boffo

We use ecosmarte but from what I have read it is not advisable for public pools. Indeed in Canada and other parts of the world it is not legal to maintain a public pool without using a microorganism and bacteria inhibitor such as chlorine. Ecosmarte website does show the system being used commercially but at higher copper settimgs see http://www.ecosmarte.com/r_o.html#comm_hb Having installed and run ecosmarte for two seasons in a private pool - a few comments It is much harder work to maintain ecosmarte than chlorine but it is definitely much more pleasant to swim in a chlorine free pool. At start up however with ecomsarte we have to add huge quantities of Calcium Flake and Muriatic Acid to achieve correct hardness and PH repectively. Throughout the season we have to regularly add more Muriatic Acid and non-chlorine shock. A Chlorine system works by essentially killing harmful organisms and bacteria with bleach - essentially the dilute chlorine turns into hypochlorous acid (HOCl) and hypochlorite ions which kill those microorganisms and bacteria. Ecosmarte by contrast by demanding a low PH environment to work, essentially means that muriatic acid (hydrochloric acid) has to be added instead of chlorine which when used with the ecosmarte copper electrode, produces copper hydrochloride and other copper derivatives and copper based acids which (together with the titanium oxidiser) seem to inhibit bacteria and organisms in much the same way as chlorine;s hypochlorous did but without the chlorine smell or taste. It does not however seem to prevent all such organisms since we have had several outbreaks of algae despite copper being at correct levels. We have also found the filter needs much more maintenance and the water (at times of high outside temperature) can smell and turn cloudy. It also turns children's hair green so toxic copper levels may be a problem. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_toxicity Contrary to Ecosmarte's guidelines if run at normal levels it does not produce drinking quality water since (in the UK) this demands less than 2ppm of copper and Ecosmarte is running at over 5 ppm. For a child drinking half a liter of swimming water this would give them 5 times the recommended level of daily copper - tests on pigs have shown high copper intake lead to obesity and medical reports show copper toxicity can lead to liver damage and can be fatal in sheep. Lastly having done more research ecosmarte does seem a very expensive way of adding copper to the pool. See for instance an alternative Nature 2 http://tinyurl.com/lazspy which adds silver (more effective than copper) at about $200 plus $200 per season.