cutting their throat on salt systems to be successful by shilling their pools.

Another glaring example of this price disparity; one of my customers with a Zodiac LM2-24 spent more than twice that much this week over the phone with Zodiac just to buy a replacement cell UNDER WARRANTY. Her nearly three year old cell went south and Zodiac is nicking her for “66% of the current list price”.

An Intex replacement cell is $99.00 at the Intex website.

http://www.intexcorp.com/store/ProductList.aspx?categoryID=22

Now, I’ve ranted about this closed loop warranty deal in previous blog entries:

http://thepoolbiz.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html

Read the Circle Game for the full story, but it goes something like this: You sell a salt system. If you’re stuck competing with a nationwide chain like Leslie’s, you’re selling it for $1,100.00, installed. Now, subtract your labor, parts, PVC glue, mileage, etc. and you’re lucky to clear $250.00. That’s $250.00 net on a rather sizeable investment in material. Because we all know how much WE pay for salt systems.

But, in three to five years when that salt cell fails, Cha-Ching, right? You get to sell another cell. That’s the payoff you’re waiting for, right?

Well, forget it. The folks at Zodiac will not only sell your customer a salt cell under warranty right up until the end of the third year, but the 1-800 tech told my customer that after the warranty expired HE’D SELL HER ONE FOR THE CURRENT LIST PRICE.

Now, go check your price on a replacement cell. It’s about 20% less than the current list price. And it’s most likely a special order, which means that your customer can get it from Zodiac faster than you can get it from distribution. And the reason it’s a special order is because the customer’s are buying replacement cells directly from the manufacturers.

Whatever happened to the idea of manufacturers not competing with distribution and the retail stores and the service providers? When did we all start giving them a pass on that? Why do we all keep selling their stuff when they so blatantly cut us out of the deal? Why do the major distributors sit still for being bypassed like this?

And to be honest with you, I wouldn’t mind all of this – I don’t sell salt systems anyway – if the manufacturers would step up and assume responsibility for all the damage that salt’s doing to the pools. But except for Goldline’s letter:

http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa070511_lj_pools.5c53d476.html

where they made the startling admission that stone deterioration has been going on “since the dawn of time” - yeah, yeah. And water made the Grand Canyon, too. So what’s that got to do with salt damage to pools? – Except for that, no one on the money-making end of this deal has done anything but watch their stock go up.

To review: You find the customer. You sell them on the idea of converting their pool to salt. You install the salt system. You make $250.00. You invest that $250.00 in a high yield instrument so you’ll have the money when they call back three years later saying their coping has all dissolved into the pool and it’s your fault and you better fix it and oh, by the way, they just bought a new salt cell from the manufacturer over the phone and it was so easy they just charged it to their credit card and another oh, by the way, they told all their friends how you ruined their pool.

Oh… So that’s why your phone stopped ringing…

But it get’s worse. In the not too distant future, all these people you sold salt systems to are going to start telling all their friends how you screwed them like stump-tied sheep because, Honest-to-God, Cabella’s has that Intex salt system for $144.99…

http://www.cabelas.com/prod-1/0030731017455a.shtml

…and it produces exactly the same amount of chlorine as just nearly every salt system that you can buy right now for $1,100.00, installation included. So, why, oh , why, oh, why do salt systems for in ground pools cost 83% more than that?

Because somebody – not you – is making a ton of money. For now. And when the Gravy Train stops, it’s your reputation that’ll take the hit for all the coping and decks and heaters and ladders and rails and light niches that got ruined when you installed $1,100.00, $1,200.00, $1,500.00, $2,000.00 salt systems. Remember those prices? I do. It’s like it was just yesterday… Wait a minute. It was yesterday. And what about tomorrow? $400.00. You heard it here first. You will see $400.00 salt systems for in-ground pools within the next two years. It’s called Keeping Up With The Jones’, or The Cabela’s, as the case may be.

There is a selective quality to the screwing you’re taking, though. Think about this for a minute. A salt system pretty much has four components; power supply, control board, flow switch and salt cell. The power supply, control board and flow switch aren’t modular. They require someone who’s been to the school, or worked on pool equipment for a while, to get in and replace them without making the problem worse. And the flow switches usually require basic plumbing skills. But the cell, which is where all the profit is centered, is usually modular; union connections and an easily accessible plug that even a homeowner can handle.

So, here’s the scenario. The homeowner calls the 1-800 tech and says, “I don’t think my salt system is making chlorine”. The tech has the homeowner push a few buttons, check a few indicators and then tells them, “you have a bad cell”, and then sells them a new one, bypassing you and distribution.

Try that with a Lo NOX heater. “Oh, yeah, it sounds like you have a failed flame sensor and a faulty keypad. I’ll overnight the parts to you.”

You see, they still need you for that, and so they make sure distribution has those parts available and they tour the country teaching you how to fix that stuff and they even sell the parts with room left for you to mark them up so that you can do all that crazy rich guy stuff like feed your family and pay your mortgage.

But when it comes to that Plug And Play salt cell, all that profit is for them.

So, tell me again. How is salt such a good deal for you and me and the consumer? In the final analysis, the only winner is the manufacturer, as long as they can continue to dodge the liability of salt damage to swimming pools, and as long as you keep letting them screw you on the salt systems while you fix their heaters and pumps and filters.

I know. I know. What can you do about it?

Well, for starters, you can quit shilling for these guys and start holding their feet to the fire. Next time you’re at one of your association meetings, ask the manufacturer’s rep in the room – after all, they’re always there – why you’re good enough to fix their heaters but not good enough to profit on their salt cell replacements.

Or, the next time you read a three page advertising spread dressed up as an “information article” in one of your trade magazines, go to the computer and fire off a Letter to the Editor about how they missed pointing out The Down Sides of Salt Pools.

A perfect example is the May 31st edition of Service Industry News. Most of that edition is dedicated to a review of alternatives to traditional chlorine. On page 7, they say that the “articles will look at each of the alternative systems’ advantages and disadvantages from a service professional’s perspective”. Then, the first, and longest, and most prominent article is about - you guessed it - salt chlorine generators. And the article reads like a marketing brochure. They talk about how 2,700 to 3,400 ppm salt is “a mild saline solution so low that it is almost impossible to taste”.

Then, to make that sound like it’s even less than it is they use the big scary sea water salinity number – normally quoted as 35,000 but amplified to 40,000 ppm for this article – even though the EPA level of taste has been established at 250 ppm.

Listen, whenever someone compares salt pool water to sea water, or to the salinity of a tear, you’re being marketed. You’re no longer having a technical discussion about salt systems. You’re listening to a sales pitch.

The article goes on for two pages and doesn’t address a single one of the down sides that we see on a daily basis with salt pools. There’s not a word of caution about any of the issues that have been emerging with salt pools across the country. And the strangest thing; nobody wrote this article. There’s not a byline anywhere in sight.

And this is the Service Industry News!

But if you go to page 20 of the very same issue, in the Show & Tell section, you’ll see the article introducing “Two new anti-electrolysis zinc anodes by Pool Tool”.

