Hayward offline Chlorinator not working?

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rohan

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Mar 23, 2009
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Have used an offline Chlorinator for years. Now, all of a sudden, I can't seem to get it to feed chlorine into the pool through it. Have just replaced the unit with a new unit, including all the tubes and fittings. Chlorinator turned all the way up. Still experiencing drop in chlorine in the pool even through the chlorinator is full of "pucks" and does not seem to be using them. Water does seem to be circulating through the chlorinator as I can certainly feel some pressure in the pipe on the inbound side, and slight pressure in the tube on the outbound side. Any ideas? How can I test if the chlorinator is working at all? Have just shocked the pool and placed some pucks in the skimmers to get rid of the algae and stabilize, but don't want to have to get into this situation again.
Lost a chlorinator this winter when the entire unit froze, so replaced with a new one, and as far as I can see, replaced all the parts that were damaged by the freeze. Prior to this event, best I can tell, chlorinator was working fine.
Would appreciate any ideas on how to troubleshoot the chlorinator to get to the source of the problem. Don't believe it is the chlorinator anymore since I have just replaced it with a new one yesterday. Am taking daily chlorine readings now and am waiting for the shock and the pucks in the skimmer to be used up to see if the chlorinator can sustain a chlorine level in the pool by itself.
Thanks for any advice you can offer.
 
It sounds like you need to SLAM the pool and sort out the algae issue and then decide if there's something wrong with the chlorinator.

What's your CYA level?
In fact it would be nice if you could post a full set of test results and how you got them?
 
Bama Rambler said:
It sounds like you need to SLAM the pool and sort out the algae issue and then decide if there's something wrong with the chlorinator.

What's your CYA level?
In fact it would be nice if you could post a full set of test results and how you got them?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response. Will try to post results later today. Believe I have the algae under control now with the shock and other algae chemicals I bought and poured into the pool. Water is clearing up and becoming blue again. But it got this way (twice) because the chlorinator does not seem to be feeding chlorine into the pool and the chlorine level drops to 0 and then all **** breaks loose!! So I am manually managing chlorine levels through pucks in skimmers, but looking for advice on things to look for in the chlorinator, tubing, etc, any tips to indicate that it is working vs not working rather than just letting the level drop to 0.
 
Rowlette -- It's really really bad advice to suggest someone add 10 gallons of 12% bleach to their pool without knowing the CYA level. 10 gallons in a 24,000 gallon pool would raise the FC by 52ppm. Suppose they had zero CYA, how bad would that be? I don't even want to think about it.

Rohan -- I'm hesitant to give advice just yet about the chlorinator because I think it's working and that you just have an algae problem consuming the FC. Once you post a set of test results and how you got them, we'll know more.
 
Bama Rambler - sorry for the delay. But I believe you are right, that the algae problem was consuming the FC. I just checked and my FC is at 6.5, and my CYA is at 80. Water is looking clear now, except for a green stain on the pool floor that I will have to brush out I presume. Am watching closely and checking every day to make sure the FC stays high. Right now, my chlorinator is turned all the way up so that I could be sure that it was working.
 
I'm glad you found out that it wasn't the chlorinator. However, now you have another problem. Your cya is getting high enough to become unmanageable. If you plan on continuing use of the tablets you need to replace about half of your water, and you'll probably have to do it again before the season is over.

How did you determine the cya level?
 
I use a TF-100 kit to do all my testing. It has a strange test that involves dripping pool water and a chemical into a tube until you can no longer see a black dot at the bottom.
Replacing half my water? Are you serious? Is there no other way to bring CYA levels down?
 
Unfortunately there's no proven way except water replacement. The problem with using tablets is that the cya gets high really fast in a lot of cases, and it becomes almost impossible to keep raising the fc to levels required to prevent algae blooms.
 
What about if I switch to liquid bleach for a while. The problem is the daily application of it, but if that helps restore the CYA then it may be worth it. Dumping half the pool seems so wasteful to me.
 

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Switching to bleach will stop the CYA from rising, but unfortunately it won't do anything about the CYA you already have. 80ppm is on the high side, but you could manage it by keeping your FC at the recommended level for it that high.

There are several options for keeping the pool chlorinated without having to pour bleach into the pool every day. An injection pump and tank is the best method for bleach addition.
 
Thanks Tim. But it looks like Bama was right. I checked last evening and chlorine level was back down to 3. No change to the chlorinator at all. So it must be the CYA level. Looks like I'm going to have to drain half the pool as Bama suggested to bring CYA back down to where the chlorinator is effective again. I'm just surprised as I have used a chlorinator and pucks for 3 years now and never had to drain. But maybe once every 3 years is not so bad. I shocked the pool last night to get the FCs back up again to get me to the weekend so that I can drain. Any advice on the draining? I plan to just run the Rinse option on my filter. Any idea how long it may take? And the refill?
 
I think you misunderstand what's going on with your FC. The 80ppm CYA is causing you to have to run a really high FC level, but it isn't what's eating up your FC. You need to complete the SLAM process to completely get rid if the algae that's eating your FC. In order to do that you're going to have to either replace water until you get to a manageable CYA level or you're going to have to add enough bleach to get to 31ppm FC (~8 gallons) and keep adding enough to keep it there until you pass the OCLT.

That's the problem with having really high CYA. It takes so much chlorine when something does happen that it makes it prohibitively expensive to reach and maintain SLAM level. Normally the best course of action is keeping the CYA level down to a manageable level, or if it's already too high, replace enough water to get it to a manageable level and then SLAM the pool.

Also, your situation is fairly common. Running the pool for several years and not noticing a problem until it overcomes you and then you have a very hard time overcoming it.
 
Thanks Bama. Just read your link to SLAMing and OCLT. Sounds like even though my water "looks" clear, there may still be algae consuming FCs faster than my maintenance-oriented chlorinator can pump chlorine back into the pool. And since my CYA is high, I should plan to drain maybe half the pool and refill to lower CYA so that the shock level needed for the SLAM does not require unreasonable amounts of bleach.

So since I shocked last night with non-bleach, I'm probably ok for the next day or two.

Then over the weekend I'll plan to drain half, refill, check for Ph levels and stabilize, check that CYA has gone down to more tolerable levels, and then proceed with the SLAM process using bleach and testing.

I'm assuming I'll have to keep the pump running the entire time (probably the weekend), and brush down and backwash the filter atleast once a day?

Also - I'm using a very old FAS-DPD kit so I'll probably stop by the pool store and buy some new test reagents and powders to make sure that my chlorine testing and my CYA testing are accurate with new chemicals and not false positives with old stuff.

Does this sound like a good plan? Anything obvious I am missing? Thanks for the coaching so far.
 
Smy answered you, so I'll just elaborate and say that rinse runs water backward through the filter media so there's the potential that you could clog the media running enough water through it to empty the pool. waste runs water directly from the inlet of the filter to the waste port.
 

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