Can a "dirty" salt cell impact filter pressure

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A

Aspfam

0
Jul 31, 2013
71
Grand Rapids, Michigan
So this might be a dumb question but I'm having a hard time understanding what's happening(happened). Last week the pressure in my filter tank was high enough that the flow light on the SWG came on. This is the same point and pressure I normally need to back flush so nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I back flushed the filter but within 12 hours the pressure was back up and the no flow light came on again. At that point I decided to clean out the filter and give the screens an acid bath which I did. Once everything was back together, it worked initially but the pressure rapidly rose again and the no flow light came on within 16 hours. Also at this point the led screen on the SWG was flipping from low salt to low temperature to low flow which I had never seen before. My last step was to remove the salt cell and clean it out using an acid bath. There was not much on the way of scaling I could see but I did it anyway. Once I had everything back together, the pressure stayed down and the SWG is performing perfectly. We're now 3+ days after this process and things are working great.

My question is how can these two items possible be related? I just want to have an understanding for the next time this happens so my fix can be more targeted. Any help is much appreciated.
 
No, the cell won't affect pressure.

The pressure rising is indicative of the filter getting clogged. A clogged filter allows less water to pass through it, thus less flow. At some point flow will be reduced below the minimum the cell wants to see passing through it.

My first inclination was to ask you to conduct an Overnight FC Loss Test (OCLT) to see if maybe you were starting to have a low level algae bloom that may be clogging the filter, but if it has been running fine for three days maybe you just used too much DE when you backwashed the first time and clogged the filter yourself.
 
Further update. So the pressure has been fine since Sunday as I stated. Thursday morning I went out and checked it before work and it was still at 21 where it had been hovering all week. Then by 4:00 my wife called and said the pressure was up over 24 and the no flow light on the salt generator was on again. What would cause such a rapid increase in pressure again? When I got home and turned everything back on, the pressure was back to 21(before backwashing). I backflushed anyway and the pressure was reduced back to 20ish like it should. Further complicating it as soon as I shut my pump off, the tank and heater drain out back into the pool. I never remember this happening before. I remember all the water staying in until I opened the lid to the hair basket. Is there something else I should be looking at? I'm really at a loss on this.
 
What RPM are you running the pump at when this occurs? Try increasing the RPM to see if it will force more flow to get the SWG to work when you get the low flow error. This is only to see if more flow will work, as I think you should already be running fast enough as the pressure starts off at 20+ unless the gauge does not return to zero.

Can you detect a decrease in flow when the pressure increases?

Did you perform an OCLT to confirm that there is not a low level algae problem as suggested by tim5055?
 
Good question. I'm not at home now but I believe when it's on speed "3" it's running at 2300 RPM but I would need to verify that. I hadn't thought of changing that part of the equation. As far as the flow goes I really can't detect much of a change in the flow when the pressure increases but maybe slightly decreased from full. I did do the OCLT and it checked out fine.
 
When I had a Jandy Aquapure SWG, the no flow error light came on due to there not being enough flow when I ran the pump on low speed at times. There were times when the SWG would not clear the no flow error even when the pump was switched to high speed. I had to turn off the pump and SWG to let it start up again. The SWG was never consistent in regards to getting rid of the low flow error in my system. If you are reducing the pump speed during the day below the minimum flow rate for the SWG it might not be able to reset itself when the high speed kicks in.
 
Do you have a one way check valve installed in your plumbing? Sometimes they are installed between the pump and the filter. Water draining back into your pool after pump shutdown is indicative of a check valve going bad. Also, if a check valve is malfunctioning it can restrict water flow.
 

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