They go on to say that service “professionals experiencing problems with plaster discoloration or metal erosion in salt water pools should look into two new devices from Pool Tool of Ventura, Calif.”

I mentioned those zinc anodes and linked to the Pooltoolco website here:

http://thepoolbiz.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html

in the blog entry titled “Stray Currents Are Still Dissolving Your Salt Water Swimming Pool, Part 3”.

So, which is it? Either staining of plaster and metal erosion is a disadvantage and should have been included in the “information article” on salt systems, or it really isn’t an issue and so why would they print info about anti-electrolysis zinc anodes?

And all these guys will continue to get away with this stuff as long as you sit there quietly and read this blog and then go back to business as usual Monday morning. The only people who can make our industry and our manufacturers more accountable for straight information are us.

Which reminds me; weren’t the Group of Seven salt system manufacturers supposed to be releasing their research about the down sides of salt systems this year? The year’s more than half over and not a hint of info has been forthcoming.

Hmmm… I guess they’re not done making money yet.

And you thought I was talking about prices when I asked, How Low Can You Go?

The Wal-Mart Effect

According to Word Spy - a web site devoted to lexpionage, the sleuthing of new words and phrases - the term Wal-Mart effect is defined as follows;

Wal-Mart effect n. The economic effects attributable to the Wal-Mart retail chain, including local effects such as forcing smaller competitors out of business and driving down wages, and broader effects such as helping to keep inflation low and productivity high. Also: WalMart effect.

I’ve always felt rather immune to it, myself. That, and those other things in this day and age that seem to go hand in hand with it. Like the time that AOL sent someone to my house to troubleshoot a DSL download speed problem. We got to talking and it turned out he had a degree in software engineering and his job had been offshored - once again, back to Word Spy:

offshorable (awf.SHOR.uh.bul) adj. Capable of being moved to another country, especially to reduce costs; capable of being performed by a person in another country, especially at a lower wage or salary.—offshore v.—offshoring pp.

- and he had been reduced to $20 service calls, using his own vehicle and gas, to fix people’s AOL problems.

Being a Pool Guy has always made me feel immune to all of that. I still sympathize with folks who get stuck in those crunches - like losing your job to an Indian guy who makes $3,500 a year for doing what you were charging $100,000 - but I don’t see them figuring out a way to offshore pool cleaning. Yet. And until filters and pumps and heaters are plug and play devices, I’m safe.

I hear guys all the time complaining about the Mass Marketers hurting their business, about Home Depot cutting into their chemical sales, about Sam’s Club having tablets cheaper than their wholesale distributors, about The Internet selling stuff cheaper than they can buy it. Their argument is that people want bargains, and that they can’t compete with that.

My answer has always been not to compete. If a customer says to me, "I can get that filter for five hundred dollars less at the IMA POOLWHORE Internet Pool Store", I say, "Be my guest!" and move on.

They are obviously not in my market. Because if they were in my market, they would be My Customer, and they would trust that the price I was quoting them was fair, based on a fair mark up and a fair price for installation labor, and the fact that I’ll be there - probably the same day - if anything goes wrong. They wouldn’t be looking at some low ball price on the internet and wondering if they could beat me up with it.

You see, I’m their Service Provider, and that’s really what I’m selling and that’s really what they’re buying. And the smart ones know that. And the not-so-smart ones find themselves looking for a new Pool Guy.

So, how does all of this relate to the Wal Mar effect? Like this:

I’ll still be here when salt systems are nothing more than a bad memory. Because I’m the constant in this business. Me and the guys like me; the Service Providers. And the reason I’ll still be here is because I provide the service to the End User; the Pool Owner. And currently, part of that service includes a stiff warning to my customers not to waste their money on a salt system, for all the reasons I’ve spent the last nine months writing about.

Because you knew that some day this had to happen, when there was enough money in that salt system market, Wal Mart would throw their hat into that big, fat, profit bloated ring, like this:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5601479

Introducing the new Intex Heavy Duty Saltwater Pool Filter System for $186.00. It includes the electronics, the salt cell and a flow switch. Here’s what they say in the product description:

"This saltwater system easily connects to most above ground pool filters and sets up in five minutes or less. Just add an undetectable amount of pure, natural salt to your pool water and set the automatic timer to get fresh, clean water using no packaged chemicals. Since this pool filter doesn't use chlorine, it is an attractive and environmentally responsible product."

How many lies did you count? I counted four. As you can see, they are hewing close to the marketing path blazed by their salt system predecessors.

My favorite lie is "since this pool filter doesn’t use chlorine..." That’s how little Wal Mart knows about a device whose byproducts include explosive hydrogen gas. It’s a pool filter that doesn’t use chlorine. The salt business has become even more dangerous.

You know, there’s a warning in the owner’s manual on page two that reads, "Do not operate this product when pool is occupied". I assume the reason is because the system isn’t bonded and it doesn’t even have a GFCI built into the plug, like my wife’s hair dryer does - which we bought at Target, by the way. It bridges a couple of amps (2.5, to be exact) through the water with only a glancing nod to electrical safety, by warning not to use extension cords and only plugging it into a GFCI receptacle.

Yeah, that’ll happen. A guy will spend $186.00 for a salt system and then how many hundred more for an electrician to come out and install a code compliant GFCI outlet within reach of the unit’s power cord so he doesn’t have to use an extension. Sure. And I’m sure they’ll always remember to turn the system off every time the kids want to jump into the pool.

But it’s okay because in bold print they’ve added, "FAILURE TO FOLLOW THESE WARNINGS MAY RESULT IN PROPERTY DAMAGE, ELECTRICAL SHOCK, ENTANGLEMENT, OR OTHER SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH." So, you see, if anything happens, it’s okay, because they put in on page two of the owner’s manual, and everybody reads page two of the owner’s manual.

I mean, what do you want? Low prices or safety? Give a Wal-Mart High Five! Slap, Slap!

BUT, when you compare this thing’s performance side by side to say, the Jandy AquaPure 1400, it produces the exact same amount of chlorine. The Intex owner’s manual claims 24 grams per hour maximum chlorine output, and the Jandy AquaPure 1400 tech manual claims 567 grams in 24 hours, or 23.63 grams per hour. Zodiac’s LM2-24 is the same. Their LM2-40 is higher, up to 40 grams per hour, but it’s Duo Clear is lower, only 15 grams per hour. The Intellichlor IC 20 is lowest, at 13.2 grams per hour, and their IC 40 is highest at 26.45 grams per hour. I couldn’t find Goldline’s output in their tech manual, and all the rest of the in-line salt systems have such a small segment of the market that I could really care less.

Of course, all these fat rich guys selling these brand name salt systems will crow about how Intex is producing that higher level at the cost of burning out their cells all that much faster. Intex has an answer for that, too:

http://www.intexcorp.com/store/ProductList.aspx?categoryID=22

Replacement electrolytic cells for $119.00, as opposed to somewhere around $450 at one of the rock bottom pool whore websites, and as much as $800 retail - which, if you’re paying attention, is enough to buy four Intex systems and have enough left over to take the kids to Chuck E. Cheese.

