Cal Spa Bromine Generator

[scott]

I have ordered a Cal Spa Atlantic series. The salesman says it is the easiest spa to keep clean and maintenance free. Basically the easiest for chemically impaired guys like me. Is a Cal Spa easy? Do the bromine generators work well and does the spa smell awful when you get out like pool water?

[Amanda]

I have ordered a Cal Spa Atlantic series. The salesman says it is the easiest spa to keep clean and maintenance free. Basically the easiest for chemically impaired guys like me. Is a Cal Spa easy? Do the bromine generators work well and does the spa smell awful when you get out like pool water?

What kind of bromine generator is it? How do they say it works?

Some bromine systems are using bromine... not just sodium bromide. Some people are unaffected by the smell of bromine or feel like it's a step up from chlorine but it really bothers me. *(interesting side note: bromine is derived from the Greek word bromos meaning "stentch", LOL)

If it's one like a salt (sodium bromide) system... I'm 100% for it and it really DOES make it a ton easier. It leaves skin soft and there's no smell that I can tell exept for when it is tuned in properly, the water is almost mildy sweet. It's not a "cure-all" and still requires maintenance... but waaaay less. I'm not sure about ANYTHING being "maintenance free". There are still filters to clean, surfaces to wipe, water to change, and weekly testing should be done with ANY system you have in my opinion.

Either way, getting the exact plan of how to care for your spa is essential for trouble free spa use and less maintenance issues in the long run. Your salesperson should take care of you regarding the specifics. I hope you have lots of happy times in your new Cal Spa!

[TBK]

What kind of bromine generator is it? How do they say it works?

Some bromine systems are using bromine... not just sodium bromide. Some people are unaffected by the smell of bromine or feel like it's a step up from chlorine but it really bothers me. *(interesting side note: bromine is derived from the Greek word bromos meaning "stentch", LOL)

If it's one like a salt (sodium bromide) system... I'm 100% for it and it really DOES make it a ton easier. It leaves skin soft and there's no smell that I can tell exept for when it is tuned in properly, the water is almost mildy sweet. It's not a "cure-all" and still requires maintenance... but waaaay less. I'm not sure about ANYTHING being "maintenance free". There are still filters to clean, surfaces to wipe, water to change, and weekly testing should be done with ANY system you have in my opinion.

Either way, getting the exact plan of how to care for your spa is essential for trouble free spa use and less maintenance issues in the long run. Your salesperson should take care of you regarding the specifics. I hope you have lots of happy times in your new Cal Spa!

Cal-Clarity is everything and more of what Amanda said:

Complete sanitation.

Cleaner,silkier water.

Ease of use, maintenance-free.

ETL Listed.

Saves money by reducing chemical usage.

Automatically makes all the bromine you'll ever need.

No more scum/foam lines or cloudy water.

No more quarterly drainings.

No more floating feeders.

No more odor from bromamines.

exellent performance stated from end users.

TBK.

[spatech (the unreal one)]

I have ordered a Cal Spa Atlantic series. The salesman says it is the easiest spa to keep clean and maintenance free. Basically the easiest for chemically impaired guys like me. Is a Cal Spa easy? Do the bromine generators work well and does the spa smell awful when you get out like pool water?

That spa is not easier or more difficult than any other spa relative to water maintenance!!!!! That is a sales line you've been given. The chemical maintenance of a spa is not related to brand in any way assuming the spa filters properly which all reputable brands do.

A bromine generator!!! A friend of mine demo'd one of those! YUCK. Again, I do NOT like bromine spas whether it's a floater or a brominator so maybe your experience will differ (but I doubt it).

[Amanda]

That spa is not easier or more difficult than any other spa relative to water maintenance!!!!! That is a sales line you've been given. The chemical maintenance of a spa is not related to brand in any way assuming the spa filters properly which all reputable brands do.

A bromine generator!!! A friend of mine demo'd one of those! YUCK. Again, I do NOT like bromine spas whether it's a floater or a brominator so maybe your experience will differ (but I doubt it).

If the bromine system "demo'd" was an automatic bromine dipenser, I would agree with you. Yuck! On the other hand, an automatic generator using sodium bromide is a completely different story. There is no "yuck" to be said about it in my opinion. And I am VERY sensitive to chemicals.

[Chas]

I just went to the Cal Spa web site, and I guess that particular link is down - or I simply couldn't connect. Either way, I couldn't get to the page which tells 'all about it.'

