Late last season I had a significant sooting issue with my Hayward HD300 due to a mouse nest blocking almost the entire blower intake plate. This season I've been less then pleased with the heater performance and as part of the resolution I intended on cleaning the HE. Today I opened it up and this is what I found:
The green colored areas are where there were four extremely dead grackles (also sooted, so I assume they were probably in there since the prior spring).
I don't seem have any leaks or water flow issues through the HE but besides some sooting there is a ton of that white powdery substance in each of the tube valleys.
Is this something that would likely clean up without too much trouble or should I prepare to bite the bullet and buy a new HE assembly? FWIW, I don't have a bypass for the heater so all plumbing will be out of service until the cleaning/replacement is complete. Also, I cannot clean the exchanger in place because the heater is on a concrete pad in the pool house so whatever I rinse out is just going to accumulate there.
The green colored areas are where there were four extremely dead grackles (also sooted, so I assume they were probably in there since the prior spring).
I don't seem have any leaks or water flow issues through the HE but besides some sooting there is a ton of that white powdery substance in each of the tube valleys.
Is this something that would likely clean up without too much trouble or should I prepare to bite the bullet and buy a new HE assembly? FWIW, I don't have a bypass for the heater so all plumbing will be out of service until the cleaning/replacement is complete. Also, I cannot clean the exchanger in place because the heater is on a concrete pad in the pool house so whatever I rinse out is just going to accumulate there.