So, hey! All you Salt Peddlers. Time to get a new gadget. Maybe you can dust off ionizers, or buy the rights to the old Laars corona discharge ozonator. Or maybe you could start pouring liquid copper in the pools again, and call it an alternative-sanitizer-never-mind-the-stains.

But you really ought to listen to me on this one. At this point, the only people left selling salt to their customers are in it for the money, and once that "money" gets under fifty bucks a unit, even they won’t stick around.

It doesn’t matter much to me what you do. I’ll still be here, watching over my pools, keeping you guys and your next gadget out of my backyards.

Oh, and one more thing... Bu-bye.

Comments On The Comments


I was re-reading the comments from the WFAA survey about salt water damage to swimming pools. You can find the survey results here:

http://www.wfaa.com/perl/common/surveys/vote_now.pl?action=viewResults&poll_id=11360&site=wfaa&thissite=wfaa

This was one of the first comments posted.

“First of all, a salt system is a sanitizing system, not a filtration system. It cleans the water chemically, with chlorine. The difference is the chlorine is produced by molecular seperation [sic] of the chlorine from the sodium once salt is added to the water. Secondly, water chemistry can be harder to maintain in salt pools, and those issues (especially low pH) are much more likely to cause corrosion than salt. Finally, people need to start taking responsibility for their property. It's too easy to say ‘I didn't know’ and blame problems on other people. Bottom line - if you're not willing to do your homework and put in some effort, you don't need to own something like a swimming pool that requires regular maintenance.”

It’s a pretty ill conceived argument for salt, and it points out how difficult it is to defend salt. They concede the first thing that I always like to point out about salt; that even though the reps say how easy salt pools are for the pool owner to maintain chemically, in their own words, “water chemistry can be harder to maintain in salt pools...”. Having conceded that, they try to move on to the assumption that, since the homeowner is incapable of handling this harder to maintain water chemistry, that it’s these issues, especially low pH, that are causing all of the corrosion issues.

Now, I want to speak a truth here, a truth I challenge you to disprove; you can Google salt and stone damage and get thousands of returns that cite salt damage to all types of stone and cementitious materials. If you click on those returns, you’ll read what I’ve been reading for nine months; salt damages stone and salt water splash out from salt water swimming pools has been cited from here to Australia as being THE REASON that stone and cementitious materials will show signs of aging within a few years.

Then, Google stone damage and low pH, and what you’ll find is thousands of reports that talk about, for the most part, acid rain being a culprit in the premature aging of stone, and they point out that acid rain in the US varies in pH from 3.9 to 5.6. Now, how much muriatic acid would you have to pour into a salt pool to, first, overcome the inherent high pH of salt pools, and then, drive the pH down to a range of 3.9 to 5.6? THEN, consider this; the same acid rain falls on salt pools and tab pools. How come only salt pools are showing signs of corrosion after one and two years?

It's not the pH. It’s the Salt.


Getting back to the Salt Rep’s - I mean, the pool owner’s - survey comment: After they blame everything on their fairy tale of running pools on a pH below 3.9 - a fairy tale designed to help them dodge any responsibility for the millions of dollars of damage that salt has done to swimming pools nationwide - they turn right around and chastise pool owner’s for not “taking responsibility”, summarizing that if folks aren’t willing to “put in some effort” then they just shouldn’t own a swimming pool.

As I’ve pointed out so many times in this blog, they spent years and years building their market by extolling the ease of maintenance of salt systems, and then when things go south, they blame it on the fact that “it’s hard” and “it’s your fault, not mine”. These are things five year olds say.

Then, there are several comments from pool service folks - who, incidentally, identify themselves as pool service folks - and they say things like:

“I have been maintaining\repairing pools on dallas for 17 years now and I have seen first hand the problems with stone, metals, and pool equipment as mentioned in your article. The LAST thing I would install on my oun [sic] pool is a salt system.”

And...

“I take care of many salt pools and see how the salt destroys the coping and any rock that is near the pool. The salt eats away at mortar between the coping and rocks. Stay away from salt pools. “

And my personal favorite and no, I didn’t write it...

“I have been repairing and or servicing pool for over 20 years. I would not install a salt chlorine generating system on my own pool or any of my customers pools, and, because of my relationship with various manufacturers, I could have a free salt chlorine generating system on my pool. Come to think of it, I could install the nine month old one that is in the back of my truck that I cut out of a customers system on Wednesday because they could no longer stand watching their limestone around the pool perimeter disappear, and they new [sic] that their builders' warranty on the pool was coming up and had watched me replace 3 horizontal style auto fill mechanisms and 1 heater thermistor. It really is very simple. I work on pool equipment 5 to 6 days a week, the pools with salt chlorine generating systems are experiencing problems with metal equipment components at an abnormally fast rate. It does not matter if they have a good pool service or a bad pool service, if the homeowner is taking care of the pool or if no one is taking care of the pool. This is of course somewhat of a stretch because I do know that bad water chemistry is not good. I know some of the best service guys in the dallas [sic] area and they watch their water chemistry closely and it does not keep these same parts from failing. We are now being asked by a manufacturer to put zinc balls in our pump baskets to deflect the damage away from the other metals in the equipment. We are now being approached by salesman pushing stone sealers. Heater manufacturers are changing their heat exchanger material (they need to figure a way to put thermistors in dry wells). Builders are asking homeowners to sign damage waivers before they will sell/install a salt system. What? There is not an issue with these systems? Water does feel better when it has a water softener, and your eyes may not get so irritated in a salt environment. I have a customer that we just replaced a 4 year old heater. He told me he loved the water conditions so much he would buy a new heater every 4 years if that is what it took. I hope he never loses my card. Come to think of it, I love salt systems, my family loves salt systems. Know the whole story before you put one of these profit centers on your pool.”

These folks all pretty much agree that salt’s the worst thing they’ve seen come down the pike in their careers in the pool business. They have that in common. The other thing they have in common is that they can spell and write a lucid sentence. Perhaps it points to the fact that those with a brain in their head and decent powers of observation can pretty readily see that salt is harming our swimming pools.

