stainless steel heat exchanger with salt water pool

[leon718]

Hello all. I have an inground pool with a heat exchanger that feeds off the hot water boiler to heat the pool. The plumber who installed the heat exchanger used a regular stainless steel heat exchanger and not a titanium one. I just noticed that there is a label on my heat exchanger (maxi-flo MF 135) that its not suitable for salt water pools. Does anyone have any experience with such a setup? What am I risking? If it is going to fail how much time do i have to have it replaced? Or maybe I should not even worry about it for now?

Thanks.

 

[duraleigh]

Well, at the very least I would assume there is no warranty since you are using it for a purpose specifically excluded. I guess it might last for years or perhaps not but we would all be simply guessing.

 

[JasonLion]

As a general rule, "salt water" pool in this context means ocean water levels of salt. So the warranty might still be valid. Stainless steel actually describes quite a few different products/grades of metal. Most of the affordable kinds of stainless steel will have a slightly shorter lifetime when used as a heat exchanger with even SWG levels of salt, but there are a few of the more expensive grades of stainless that will work. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that they labeled the unit with the grade of stainless used.