Very low salt on Hayward panel

[e-Writer]

Hello!

I hope someone can provide some assistance. I'm getting my pool ready and my Hayward SWG is off due to very low salt. So low, it's not even registering yet. I've tossed in a float with a couple of chlorine tabs to keep the chlorine level at 1 ppm and added three 40 lb. bags of salt over the past five days, but it hasn't budged. The pool water tastes dang salty and I'm going to have it tested at Leslie's later, but wanted to see if anyone has run into this before. I'm not sure what info to provide, so feel free to ask and I'll get it.

Thanks in advance!

 

[YippeeSkippy]

I would recommend getting the Taylor K-1766 salt test. Its better to test your water yourself. I don't rely on my SWG to tell me.

Assuming you started with zero salt-You've only added 120 pounds of salt. PoolMath tells me that it should be about 1103ppm of salt. My SWG likes to be around 3400, what does yours say it should be?

I suspect you need quite a few more pounds.... You need that test kit to determine your levels dude.

 

[cowboycasey]

how long have you had the SWG, if the cell is at the end of its life they start to read "low" on salt, take your cell to leslies and have them test it for you.. if its brand new then what Yippee said ^^^

 

[e-Writer]

Thanks for the quick replies, YippeeSkippy and cowboycasey. I took a sample to Leslie's and they say I'm at 5000 ppm and I need to partial drain. :-( Up until now, I've kept it around 3000 ppm, but it's worked as low as 2500 ppm. My Hayward T-Cell-15 is probably 10 years old. I bought my house about three years ago and based on everything else I've seen/done with the pool, it's most likely the original SWG when the pool was installed back in 2005.

And just to confirm, because there's a sensor in the plumbing right before the SWG, the SWG itself measures the salinity of the water, correct?

Thanks for your help!

 

[e-Writer]

On other question. I was looking online at replacement Hayward SWG's. I estimate my pool to be about 13,000 gallons, but the T-Cell I have is rated for 40,000. Should I just go with a direct replacement or can I drop it to the T-Cell-9?j

Thanks again!

 

[cowboycasey]

The swg measures the salt content, I would stay with what you have. That's the reason it's lasted so long [emoji2] when you get a new cell see if it likes the salt content before you empty water, sometimes they don't mind

I am using my phone so please excuse any spelling errors and short response.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Bigger is always better so that you actually don't have to use it as much to get the chlorine you need. The fewer hours you use it, the longer it lasts you

 

[e-Writer]

Thanks! As suspected, my turbo-cell is dead. Since it lasted almost eleven years, I'm sticking with the T-15. For the extra $100, I'll get more life out of it. At least that's the plan!

 

[ping]

Most likely the salinity is near 5000ppm since you added over 1000ppm and the water is very salty to the taste. The 3000 reading before was likely a bit low due to an old cell, so you should plan on replacing around 1/3rd of the water.

The T-15 is the way to go!

 

[e-Writer]

Thanks, Ping! The sun is beating down today, so I have the cover off and have been slowly adding water to bring the salinity down. There's no way to empty the pool without tossing in a submersible pump, so I'm hoping evaporation and adding water to push it out of the overflow will get it down over the next couple of days.

Amazon also had the best price for a T-15 cell and offered free same day delivery. At least that's easy to replace.

 

[ping]

Be careful with Amazon and check the warranty, I've seen some on their site with only 1 year warranties when most are 3 year warranties.

Evaporation does not reduce the salt content, only water that actually gets removed from the overflow will reduce the salinity.

 

[e-Writer]

I checked and this was a three year warranty. Naturally, it arrived while I was out so it was replaced this morning. Thankfully, it was one of the easier replacement I've done, though I was a little nervous at first since it kept reading low salt for about a minute after it started up. Then it jumped to chlorinator off, high salt/amps, so I think it's working. I just need to dilute the water. Hopefully the rain from last night helped lessen how much I need to add.

Thanks for all your help! I'll post when I'm down to a more reasonable salt level. And my water bill for it. :-(

 

[e-Writer]

Hi, Everyone!

As an update, I drained off some water and filled it back up. Though the new SWG won't kick on because it's too high, I used a test strip and my salt is at 4300 ppm. I'm supposed to get upwards of five inches of rain over the next few days, so I'm going to see if mother nature will help me out. My pool pump is on higher speed setting so it should do a good job circulating the water.

Quick question, I shouldn't need to reset the SWG to get it running again, correct? Once the salt level drops to an acceptable level (I can't find the operating range for the SWG), it should just kick on, right?

Thanks for all your help!