Their opinions are sharply contrasted, in every way possible, by this comment from a “pool-contractor [sic] and service provider” who appears to blame it all on untrained salesmen and lazy consumers, a rationalization which allows him to continue to offer salt systems for sale:

“As a pool-contractor [sic] and service provider, we have offered "Chlorine Generators" (Salt) since the early 80's. Corrosive conditions exist in all water, dependent largly [sic] on the degree the water is unballanced [sic]. For example: unbalanced water created the Grand Canyon". Unbalanced water chemistry will be devistating [sic] on everything around a swimming pool. As corrision [sic] is more pronounced with salt added, the ability of the customers level to understand the issue, generaly [sic] dictates "IF" we recomend [sic] a Chlorine Generator, or-not [sic]. For many applications a Clorine [sic] Generator is an excelent [sic] choice. In Australia where most of todays [sic] salt technoligy [sic] evolves, much of the tap-water already has high salt content.These devices will-in-fact operate effortlesy [sic] and efficently [sic]with proper water chemistry balance "FOR A WHILE", only to require water re-balancing in a week or so. Unfortunantly [sic], many commision [sic] based salesmen remain untrained in water chemistry at all and offer these miniture [sic] chlorine "Manufacturing plants" as a solve-all, maintence-free [sic], do-it-all solution to consumer desires to efficently [sic] neglect the pool, while keeping their water pristine. Numerious [sic] pool maintence [sic] providers remained sufficantly [sic] untrained in water chemistry,as well. Money purportadly [sic] saved per not buying chlorine is overshadowed with routine equipment and surrounding pool-surface MAINTANCE [SIC]. IN SUMMARY: Untrained individuals should-not [sic] utilize Chlorine Generatoring [my favorite sic of all] plants, of any size.”

And you have no idea how hard it is right now to restrain myself. I mean, you read the last paragraph! You see how easy it would be! It’s like being given half an hour at the free throw line to sink as many as you want. And they all count!

But, there’s been a recent spate of criticism’s of my style, for my penchant of making fun of people who disagree with my point of view. There’s even been one trite little column in a throw-away newsletter dedicated to slamming me and pronouncing that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Now, anybody who didn’t sleep through World History in high school will remember that’s pretty much how the Fascists came to power.

Oh, damn! I did it again! Was that rude? Pardon me. Or is it bite me? I forget which.

I guess where I’m going here is that I can’t believe that I’ve become the Bad Guy. I can’t believe that after all the damage the salt manufacturers have done to our pools, to our pocket books and to our collective reputations, after the throughly irresponsible way that they introduced their salt systems without a word of caution or warning or even a glancing nod to any installation guidelines or potential material incompatibility, that all of that gets set aside because The Pool Guy said something bad about a California builder?

Because that’s what they’re keying on right now. It’s nothing more than, “Hey! Look over there!” while they keep hiding from the fact that they’re eating up swimming pools with salt chlorine generatoring technoligy.

If you can’t Kill the Message, Kill the Messenger.

The truth of what I did was to comment critically on this builder’s already published comments, in the form of a blog-style rant posted as an “information update” on his company website - which he has since removed, by the way - where he came out vehemently and bitterly against California legislation which has since received widespread bi-partisan support throughout the state of California and proven to be both timely and necessary to control the ever worsening issue of saline discharge into waters used for irrigation.

The reason I knew the man’s position at all on this issue was because he published it and I discovered it on page one of a Google search. He put his opinion out there for all the world to see, and to comment on. Was it my blog that scared off his customer, or his scary comments in his website’s “information update”? After all, it’s his opinion on the subject that's in the minority in his state. Not mine.

All that happened was that he mixed his politics with his business and came up the loser. That is hardly my fault and is exactly why I remain

Anonymously Yours,
The Pool Guy

Victory Lap?

I’ve really enjoyed this last week. You know, being right and being vindicated and all that. It kind of puts a spring in your step to see that a few people armed with nothing but The Truth and a Free Blog can make a difference in an industry.
I have no proof that salt sales are going down. And the sales reps don’t leave me e-mails crying on my shoulder how they’re late on their boat payments ever since we started pointing out that the Emperor was Naked as a Jaybird.

It’s all in the details. Like this detail: I talked to a customer who said she saw the WFAA report - which you can find here, by the way:

http://www.wfaa.com/video/wfaageneral-index.html?nvid=143354

and here’s the print version:

http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa070511_lj_pools.5c53d476.html

and she Tivo’d it to show to a friend of hers who works for the INSERT REALLY BIG, VERY HIGH END DALLAS REAL ESTATE FIRM HERE and that her friend had passed the word to everyone during a sales meeting to WATCH OUT when they’re representing homes with salt pools, and More Importantly, to WATCH OUT when their clients are buying homes with salt pools. Turns out lots of the people at the meeting had seen the report too, and corroborated what was being said.

So, there’s about 75 or 100 real estate agents that’ll be looking at the coping and decks every time they show a house. It’ll start getting mentioned in the inspection report - Salt Damage to Coping and Decks... Ladders and Rails Corroding... Light Ring Tarnished Due to Salt - and then other realtors at other agencies will start to notice that they’re negotiating salt damage costs more and more when they’re trying to sell a house. And the next thing you know, when someone lists their house for sale and the realtor shows up for the appraisal, the first thing they’ll say is, "Oh, my God! Get rid of that salt system or we’ll never be able to sell your home!"

The Salt Box is proving to be just another gadget who’s time has come. It’s fifteen minutes are up. The Sales Reps can talk all day long about "the reality of adjusting to this new salt environment" until they’re blue in the face - or more bluish green actually, the color of the tarnish that salt causes on stainless steel and copper - but it’s all just talk.

And their bosses back at the plant can go ahead and upgrade their heaters to cupro nickel and do away with brass wells and brass thermistors, and maybe they’ll even force all the ladder and rail manufacturers to offer a higher grade stainless option for awhile - not to say that there was anything wrong with the stainless steel that they were using for the one hundred years before the advent of salt - but it’s all just a tempest in a teapot.

All of their grand plans of reshaping the industry from inside their Ivory Towers - the same Ivory Towers where they created the problem by pouring salt into pools and now sit around and atavistically try to find ways to repair that damage - are going to be flushed away by the same thing that they swear drove the salt craze to begin with; Consumer Demand. Except now the Consumer will be Demanding that you get that Damn Salt Box out of their back yard.

But this whole salt fiasco has been a great learning experience for me. I’ve learned that Sales Reps can actually drive an entire industry with Empty Phrases.

Empty phrases like these:

"The difference with the resurgence of salt technology is that this time the demand is coming from the consumer."

No, it really wasn’t. It came from the salt system manufacturers making a much harder push with the builders and retailers to create another profit center. And you can’t blame the front line guys for looking for another profit center. Let’s see, a guy’s building 150 pools a year, and the Salt Rep says he can make an extra 500 bucks a pool... That’s Three Kids In College kind of money. So much bigger than Polaris Cruise kind of money. Before long, it was included in the menu of options of every builder’s sales wheel and every store had salt system displays front and center. And the Consumer Demand that was created by these efforts lasted about as long as Feeling Slippery and No Red Eyes could last against Thousands of Dollars in Stone & Metal Damage, which started showing up en masse about one year ago. In a few years, only the Stupidly, Irresponsibly Rich will be still be saying I Love Salt. Like, you just know that Paris Hilton will still have a salt swimming pool five years from now.

And my Other Favorite Empty Phrase is:

"Everybody just needs to adjust to the fact that salt is here to stay."

No it’s not. I remember years ago when the Sales Reps were blathering on at the shows that "Ionizers are here to stay!" Yeah, right...