But I know this from years of experience: systems which convert salt into chlroine or bromine have two things in common .

1. They require salt be added to the spa.

2. They have some form of chamber, cell or electrode setup which must be maintained.

The salt is not that much different than adding chlorine - in fact, salt is Sodium Chloride, and if you elelctrically 'crack' it into Chlorine, the residual chemical is a very nasty and caustic soda - think "Drano." This will recombine to some extent if the chlorine has nothing to oxidize, but if there is a high bather load you will find that the pH will need work.

The fact that there is a cell chamber or electrode setup seems to be very much soft-pedaled in the sales pitches on these systems. HotSpring was working with a company to put a system like this on their tubs years ago. It offered a way to make your spa chemistry 'push button easy.' You just got out and punched a button. This would put in a shock or boosted amount and was supposed to be all you had to do. You could set the system to run a higher level or a lower level, and it would tell you when the cell needed to be serviced or replaced. That was the weak link: it needed to be serviced or replace often.

[Amanda]

I just went to the Cal Spa web site, and I guess that particular link is down - or I simply couldn't connect. Either way, I couldn't get to the page which tells 'all about it.'

But I know this from years of experience: systems which convert salt into chlroine or bromine have two things in common .

1. They require salt be added to the spa.

2. They have some form of chamber, cell or electrode setup which must be maintained.

The salt is not that much different than adding chlorine - in fact, salt is Sodium Chloride, and if you elelctrically 'crack' it into Chlorine, the residual chemical is a very nasty and caustic soda - think "Drano." This will recombine to some extent if the chlorine has nothing to oxidize, but if there is a high bather load you will find that the pH will need work.

The fact that there is a cell chamber or electrode setup seems to be very much soft-pedaled in the sales pitches on these systems. HotSpring was working with a company to put a system like this on their tubs years ago. It offered a way to make your spa chemistry 'push button easy.' You just got out and punched a button. This would put in a shock or boosted amount and was supposed to be all you had to do. You could set the system to run a higher level or a lower level, and it would tell you when the cell needed to be serviced or replaced. That was the weak link: it needed to be serviced or replace often.

That sounds like a pain. The one I'm familiar with (bromine generator) has an automatic self cleaning feature for the cell, and it consistantly is working in conjunction with the spas filtration system rather than electrically "cracking" the water with a big boost... eek! The cell is one of the coolest things about the system so I don't soft pedal it at all. I have one to show people when telling them about it. It has a 5 year unconditional warranty so it sounds like it's been improved significantly. I've had a similar system on my pool at home for about a year now. That one is chlorine and requires cleaning the cell every 3 months but still easier than what I was doing before! The water has never come close to Drano (scary!) and always leaves my skin feeling very clean and soft with no yucky smell... and I am very sensitive to chemicals and smells. It's a good thing to be sensitive to smells when in a rose garden but otherwise can be very trying! Either way, if your looking for a spa with less maintenance... check out other websites and do some research on what is involved for you to do to take care of your future spa. I would look for something with at least a five year warranty and something where you don't have to clean the cell.

[soakerman]

What is so hard about simply maintaining a free chlorine level in your spa and shocking when the combined chlorine is high. I have been useing waterbears advice from this forum and have very little smell and also not alot of tweaking to keep things balanced. I have use plain old bleach, yes Clorox! to maintain the free chlorine and also to shick the spa. My cost on chemicals is almost non existent compared to what it was before. I cant imagine a hassle of a generator system, pucks, floaters or mineral sticks. That is jut me I guess, keep it simple

[Pathfinder]

The Cal Clarity system is just a Cal branded system from Pioneer H20 Tecnologies the system works well if the dealer knows what they are doing and can properly educate the customer on how to use it properly.

If you have problems with the system and your dealer cant help you or gives you bad info call pioneer H20 and they will gladly walk you through the proper steps and probably send you some literature. As more and more companies carry this product the biggest issue is a lack of education. I had a 3 hour seminar with Pioneer on the Genesis generator and I learned quite a bit and they answered every question I had so I can teach my staff about the system.

So it comes down to proper education for your new system to work well.

[Amanda]

Soakerman... there's nothing at all wrong with maintaining a spa by the usage of proper chemical care and regular water changes. Waterbear gives exellent advice on chemistry!!! My personal preference is to the pure bromine genreator because of the feel of the water, and I don't have to drain the spa water as often... I have enough things to take care of!

Pathfinder is right, Pioneer H2O helpline is VERY good. I'v espoken with them a few times when we first started offering this years ago. They were always very responsive and helpful to me.

