This section contains Warranty Information, Owners Manuals, Trouble Shooting, Minor repairs, Corrosion Info.
What can be done to minimize galvanic corrosion?
Galvanic corrosion attacks the metal parts of a pool and pool cover mechanism…especially the softer metals such as aluminum first. Using harder metals like stainless steel, or protecting the metal with powder coating and anodizing help as well as using more advanced grades of aluminum. For example, Pool Cover Specialists® uses (if you used a 1 to 5 scale for aluminum with 1 being standard aluminum and 5 being aircraft grade) grade 4 aluminum in our tubes, end castings, and rope reels, and Pool Cover Specialists® uses stainless steel throughout the mechanism.
A salt water pool is like a giant low voltage battery that slowly eats away at all metal. To reduce galvanic corrosion, use a Pool Cover Specialists® pool cover system (more galvanic corrosion fighting elements than any other pool cover system) and take a look at using other methods to reduce the galvanic corrosion in your whole pool system by introducing items such as a “sacrificial anode”.
A sacrificial anode, or sacrificial rod, is a metallic anode used in cathodic protection where it is intended to be dissolved to protect other metallic components. The more active metal is more easily oxidized than the protected metal and corrodes first (hence the term “sacrificial”); it generally must oxidize nearly completely before the less active metal (aluminum, raw steel, etc.) will corrode, thus acting as a barrier against corrosion for the protected metal.
It is important to note…in an area that has heavy ground salt or in a salt water pool, galvanic corrosion may also go after the re-bar used in the construction of the pool walls themselves, so the use of a sacrificial anode may save more than just the metal parts you can see. There are products on the market you can use, we have not tested any nor do we endorse any, but the use of ZINC bars is widely used throughout the world as a sacrificial anode. many place them in their skimmers, but to get the best results the ZINC bar must be grounded somehow and then introduced into the water, attached to metal parts, etc. Look on-line for systems you can buy and add into your pool water return and or other solutions.
Ask a Pool Cover Specialists® sales representative about galvanic corrosion. Or follow these links below for more information.