You know, the consumer took the hit on Lo NOX heaters here in Texas and out in California because they had to. The state governments made them. The upcharge was inescapable. But what’s going to rise out of the ashes of this Salt Debacle is a group of sharp builders who are going to put together a sales package that’s going to show that they can bring a pool bid in for a lot less and offer a much wider range of building materials if the owner will just opt out of salt. And this will happen once all the dirty little secrets about salt damage are common knowledge - which started last week when Goldine threw in the towel on stone damage. Read about it here:

http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa070511_lj_pools.5c53d476.html

and click on the "Goldline Controls Full Statement to WFAA" in the "Also Online" box.

For Example, a builder will be able to say:

"I can save you money on your heater if we stick with a copper heat exchanger instead of the cupro nickel marine grade heat exchanger."

"I can save you money on your ladders and rails if we stick with standard grade instead of marine grade stainless."

"We can use softer stones like limestone and Oklahoma flagstone and it won’t turn to mush if we don’t use salt."

"I can save you all the money you’re going to spend on masonry sealer with salt. If you use salt, you’ll have to seal everything every XXX months. If you don’t use salt, you don’t have to use sealer BECAUSE WE NEVER DID BEFORE SALT AND SO WHY WOULD WE NOW?"

"I can save you $800 three years from now when you don’t have to replace your salt cell."

And then there’s My Personal Favorite in this era of Save The Planet Let’s Everybody Go Green: "You know, the wastewater treatment issue is a big one with a salt pool. They’re looking at slapping surcharges on folks with water softeners because of their chloride pollution. Salt swimming pools can’t be far behind."

Not to mention how much harder a sell salt’s going to become when everybody on the building end is insisting that the customer sign a Release of Liability from Salt Damage waiver.

All of this will take a little more time to come to pass because our industry really bit hard on this salt bait. Like the other day I went into a pool store to get some borate test strips to test the pools where some of my homeowners are using Twenty Mule Team Borax from Home Depot at $2.95 for a 4 lbs. box to soften their water and get rid of the red eyes thing. If you want to learn more about doing that, go here:

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=4712

I saw that this pool store is so ate up with salt that they now sell bags of salt with sodium tetraborate pentahydrate in it - which is wholly different than Twenty Mule Team Borax sodium tetraborate decahydrate; five water molecules different to be exact (penta... deca... get it?). Except, of course, in California where they can’t sell sodium tetraborate for swimming pools at all.

I meant to ask the clerk how much they were getting for a bag of this stuff, but I was laughing so hard I was beginning to hyperventilate and so I stumbled outside to catch my breath.

Once the market for that kind of stuff winnows down to that narrow group of consumers I like to call The Ones Who Will Buy Anything, it will naturally cancel out that last Empty Phrase that makes me want to open a vein every time I hear it;

"Just look at the cost savings with salt..."

And when I look at this industry that I do love so much, it looks more and more, the longer I look and the more I try to look Behind The Curtain at the Guys Pretending to be The Wizards of Our Oz, that we’re intentionally trying to screw our customers like stump-tied goats.

Is it stupidity, expediency or just plain old dishonesty that ever made us say, "just look at the cost savings with salt"? Because in addition to all the physical damage that salt has wrought on our pools, I can walk into a pool store in California and probably pay five or six times the going price of what Loews or Home Depot would charge me for a plastic bag that’s 95 to 98% salt. The only difference between it and Home Depot’s salt is that someone’s added 1 to 2% cyanuric acid so they can call it Better and charge that price for it. Less than one pound of stabilizer somehow makes this bag of salt worth all that much more? $1.75 to $3.50 worth of stabilizer - using average pool store highest price per pound pricing - adds that much bang to forty pounds of this stuff?

And how do I know all this? Because I read the Material Safety Data Sheets instead of the Sales Brochure. The Sales Brochure calls it a "proprietary blend of elements and stable minerals". The MSDS calls it "Inorganic Salt", 95 to 98% by weight, and "cyanuric acid", 1 to 2% by weight.

Which is why you should always look Behind The Curtain before Drinking the Kool-Aid.

And another thing. Do the math. There’s up to 3% of the bag that’s unaccounted for. If you ask the people who bag salt for a living, they’ll tell you it’s for the sand and other impurities that are part and parcel of the air drying process of granular salt.

Which only goes to show you that salt pellets are actually cleaner than granular salt, unless that granular salt is Food Grade, in which case it’s 99.9% NaCl (sodium chloride).

But wait. I started out celebrating a victory of Truth Over Bullshit and now it turns out there’s yet another rock to turn over and shine a light under. Not to mention that I heard a very reasonable explanation the other night for why Texas and Arizona are the most hard hit by salt damage, and it's better than the old stand-by; "it's the poolman's fault". But that’ll have to wait until next week. It’s nearly summer and I’ve got a business to run.

The Worm Has Turned

That phrase has an interesting derivation. It comes from an old proverb that says tread on a worm and it will turn. It means "even the most humble will strike back if abused enough". These days, the expression the worm has turned is often used in the broad sense "the situation has changed" - a tip of the hat to randomhouse.com’s Word Maven, a delightful source of insight into words and phrases.

So which of those definitions is most apt for this blog piece?

Here’s a news story and a snippet of video that you ought to watch. Click on the links. The first one is the print story. The second is the video report. Then come back and we’ll talk more about how the worm has turned.

http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa070511_lj_pools.5c53d476.html

http://www.wfaa.com/video/wfaageneral-index.html?nvid=143354

WFAA, the ABC affiliate that did this news story, is a part of the Belo media empire.

http://www.belo.com/companies/

They own twenty-five news companies, their flagship being the Dallas Morning News, winner of eight Pulitzer Prizes and honored as one of the top five newspapers in the United States by the Columbia Journalism Review. WFAA Channel 8 is the broadcast companion to the Dallas Morning News. They are both considered conservative and reserved, not given to flights of fancy, not a news organization prone to sensationalism - except perhaps a little when they promo the weather... "Armageddon by nightfall? Details at 6." But they all do that. Weather, I guess, is fair game. But it is fair to say about Channel 8 WFAA that If It Bleeds, It Probably Won’t Lead.

And I think it’s fair to say that the story you just read and watched when you clicked on the links (you did click on the link and go see those pieces, didn’t you?) is a news piece done by a news organization with some pretty impeccable news credentials. And the guy who did the story, David Schechter, brings some pretty stiff credentials along with him, having won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and the National Headliner Grand Award, not to mention 13 regional Emmy awards as a reporter in Minneapolis.

It’s safe to say that these are not people prone to sticking microphones in people’s faces who are dashing to their car with their hands over their faces. Though I must admit, I was hoping for a bit of that. I confess, I had visions of Salt Reps wailing "no comment!" and reaching out to swat the camera away. But you can’t have everything, can you?

They interviewed a total of five people for the video segment, and four of them didn’t have anything good to say about salt. Although the one person they had who was pro salt brought some pretty hefty credentials to the table. Bob Tomlinson is the National Vice President for APSP Region Three. And as you saw, he stated unequivocally that, "I don't believe the corrosion we've heard about in the past is a valid issue. And I do greatly await the results of the test being done."

