Ecosmarte Pool

I've been meaning to write up some information about my Ecosmarte Pool system. We installed the system about 6 months ago and have been very pleased with it. There was so little information available when we were researching alternatives to chlorine, I thought I'd write up what I've learned.

It was not that easy to even decide what we should do as an alternative to chlorine. With all the rushing around with buying a new house, learning about pools was just one more thing to research and one more expense we didn't want. Neither of us knew anything at all about swimming pool maintenance. So I'm going to include everything we've learned about running a pool.

There are, as far as I was able to find, only a few alternatives to chlorine. And in the USA, other than salt, we could not really find any information at all. I could find very little about what was wrong with chlorine. Some of my information came from the conversation on Dr. Mercola's website. He is very against chlorine but the system he does recommend simply hasn't caught on in the USA yet. And salt has two issues. First, a salt system is simply another way of generating chlorine. Since it is generated all the time, I guess the levels are as low as possible. Be that as it may, I don't understand paying all the money to convert only to still have chlorine. The other issue with salt is that it can eat away your pipes when retrofitted to an existing pool. I guess it might be okay with a new pool installation. Well, anyway, I prefer swimming in fresh water, so I was thrilled when I came to the Ecosmart website.

To be honest, the information on the website didn't really make a lot of sense to me. I could not understand how it "worked". But keep in mind that I didn't know the first thing about pools and the water in them, so perhaps to someone with more pool background, it makes better sense? Personally, I think they should explain a bit more to the pool newbie. I'll try to do that here in case anyone reading this is totally green like we were.

I had Ecosmarte send me some information, which left me still baffled, but at least convinced I was dealing with a real company. It's something about copper.

Okay, I didn't even know that the water in my pool has been there for years. New water doesn't come in and old water doesn't go out. Well, that's not strictly true, but that is the basic idea. You're dealing with water that could be years old. We accidentally had a leak once when my daughter picked off a patch we didn't know about, and then remembered to tell us a few weeks later while we scratched our heads about the dropping water level. That time, we refilled with water from the hose. And rain likes to fill our pool, especially during the rainy season. That is a huge issue here in Florida, and one I'll be talking about more. Besides leaks, water leaves via evaporation and when you backwash, something else I'll talk more about later when I go over pool maintenance.

Okay, so other than those ways of water coming and going, you're dealing with the same old water which is getting cycled by your pump through your filter and back into the pool for however many hours a day. In general, we run the pump 8-12 hours a day. If we can figure it all out and keep the water clear and clean, I'd like to run the pump for 8 hours. We've run it as much as 24 hours a day for a 48 hour period when trying to fix an issue. We also run the Ecosmarte thingy for some hours while the pump is running. It can be run in one of a few modes. There are so many parts of copper in the water When that gets too low, we run it in a mode that adds copper. The rest of the time, it's either in oxidize mode, or off. I have a bit more to learn about that but it's not an exact science.

By the way, there is a manual that comes with the system that tells you how to do all the tests, what the target test results are, and how to fix any numbers that are off. In addition, they offer telephone support. You can just go over your numbers with them and they'll tell you how to fix them. They encourage you to take advantage of this as you are learning to get your pool stable. I'm not stable yet but I don't have to call very often.

You're probably desperate by now to know the cost. I've blocked out the exact number because it was horrifying, but I think it was something like $500-$600 for a 3rd party glass and sand filter, and something like $2500 for the basic (manual) model. The fully automatic model was thousands of dollars more than that. It cost around $200 to have the filter installed and our old filter taken away. That helped right away; I have no idea how the old filter was supposed to be doing anything. The previous owners had a pool service coming every week or two to keep the pool looking clear and blue but that stopped as soon as we took ownership of the house and so did the pool being clear and blue. We watched it turn to pea soup in a matter of weeks while I struggled with the decision on whether or not to buy the Ecosmarte system.