[Roger]

What is so hard about simply maintaining a free chlorine level in your spa and shocking when the combined chlorine is high. I have been useing waterbears advice from this forum and have very little smell and also not alot of tweaking to keep things balanced. I have use plain old bleach, yes Clorox! to maintain the free chlorine and also to shick the spa. My cost on chemicals is almost non existent compared to what it was before. I cant imagine a hassle of a generator system, pucks, floaters or mineral sticks. That is jut me I guess, keep it simple

Clorox is about 10 percent Chlorine and 90 percent.....ahhhhhh something, that's in your water. Dichlor is about 25 bucks for 6 lbs and it will last for a year or better. It is 60-80 percent Chlorine and buffer. A tsp instead of a cupfull or 4 glugs like my neighbor!!!....LOL

[waterbear]

Clorox is about 10 percent Chlorine and 90 percent.....ahhhhhh something, that's in your water. Dichlor is about 25 bucks for 6 lbs and it will last for a year or better. It is 60-80 percent Chlorine and buffer. A tsp instead of a cupfull or 4 glugs like my neighbor!!!....LOL

actually, the other 90% is just water and salt and bit bit of sodium hydroxide left over from the manufacture of the sodium hypochlorite (which helps keep the chlorine from gassing off), exaxtly the same as pool chlorine except for the conentration. When you say that Dichlor is 60 to 80 per cent chlorine (it's actually 56%) that is the free available chlorine. Each measure of dichlor you use is actually about 1/2 CYA (the 'buffer' you speak of) by weight. CYA (cyanuric acid) is by no mean innocuous, as the level increases in the water the sanitizing ablility of the chlorine goes down since it combines with the chlorine to form chlorinated isocyanurates. In fact, several states public health departments are now saying that dichlor should NOT be used in spas at all but only unstabilized chlorine be used. This would be calcium hypochlorite (cal hypo--will raise pH and calcium hardness--this can lead to scale formation), lithium hypochlorite (expen$ive to use), or sodium hypochlorite (liquid chlorine or bleach).

As far as the dosing of bleach vs. dichlor---for a 250 gallon spa 1 tablespoon of ultra (6%) bleach or 1/2 teaspoon of dichlor will raise the water about 1 ppm so your average dose for your average 300 gal spa would be just undert 1//4 cup bleach or 2 teaspoons dichlor. With continused use the dichlor will become a less effective sanitizer due to the build up of CYA in the water. If the spa is exposed to sunlight then, IMHO, a level of maybe 20 ppm CYA would be ideal so I would use dichlor for santizing until I reached that level (the lowest level that can be tested with a melamine precipitation test for CYA) and then switch to bleach. I would use only bleach for shocking since using stabiilized chlorine for shocking is not a good idea in either a pool or a spa for the abovementioned problem of CYA buildup in the water! To effectively shock our 'average 300 gallon spa' with bleach we would need between 3/4 and 1 cup of ultra (6%) or 1 to 1 1/4 cup of regular (5.25%) bleach. If you want to use 'pool store 12.5% liquid chlorine' then just use half of the ultra beach dosages. It's really the most ecomonical way to chlorinate and it has the lease impact on pH and total alkalinity. Dichlor is mildly acidic and will cause pH and TA to drop by increasing the outgassing of carbon dioxide from the water. Outgassing of CO2 is always a problem in spas because of the aeration from the jets and bubblers.

Hope this clears up some misconceptions.

[spa_repairman]

They do work great. I bought one from hot tub essentials - they are much cheaper than at Cal Spas. You can buy them here: http://www.hottubessentials.com/member/too-low-to-ad.asp

Ed

[waterboy]

Today is the one week anniversay of our Pacific Calypso that has the Pioneer bromine generator in it. It also has UV and ozone as part of The System 3 water purification system.

The bromine level is very easy to maintain at 3 to 5PPM and this is easily accomplished by turning a dial on the genesis unit. We have 60 jets in the tub and with the pumps on high speed for "the major massage" a minor mist is created . With my chin at water level I do not smell anything. My skin also feels great when I come out of the water.

Since the tub is new to us we have been in it for over 10 hours and one shock was used which bumped the brome level up to 6.5 and it is again stabilized at 3 PPM. We are debating lowering the Bromine to 2 PPM as the water is crystal clear there is no musty smell.

So far this system has our vote. Just pour in the sodium bromide wait one day and enjoy