When I heard that, I couldn’t believe that such a knowledgeable and experienced pool builder could have gone these last four or five years without seeing any of the hundreds of rusted diving board stands that only seem to pop up on salt pools and then say, "I don't believe the corrosion we've heard about in the past is a valid issue". I mean, I admit, I’ve met knowledgeable people in our industry who have drunk the kool-aid on the damage to stone being a water chemistry issue and not salt, and even though I think that’s the most head-in-the-sand attitude you could take on the issue, how can anyone with even a passing knowledge of the mechanisms of corrosion deny what salt is doing to diving board stands and ladders and handrails?

But the main problem with Bob’s comments are that they fly in the face of the press release that Goldline gave to WFAA in response to their request for a comment on salt damage to pools. If you take a hard look at that two page liability dodge... I mean, press release... you come away from reading it saying to yourself, "did they just say that salt damages stone? They did just say that salt damages stone, didn’t they? I mean, they did just release a document TO THE PUBLIC, addressed to "Dear Pool Owner", that says "Natural stone can be broken down, dissolved or converted to new minerals by a variety of mechanical and chemical processes. Mechanical processes include frost action, thermal expansion, wetting, drying and salt decay." ‘ [emphasis mine].

So, Bob’s wrong. You can erase his segment. The people he was trying to stand up for just left him hanging out there, flapping in the breeze, all by himself, the Last of the Mohicans, the last member of the I Didn’t Get That Memo club.

I guess Goldine got those test results that Bob was "greatly awaiting" and forgot to tell him that they were releasing a letter to a TV news guy that says pretty much without a doubt there’s more than a grain of truth to the growing opinion that salt systems aren’t right for every pool. They go so far as to WARN THE PUBLIC THAT, "If you have purchased, or are considering purchasing, an electronic chlorine generator for installation with an existing pool or spa with a natural stone surround, you should consult with a qualified stone installation specialist or pool installation contractor in your area to determine what, if any, on-going maintenance will be advised to minimize or avoid unsatisfactory weathering of the stone around your pool or spa."

And right there, they did two things: They admitted that salt ruins certain types of stone. And they said it wasn’t their fault. The date of the letter is May 2nd, 2007. So, anybody who has salt issues that occurred before that date, call your salt system manufacturer. Anybody with issues after that date, call the person who sold you the salt system.

Because if you all can’t see it coming, then let me explain to you what phase of this catastrophe we’re in: Damage Control.

Goldline is the first to jump out with a dated document, available on line, that says, in the most innocuous way possible, that salt will damage stone. Having said that, they’re off the hook if you don’t disclose that to a customer when you sell them a salt system. So, in ten months, when that lady with all the Oklahoma flagstone waterfalls calls you up and says that her pool is full of brown dust, the financial solution to the problem will rest on your shoulders, and not the manufacturers.

And that’s really a big deal. The burden of liability just shifted from the manufacturer to the builders and installers. That is a Truly Seismic Event.

But what everybody’s going to remember about this blog piece isn’t that. What they’re going to remember is; That Rotten S.O.B. The Pool Guy just threw Old Bob under the bus.

I admit, it gives me pause. It makes me ponder whether I should go back and edit that out of this piece before I post it to the blog. But it’s not my fault that what Bob said isn’t true. And it’s not my fault that Goldline published a letter that disputed what he said even as he was saying it. And I know he's the President of a very well respected pool building firm, and that's exactly why I feel compelled to dispute what he says as vigorously as I can. Because what he says carries a lot of weight. Even when he's wrong. Like now. Because MOST BUILDERS IN TEXAS aren't as wholeheartedly behind salt as Bob is. Channel 8 had to go all the way to Houston, Texas - that's a distance of 240 miles for those of you not used to how big the Great State of Texas is - to find a pro-salt voice.

Where were the Salt Reps? A ton of them live right here in Dallas - Fort Worth. Why weren't they on camera saying that all this talk of salt damage is just a bunch of hooey. You think they weren't asked? They declined.

Here's a more typical example of Texas Pool Builder's opinion on salt. I was talking to a new pool owner last weekend who got a bid from Riverbend Sandler, the biggest pool builder in Texas, about six months ago. At that juncture, they wouldn’t even talk to him about a salt system. I’ve heard they have since resumed salt sales, but with a waiver. It's the same kind of waiver that Phil McEwan, the builder quoted in the WFAA piece, requires. Just like so many builders do these days.

If you go back to the WFAA print story and click on "Have you had a problem with your salt water pool? View Results", there’s a comment that was left by a fellow who says he’s a twenty year service and repair veteran, and he sums it up better than I ever could:

"We are now being asked by a manufacturer to put zinc balls in our pump baskets to deflect the damage away from the other metals in the equipment. We are now being approached by salesman pushing stone sealers. Heater manufacturers are changing their heat exchanger material (they need to figure a way to put thermistors in dry wells). Builders are asking homeowners to sign damage waivers before they will sell/install a salt system. What? There is not an issue with these systems?"

So, when you tell a friend to go look at this blog piece because, hey, The Pool Guy just threw Bob Tomlinson under the bus, remember to add that, oh yeah, and by the way, Goldline just dumped the liability for these salt systems in our lap.

When I heard that this news report about salt pools was coming on, I hoped that it would be the beginning of The Worm Turning in the old proverb sense that even the most humble will strike back if abused enough. But all things considered, with this letter from Goldline, it's more just that the situation has changed, and we've all been put on notice who is going to pick up the tab for all this.

We are.

Brothers and Sisters, The Worm Has Just Turned.

This is your Polaris 280 Drive Shaft

X50 Magnification


This is your Polaris 280 Drive Shaft On Salt

X50 magnification

I pulled this out of one of my pools last week:

I’ve serviced this pool since it was new. It’s a pristine clean, 20,000 gallon, dark blue plaster pool with Oklahoma flagstone coping and rock hardscape - spa waterfall and diving rock. It has a Zodiac Clearwater LM2-24 salt system. It filled July of 2003. The Polaris is almost four years old. It runs 3 hours a day. I know because I set the program times and I preach to my customers that 3 hours a day is all that a Polaris needs to clean their pool. If you run it 4 hours a day, that’s a 33% increase in run time and you’re just going to wear it out that much faster. So, 3 hours a day is ideal.


I say three hours a day because a Certain Sales Rep told me so - back when he was wearing a Polaris hat - and in those days, that was all I needed to know. And the truth is, I still prefer, recommend and sell Polaris 280's. For two reasons; It’s the Best Cleaner on the Market, and that Certain Sales Rep was, and is, the Best Salesman on Planet Earth, and I’d still stop and listen to his spiel even today, no matter what he was selling. I even forgive him for selling me Jacuzzi Earthworks filters Back In the Day. And I forgive him because I truly believe he believed Jacuzzi when they told him that he was selling a better, more economical filter, with a flat plane grid pack less apt to bridge and a filter that was overall easier to service than the competition. It didn’t work out that way, but that’s a whole other blog.


