Salt level affected by water temp?

[bacevedo]

Our temperatures here in AZ have started dropping in the evenings which has also dropped the pool temp from the high 80s and low 90s down into the low 70s.

At the same time, my salt level has seemed to jump from about 3400 to 3800 according to my Hayward salt cell. The pool was completed in May and the salt cell is only about 5 months old.

I just cleaned it this weekend using a 4:1 acid:water ratio and got rid of some scaling on it. It seems like the salt level jumped up around the same time.

So my question is, could the water temp or cleaning of the salt cell cause the salt reading to jump up? I haven't added any salt to the pool since it was opened 5 months ago.

I guess it's also possible there is some salt in my tap water, but I don't think enough to jump my levels up that much that quickly. I haven't been losing any water to much splash out lately, so there shouldn't be a lot of water being added by the auto-fill.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[mrdgvb1]

When the Hayward cell gets dirty it will give you a false reading on the control panel. The 3800 level with the clean cell is the correct salinity reading. Usually when the cell starts to get really dirty (lots of calcium build-up) it will have the flashing "inspect cell" light and the salt level may read below 3000. I've had them show the level as low as 2400. Once the cell is cleaned the sensor can then get a correct reading. The problem of course is if the unit is reading an incorrect level due to the cell having calcium build-up and you add more salt you could over salt your pool. That is why I never add salt until I clean the salt cell. Very normal for this system.

 

[Isaac-1]

Just remember that number the SWG is giving is not really the salt level in the water, but the electrical conductivity of the water, and the salt level the would correspond to with a clean correctly working cell.

Ike