SWG potential lightning strike

[SHOTS]

Newbie here. I bought a house last year that had been sitting for about 2 years. The pool has a SWG, but the previous owners thought it was hit by lightning after they moved. Pentair customer service said I need to add 18 bags of salt (since none is left in the pool) to see if the SWG is operational. Lights come on, but it doesn't read anything. Since we bought the house late last summer, we didn't worry with the SWG and just did chlorine manually based on the pool company's recommendation. This year we want to be more hands on and do it ourselves. So, here are the questions I have:

1) Is there another way to troubleshoot without buying 18 bags of salt?
2) Is it worth the effort/money to have it replaced if it was indeed hit by lightning?
3) If I add the salt and decide to hold off on the new SWG (assuming this one is fried), will the salt cause any problems with the water without the SWG running?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[JasonLion]

Welcome to TFP!

1) The SWG should power up, show a power on light and a low salt light. If it doesn't do that something is wrong. Even then it still might be something simple to fix.
2) Having a SWG is very popular with many people. I recommend getting it working, but if broken it will require some up from investment to get it working again.
3) Having salt in the water will be fine, no issues other than buying and carrying the salt.

 

[SHOTS]

Great! Thanks for the quick response.

 

[SHOTS]

Here is a pic of what it's doing. Does it look promising to go ahead and add salt?

 

[Jimrahbe]

Shots,

I have a couple of questions for you. When you say "Lights come on, but it doesn't read anything",

1. What specific lights are on?
2. What are you looking at that does not "read" anything?
3. How did you determine the current salt level in your pool?
4. How long did you let the SWG run before determining it was bad?

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[SHOTS]

Hi Jim,

My pic didn't work, so I'll type out the results. Just now it has shown more life than it did last year.

Salt

Level: Red on Low

Status:
Power - red light on
Cell - no light at all
Life - Green light on
Flow - Green light on

I didn't leave it on long last year when we first started the pool. Once it was plugged in, the pool guy said 'yep, it's fried' so I left it alone. They tested the water for me and said it was at 0. We added 7 bags of salt when we tried the Pentair troubleshooting. Now it looks like it's picking up the salt we put in there.

 

[JasonLion]

That is very promising. Give it a while to realize the salt is in the pool, perhaps as long as 24 hours after you added salt, and then see what the lights say.

 

[SHOTS]

Great! Will do. Is it a bad sign that the cell light is not on? I'm not sure what that light means.

 

[JasonLion]

The Cell light turns green when the cell is active, and red or flashing green when there is a problem. Off just means it isn't generating chlorine at the moment. That is to be expected, as the unit believes the salt level is too low to turn on.

 

[robdac]

How sure are you that there was really no salt in the pool before you added 7 bags? I almost went out and dumped a bunch of salt into my pool after moving in and replacing the failed SWCG. Luckily, I tested the water myself first. It needed less than 1.5 bags. There was a lot of "left over" salt in the water from when the SWCG was being used by the previous owners before it failed.

You'll be very happy when you get it up and running. They do a very nice job of maintaining FC when they work properly. Good luck.

 

[SHOTS]

The pool company tested the water, but I haven't done it personally. Last night I added 3 bags of salt. This morning the SWG is flashing Orange on Good in the salt reading. The Cell light is now flashing Green. I read that I need to inspect the cell when it is flashing. Is that correct? Since I don't know what I'll be 'inspecting', any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[JasonLion]

To inspect, remove the cell and look in one of the ends. You are looking to see if there are any white chalky deposits on the cell plates, and that the cell plates are all aligned and don't touch each other, and that there is no obvious debris caught in the plates.