And Back In the Day you could go to a guy like him and tell him what you were seeing - like a Polaris 280 drive shaft being eaten alive by salt. And The Word would go up the line and his company would talk to that salt company and who know’s what really got resolved. When it got to that level, a one-pole Pool Guy and even the Regional Sales Rep were pretty small potatoes and hardly in the loop in those discussions.


But at least you had a sense that we were all working toward that common goal of making our industry one small step better.


But the waters are so muddy now. It’s hard to know what to do. You see, the company that makes the salt system that ate up that drive shaft, Zodiac Pool Care, bought Polaris Pool Systems on January 18th, 2005. So, you don’t hear a lot about Polaris ranting and raving that these salt systems are eating up their cleaners any more. And maybe they never did. Maybe I was a fool to believe that Polaris looked at a situation as a problem that needed resolution, instead of an opportunity to Sell More Drive Shafts. I don’t know.


But I do know this. I pulled this Polaris 280 out of a pool 02/11/06.

It came out of a 30,000 gallon pebble finish pool with Oklahoma flagstone coping and decks and waterfall. This pool was brand new and fresh filled on 02/16/04. This pool also has a Zodiac Clearwater LM2-40 salt system. I had to replace the wheel bearings and the wheels when I replaced that drive shaft. At the time, this wasn’t happening to my other two year old Polaris cleaners, so I figured it was a combination of the bumpiness of the pebble finish, in conjunction with the salt, that caused that Stainless Steel Drive Shaft to last about as long as the plastic teeth on the wheel it was meshing with. And I think I was right. Because the drive shaft at the top of this page lasted twice as long on a smooth plaster surface.


Here’s what the bearings and wheel on this week's Polaris look like:



That rusty, dissolving drive shaft pretty much chattered those bearings apart. Left a nice stain on that black plastic, too.


Here’s one more picture.

This is a side by side comparison of the new and old drive shafts. You can see how the rust on the old one has stained the white plastic with a brown patina. It’s much like the staining that I’ve documented in the two previous posts. And always, it’s related to the deterioration of metal parts that weren’t supposed to deteriorate in that way. I mean, Stainless Steel sort of implies, well, Stainless. Get it? But as any sailor or marine electrician knows, there’s no such thing as a Stainless Steel that won’t eventually corrode in the presence of salt. There’s a neat web page that shows exactly why. Here’s the link:

http://infohost.nmt.edu/~burleigh/

And here’s an image I borrowed from that page that points out the importance of chloride (Cl-) in this process. You know, chloride. As in sodium chloride-the-stuff-you’re-pouring-in-your-salt-pool-like-there’s-no-tomorrow chloride. That chloride. The one whose level you’ve jacked by a factor of at least seven - for an older pool that hasn’t been drained and refilled in a long time - and as much 65 times normal - if your pool’s a fresh fill and your tap water is around the 60 ppm that the EPA would like to see it at.




This webpage is hosted by T. David Burleigh, PhD & PE, Physical Metallurgist, Corrosion Specialist, and Instructor, an Associate Professor at the Materials and Metallurgical Engineering Department , New Mexico Tech, Socorro, NM 87801, and I really appreciate that he’s hosted it for those of us who don’t have time to move to New Mexico and attend his classes. Although I am going to look into buying one of his books at Amazon.

So, now we kinda see the mechanism for how the drive shaft went south on us and turned to rust. At least that’s one scenario. But I think there’s something else going on here as well. Our old friend Galvanic Corrosion. Here’s why:

These are pictures of the Locking Pin that holds the drive shaft turbine in place on the drive shaft. How much you want to bet that they're dissimilar metals? How much you want to bet that they’re just slightly different grades of Stainless Steel? And that slight difference set up a Galvanic Cell that traveled out to the tip of those shaft teeth and set them to corroding, and staining.

And why do I think it was Galvanic Corrosion? Because the new Polaris 280 drive shafts don’t have a Locking Pin to hold it onto the shaft. Next time you buy one, look for yourself. You’ll see. And if you have any salt pools that you take care of, believe me, you’ll be buying one soon.


So, what’s my point? This:


Polaris will sell more drive shafts as a result of the addition of salt to the pool water. And the consumer will pay for that. They’ll pay for the new part - about $30 - and perhaps the labor to put it in, because Polaris has changed their warranty, just like everybody else since salt came along, to one year on internal parts. It used to be 2 years, if you bought the booster pump and cleaner at the same time. But that’s about how long those drive shafts last in a pebble surface pool. And while that wouldn't have helped the four year old pool that I pulled the cleaner out of this week, they're still selling a drive sahft earlier than they would have anyway.


My other point is really a supposition, if Zodiac had never bought Polaris, would Polaris have eventually gone toe to toe with them and all the other salt system manufacturers over failed parts caused by salt water? We’ll never know. And we’ll never know if the change to that drive shaft is due to Galvanic Corrosion. Because you can bet your bottom dollar that even if it is - and the photographic evidence indicates that it is - and even if the engineers back at Polaris have a definitive report stating such, that report was long ago buried deep in the Zodiac Pool Care corporate archives, stamped "Proprietary Information. Do Not Release".


Zodiac bought Jandy this year. It was shortly after Jandy had purchased Chlormatic and renamed it the Aqua Pure.


Hayward bought Goldline Controls in September, 2004. When did they start offering cupro nickel heat exchangers on their H series heaters? To quote from their own website that you can go and check out Right Now; "Hayward H-Series heaters are all equipped with a Cupro Nickel Heat Exchanger for efficient heating and superior durability. Cupro Nickel provides improved durability and longevity against the damaging effects of erosion that can occur under high-flow conditions, corrosion from occasional pool chemical imbalances, and is ideal for salt-water based pool systems."


Here’s the link:


http://www.haywardnet.com/inground/products/heaters/H-Series.cfm


Right there, they’re equating "salt-water based pool systems" with "erosion that can occur under high flow conditions" - APSP calls that impingement corrosion and we’ll be talking more and more about that since I finally got a microscope and a way to start observing it - and "corrosion from occasional chemical imbalances". By implication then, the old copper heat exchangers won’t stand up to, "the damaging effects of erosion that can occur under high-flow conditions, corrosion from occasional pool chemical imbalances, and... salt-water based pool systems".


You can go one of two ways here. You can dismiss me as a Crackpot of the Highest Order, or you can Step Through The Looking Glass with me and look at this photo:

This is your Heater Heat Exchanger on Salt.


So, the next time you get a chance, ask your Polaris Rep whatever happened to that Locking Pin on the old 280 Drive Shaft? You see, if you know the answer to the question before you ask, then you can see for yourself that they’re BS’ing you. Then you can start applying that Unfortunate Fact of Life to everything else they tell you. Because the truth is usually "Proprietary Information: Do Not Release". And they have to tell you something or you’d stop buying their stuff.


You see, they’re not really lying to you. They’re protecting Company Sensitive Information.


And still, you may ask, what’s my point? This:


There’s nobody left out there that’s big enough to take on what used to be little old salt system manufacturers. They’re all huge multinationals now. They own the salt systems, or the salt systems own them, and instead of complaining that salt is ruining their products, they’re sending an internal document from one department to the other, making subtle equipment changes and passing the cost onto you and your customer.

