No information to share other than the fact that I am not truly informed on how well either Copper Ionization or Ozonators really work. All comments welcome and thank you for any input!
Canada does not have a mandate regarding Ozone but the Health Board and WCB like to oversee any installations for safety reasons. They do not want Ozone gas leaking uncontrolled anywhere. If the system is an approved one then the Chlorine residual in a pool can be maintained at .5ppm as opposed to 1.5ppm. And again, it's almost always NOT going to be the FREE chlorine causing any issues, which is the only Chlorine that should be present anyways.
I'll add that in most cases here we can't even say it's a sanitizer as Don says. Also regarding the Ion, it would be looked at as a residual system and not as a sanitizer at the cell as Don seems to have indicated earlier.
I have been trying to research ozone. I heard that Canada mandates ozone for their commercial swimming pools in order to lessen the use of chlorine and thus ease the dryness of skin and eyes. Since I am sometimes in the pool area for over 6 hours this is an interesting piece of information. What is fact and what is fiction? Should the US have the same mandate?
In regards to Don's comment, you say you recommend an ozonator, yet you speak much of the ionization, which in conjunction with Rick's comment, has given me some good insight. Only homeowner negligence should ruin that one! Terrific input on both regarding the benefits of copper/silver. I have a further response in a new discussion.....Thanks you guys!
The short of it is that if you are to choose between the two I would recommend the Ozonator. Ozone is the strong sanitizer available. The issue is that the ozonator (and the ionizer) only sanitize at the point where the water passes by the cell. Thus chlorine must still be maintained to sanitize in the vessel.
The risk with ionizer is that two much control is put into the customers hands. Though copper is the strongest algaecide and silver is the strongest bacteriacide, the ionizer allows the customer to control how much copper and silver go into the water. With customers not typically reading instruction manuals they tend to assume more is better and over do it causing staining.
For the cost of these units I would recommend the Zodiac Nature2 systems. They do effectively the same thing as the ionizer at a fraction of the initial cost. They also are much easier for aftermarket installs and generate better return sales to your business because the canisters have to be replaced every six months.
Again if you definitely want to pursue an ionizer or ozonator the ozone systems will be much less problematic for you in the long run.
I won't go into any detail really but I wonder if you mean Copper/Silver Ionization? Copper as we know is pretty effective at killing Algae. Silver is good on bacteria and is used in medical salves, Go take a look at some of the bandages these days and you will see they have silver in them. Years ago the wagon train people tossed coins in their water barrels to try and keep things under control.
Early Ion systems suffered from too much uncontrolled current and not so good metallurgy. Now they can make the electrodes much tougher so they don't erode/corrode as fast and also have the percentages of copper/silver etc. down pat. They need to have a low controlled current to effectively blow off the Ions properly so they can be controlled. And installed in a slipstream to help prevent erosion from being an issue. And of course chemistry must be maintained or the electrodes scale up or corrode off.
That aside there is no "probe" to sense the copper/silver in the water so you need to do constant testing to make sure the level is maintained. Too little and its not effective, too much and you will get staining issues. Many times people find the levels low and crank the system to max and promptly forget about until the levels are extreme and staining begins, another reason to keep the current low as it can't put too much in too quickly.
I don't think there is a pool out there that can't be greatly enhanced by a good Ozone system. To keep the water clean and clear you need to get get rid of debris. Mechanical filtration is required but Oxidation plays a major role. And nothing beats Ozone for oxidation and while its doing that it binds all the little burnt bits together in a process called micro flocculation so that the oxidized material can be filtered out. The better these 2 tasks are performed the lower the chemical consumption will be.
Comments
I'll add that in most cases here we can't even say it's a sanitizer as Don says. Also regarding the Ion, it would be looked at as a residual system and not as a sanitizer at the cell as Don seems to have indicated earlier.
The risk with ionizer is that two much control is put into the customers hands. Though copper is the strongest algaecide and silver is the strongest bacteriacide, the ionizer allows the customer to control how much copper and silver go into the water. With customers not typically reading instruction manuals they tend to assume more is better and over do it causing staining.
For the cost of these units I would recommend the Zodiac Nature2 systems. They do effectively the same thing as the ionizer at a fraction of the initial cost. They also are much easier for aftermarket installs and generate better return sales to your business because the canisters have to be replaced every six months.
Again if you definitely want to pursue an ionizer or ozonator the ozone systems will be much less problematic for you in the long run.
Early Ion systems suffered from too much uncontrolled current and not so good metallurgy. Now they can make the electrodes much tougher so they don't erode/corrode as fast and also have the percentages of copper/silver etc. down pat. They need to have a low controlled current to effectively blow off the Ions properly so they can be controlled. And installed in a slipstream to help prevent erosion from being an issue. And of course chemistry must be maintained or the electrodes scale up or corrode off.
That aside there is no "probe" to sense the copper/silver in the water so you need to do constant testing to make sure the level is maintained. Too little and its not effective, too much and you will get staining issues. Many times people find the levels low and crank the system to max and promptly forget about until the levels are extreme and staining begins, another reason to keep the current low as it can't put too much in too quickly.
I don't think there is a pool out there that can't be greatly enhanced by a good Ozone system. To keep the water clean and clear you need to get get rid of debris. Mechanical filtration is required but Oxidation plays a major role. And nothing beats Ozone for oxidation and while its doing that it binds all the little burnt bits together in a process called micro flocculation so that the oxidized material can be filtered out. The better these 2 tasks are performed the lower the chemical consumption will be.