We noticed an immediate improvement but we were still dealing with more of a swamp than a pool. We learned that the skimmer needs to be emptied daily. That is not a huge hardship. You simply lift out a plastic basket, dump it, and replace it. Sometimes, I check the secondary basket and see that it needs emptying too.

Unfortunately, we can't justify any kind of robotic vacuum right now as they start at over $500 for an in-ground pool. So we have to do extra maintenance due to all the trees. Not everyone will have to do as much work as we do. It is quite pleasant work though. We use two different nets to clear out debris. I watched a youtube video to get the idea of how to use the nets. It's quite meditative work. I suppose a vacuum would solve that issue. I haven't checked to see if they can handle some of the larger branches that fall in (or that the squirrels throw in).

The other regular maintenance is backwashing. There are plenty of sites with instructions on how to do that. When the pressure on the filter reaches a certain level, you backwash, rinse, and then put the filter back into filter mode. The backwashing causes water to bubble up in our backyard. I wish we'd known about that before we positioned our brand new teak table and chair set directly over the hose. Perhaps some day, I'll reroute the exit somewhere more convenient than the middle of my yard.

Okay so other maintenance is weekly testing. Meaning more like monthly. I have not been great about keeping up but I do try! I do 4 tests and based on the results, I fiddle around with products and procedures to get the levels right. It all sounds complicated but it's really not that bad after a few months. The tests are quite simple to do and involve a sample of water, test tubes, adding drops, and comparing the color to a chart. I find the comparing the color step to be the most complicated so I usually get my husband and kids to offer their opinions too, just to be sure. I'm getting more confident in my color comparison prowess.

We started with pea soup and after about a week, a few phone calls, a few trips to the pool supply store, and lots of simple stuff poured in, we had beautiful clear water and no chlorine! It was brilliant and lasted a few weeks. Then the Florida summer rains started and the temperature and humidity made going outside unbearable. So other than occasionally clearing out the skimmers and using the nets to clear both bottom and surface debris out, we just didn't bother with the pool. It gradually shifted back to pea soup. With the rainy season finally behind us, I tested again and tackled fixing the pool on my own. I got all the numbers within the target range except those darned phosphates, which are just a known issue with the Florida rains. So the pool was still green, but usable. I brushed the bottom but just could not get this figured out so I called their support. I ran through the procedure they outlined:

backwash
add PhosFree or any anti-phosphate product
run filter 48 hours straight
oxidize high 48 hours
backwash
add non-metallic algecide
wait 24 hours (oops - I missed this step)
add non-chlorine shock (the first time I've ever done that)

Back to blue pool this morning.
That's it for now. I hope this posting helps people understand non-chlorine options. Sorry so rambling. I really wanted to get some information down because I just couldn't find anything when I was trying to decide if I wanted to shell out thousands of dollars. Feel free to ask questions. I love my pool and I don't resent the work at all. I love my Ecosmarte system and I'm really happy with their support.

Break the water bottle habit!

Thanks, Michele, for letting me know about this!

My mom's housewarming gift to us was an under-the-sink water filter. We use stainless steel water bottles for all our out of the house drinking water, and in house, we have glass carafes in the fridge. When we take a road trip, we fill a five gallon plastic bottle with our own water.

Why all the fuss about water?

We avoid unfiltered tap water. We are concerned about chlorine, flouride, and other toxic chemicals in untreated tap water. So even in restaurants, we know water is the best beverage but we prefer to use our own.

We are concerned about plastic bottles. Perhaps the water available in these bottles is better in some cases than the local tap water, perhaps not, but it is worth jumping through hoops to avoid these single use non-biodegradable wastes of resources. In my business, I am looking to list more products that are made from recycled water bottles.

We have not quite figured out what to do when we are on vacation. We can no longer take our own water on planes so we are forced to suck it up and drink whatever they serve us. It doesn't bear thinking about. And we currently don't have a portable filter so we drink from plastic bottles while traveling.