If that’s okay with you, then So Be It. But then, stop telling me salt’s cheaper to use. Because everywhere I look, I see added cost after added cost, and nobody’s talking about it.

By the way, have you noticed that little holes are showing up on the old style Polairs wall port finger screens on salt pools? It looks like the mesh is just dissolving away. Gee. I wonder what's causing that?

And last but not least; I mentioned that both of these pools had Oklahoma flagstone, and they're both two of the dustiest pools on my route as that salt splash out continues to erode that softer Oklahoma flagstone.

Environmentally Unconscious

I learned something more about the Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation District ordinance banning salt water pools. And I learned it not from some left coast tree hugging environmental website - though I do tend to gravitate that way - but from an archive issue of Industrial Water World’s on line magazine. These are pretty much industrial wastewater management folks. Not folks you would readily connect with a vast left wing conspiracy to undermine the poor misunderstood Salt Peddlers out there. Here’s the link:

http://ww.pennnet.com/articles/article_display.cfm?Section=ARCHI&C=INDUS&ARTICLE_ID=241116&KEYWORDS=salt%20ban&p=41

You have to sign up to be able to get to it. It’s free. Sign up and then type "salt ban" in the search engine and the second article on the search return is:

"Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation District adopts ordinance banning saltwater pools
Officials continue to combat chloride discharge to protect Santa Clara River"

The article’s pretty much a rehashing of information I’ve already published in this blog about the salt ban. But it contained one piece of information I didn’t know:

"Swimming pools [in the Santa Clarita Valley] contribute about 125 pounds of salt per day, or about half of a percent of the chloride now entering the sewer system. If there is widespread conversion to saltwater pools, it could increase up to nine fold. If salt levels discharged into the river do not decrease, the Sanitation District may have to install new treatment equipment, possibly more than quadrupling Valley residents' annual sewer bills ..."

So, simple math would indicate that, if left unchecked, the Salt System business in the Santa Clarita Valley could increase up to a 4.5% level of contribution to the chloride discharge problem. Lucky for Santa Clarita pool builders, most pools aren’t plumbed to the sewer because building code doesn’t require it. So they just roll out the old backwash hose and let it spew... into the ground, eventually affecting the groundwater, or into a storm drain, which isn’t connected to the sewer system for waste treatment at all. Everybody keeps telling me I ought to keep my mouth shut about this issue, because it’s the only one I’ve really gotten any flack over. But I’m arguing with a guy who preaches and teaches ways around this ordinance so he and others can keep selling $1200 Salt Boxes. Amazing. As I’ve said before, Bizarro Pool World.

There’s some other news that I think will eventually affect the Salt Peddlers. It’s out of Scottsdale, Arizona. Here’s the link:

http://www.watertechonline.com/news.asp?mode=4&N_ID=67097

The gist of it is, golf courses in Scottsdale use 24 million gallons of water per day to irrigate their courses. But they use treated wastewater. You see, back in the early 1990's, the golf courses ponied up about $12 million to switch over to treated wastewater to get everybody off their backs about using potential drinking water. Trying to be good neighbors and good corporate citizens and all. But now, the grass on the gold courses is starting to decline because of the higher salt content of that wastewater.

And guess where that salt is coming from? Salt pools? Well, yes. But right now they’ve got their sights set on the water softener folks. Here’s why: "Art Nunez, water and wastewater treatment director at the water campus, said rising salt content of the irrigation water can be attributed to Scottsdale’s increased use of Colorado River water over the last two decades, and to the proliferation of water softeners in the city’s north... Increased use of water softeners also has contributed to the level of salt in wastewater, Nunez said... Each softener consumes about 40 pounds to 50 pounds of salt per month, which is flushed into the wastewater system, he said."

So, they’re pushing to speed up a $25 million water project, and add about $23 million to it to accomodate methods to reduce the salinity of wastewater discharge. And the reason that Scottsdale is probably going to say yes is because their golf courses generate "more that $6.2 million in tax revenue for Scottsdale in the peak January-to-April golf season".

How much tax revenue do water softeners and salt pools generate? Gee, I wonder who’s going to win?

The guy who is pushing all this is a fellow named Tim Bray. He’s a consultant with Southwest Community Resources. He’s also on the Board of Directors of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District.

Yeah, I know. Another liberal tree hugger out to strip the poor Salt Peddlers of their right to make oodles of money selling you environmentally unsound technology. But Mr. Bray hasn’t said anything about swimming pool salt systems yet. And to make sure he hasn’t overlooked them, I’m going to send him a letter pointing out the issues in Santa Clarita Valley.

So, you see, first it was Santa Clarita. Now, it’s going to be Scottsdale. Face it. It’s coming to a water district near you. Just wait and see. Salt System manufacturers are baling water on failed technology. And it’s not going to be pool damage that’s going to sink them. It’s going to be the environment. The environment and Rich Guys in Golf Carts. Wait till they hear that keeping salt water in their pool means teeing off on Astro Turf.

Speaking of pool damage... Here’s some nifty photos I took a while back. I was called out to work on a pump. It’s a five year old salt pool. Stamped concrete deck, pebble surface, and LOTS of Oklahoma flagstone for a waterfall that extends across the whole backside of the pool. The pool cost $100,000.

This first photo shows the inside of the difuser. The difuser shrouds the impeller, which is the deivce at the heart of your pump that moves all the water. That’s what’s left of a brass insert after five years of salt water. By the way, click on any of the photos to make them bigger.



Here’s what it looked like when it was new. Click to Enlarge



Here’s the old difuser and the new difuser side by side. I don’t know what the brown patina is. Click to Enlarge.



But it shows up on the shaft seal too. Click to Enlarge.



And the end result is stains on the pebble finish. Click to Enlarge.



These stains are just like the stains on the pool I posted about last week. Is it from the galvanic corrosion going on? The stray currents corrosion? Or maybe just salt contaminated with iron oxide. What? Never heard of contaminated salt? It’s only five bucks a bag and it’s not food grade. What did you expect?

Another thing you can see in the photo of the slotted return is the little pile of light brown dust down in the lower right hand corner. That dust is all over the pool. It’s there because the salt is dissolving all of this Oklahoma flagstone into the pool. Click to Enlarge.



That whole wall is a waterfall. The water comes rushing out from in between those rocks from one end to the other. It’s very impressive when it’s running. That’s where a lot of that $100,000 went. They’ve stopped running it much because of the issues of dissolving the flagstone into the pool.

Last but not least, we have these unexplained stains on the stamped concrete.



These little white spots disappear when the deck is wet, but show up as soon as it dries again. Nothing takes them off. They showed up when the pool was just under a year old. The owner made the builder come back out and strip the finish off the stamped concrete and reapply it. One year later the spots showed up again. Click to Enlarge.

It makes me wonder if stamped concrete is going to go the way of Cool Seal decks when it comes to salt damage.

Well, that’s all the news that fits. See you next week. And, in case you missed it, Click to Enlarge.