Continuation of an odyssey

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OK.. Ahem... ARIZONA...

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And well, you can't run the pumps like this to swamp cool it. Luckily it was at the point of adding water to, and that plus swamp cooling it recovered it. Still too darned hot to use now...
 
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112.5F according to the remote thermometer probe that I have in the pool. Interestingly enough, the built in one reads two degrees low, which is legal. They need to stop heating at 105F and shut down at 110F according to regulation. But that's +/- 2F. And most people like it just a little hotter than 105F in the winter. So it's amazing how close to the high end that thing is calibrated! :)

Right now, it's been cloudy cool and rainy for a week, we are having our actual monsoon now, so the pool temp is down from 92F (unheated) to 85F at present. Almost too cold! The .25" of rain we got yesterday cooled it off quite a bit. The hot tub is at 104F presently (real temp). we haven't swam in over a week... every time we attempt to get in a storm rolls through. Bummer..
 
So, my birthday was last weekend. I went with my wife and two of the kids to Tombstone (close to home, but still fun and still a chance to get away). First time I have been gone for more than 24 hours (but just barely) since the 'rona stuff started.

And of course, probably as we started to pull out of the driveway to go, the SWCG shut down because the cell scaled solid. I figured it out because the next morning (Sunday, my actual birthday) the FC was only about 2.5 PPM in the pool (not really an emergency, but). Unfortunately it was 108F the whole day, and I have to fix the situation. I couldn't find the cleaning stand, of course, so I used a five gallon bucket. They suggest 4:1 water to Muriatic Acid in the manual without specifying strength, but I assume it's 20 degree Baume. I used about 6:1 water to acid. They suggest 15 minute maximum then water flushes. Then repeat if necessary. since I had a big bucket, I did the water flushes but put the cell back in there. It took the equivalent of three times to clean the cell out completely. It looked like someone packed a snowball in it.

The Universal does have a salt level readout and I noticed that I thought it was starting to read low. But I did lose a little bit of salt in the last few months I think due to monsoon rains but probably a little (reasonable) bit of loss in the system, too. I added another 40 lbs of salt to the pool putting the level from the low end of the what the cell specifies to the high end. I am going to use that as an experiment to see if it likes the higher end and it should help with the scale a little bit. If anything the cell is reading the salt level higher now than it is... instead of lower.

I usually keep my CSI's pretty tightly near zero, and actually even go negative when I add acid. So since I don't have a heater in my system, I might even try to swing it a little more negative in the future. Despite managing my water well, we do seem to have a lot of scaling on all of the pools here, so it's probably going to be me descaling the cell every three months (or more) forever.

It's part of the reason I picked the system with the lower life cell but cheaper replacement. I suspect that is the correct decision based on what just happened. Now at least I know if the salt readings go lower compared to the K-1766 that I should descale the cell before it turns itself off. I did get to use a gallon of the pool chlorine up though, so that is good. I have a bunch literally going bad now.

I had planned on doing a bunch of maintenance in about a month. Except for cleaning the filter out, I did all of that in the 108F weather yesterday! I also did a bunch of work on the hot tub, so really all I have left for when it cools off a bit is filter cleaning time.... sigh...
 
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Rattus Suffocatus said:
So, my birthday was last weekend. I went with my wife and two of the kids to Tombstone (close to home, but still fun and still a chance to get away). First time I have been gone for more than 24 hours (but just barely) since the 'rona stuff started.

And of course, probably as we started to pull out of the driveway to go, the SWCG shut down because the cell scaled solid. I figured it out because the next morning (Sunday, my actual birthday) the FC was only about 2.5 PPM in the pool (not really an emergency, but). Unfortunately it was 108F the whole day, and I have to fix the situation. I couldn't find the cleaning stand, of course, so I used a five gallon bucket. They suggest 4:1 water to Muriatic Acid in the manual without specifying strength, but I assume it's 20 degree Baume. I used about 6:1 water to acid. They suggest 15 minute maximum then water flushes. Then repeat if necessary. since I had a big bucket, I did the water flushes but put the cell back in there. It took the equivalent of three times to clean the cell out completely. It looked like someone packed a snowball in it.

The Universal does have a salt level readout and I noticed that I thought it was starting to read low. But I did lose a little bit of salt in the last few months I think due to monsoon rains but probably a little (reasonable) bit of loss in the system, too. I added another 40 lbs of salt to the pool putting the level from the low end of the what the cell specifies to the high end. I am going to use that as an experiment to see if it likes the higher end and it should help with the scale a little bit. If anything the cell is reading the salt level higher now than it is... instead of lower.

I usually keep my CSI's pretty tightly near zero, and actually even go negative when I add acid. So since I don't have a heater in my system, I might even try to swing it a little more negative in the future. Despite managing my water well, we do seem to have a lot of scaling on all of the pools here, so it's probably going to be me descaling the cell every three months (or more) forever.

It's part of the reason I picked the system with the lower life cell but cheaper replacement. I suspect that is the correct decision based on what just happened. Now at least I know if the salt readings go lower compared to the K-1766 that I should descale the cell before it turns itself off. I did get to use a gallon of the pool chlorine up though, so that is good. I have a bunch literally going bad now.

I had planned on doing a bunch of maintenance in about a month. Except for cleaning the filter out, I did all of that in the 108F weather yesterday! I also did a bunch of work on the hot tub, so really all I have left for when it cools off a bit is filter cleaning time.... sigh...
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Happy late birthday
 
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kimkats said:
Good job knowing what to do and doing it! OF course it happened when you were gone...............how, how do things know??? sigh......
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Exactly. I am going to add to my list of recommendations that if it's been a couple of months since the cell was "serviced" that, at least in my case where it's in an opaque case, that it be pulled out and inspected -- which is like a five minute job-- and descaled a little early if need be the day before you plan on leaving for a trip (which is a 30 minute job). This was a "surprise" though so I don't know if I even would have known a day before.

I suppose this case is a +1 for the translucent cell cases and you'd probably be able to see it.. but the UV is so bad here that I've had issues with those types of plastics... My wife moved all of our outdoor furniture out in the sun and in one season it's toast.

But, honestly -- I have gone NO WHERE since about February until last weekend. It was nice getting out and the the pool was back to normal (actually cleaner since we did the hour long deep sweep finally) by the middle of Monday... so it worked out okay... I am maybe a little disappointed that it completely scaled up in less than three months though. I am going to try to run it a little bit more negative on CSI since I don't have a heater to worry about. I can't go over board though because of the plaster... I think I would be better off if I could get TA down a bit, but that's been a challenge...

Now to tear apart the garage to find the @#$$#@ cleaning stand...
 
Rattus Suffocatus said:
Now to tear apart the garage to find the @#$$#@ cleaning stand.
Click to expand...
I sealed one end with duct tape for years. When I finally looked up the caps on Amazon they were $17 and I KICKED myself. But now that we all have disposable gloves handy, and I wear sunglasses 24/7 anyway, It would be fairly safe to MacGuyver in a pinch if your stand is buried somewhere.

*assuming you do it somewhere that can splatter and PPE is worn*.
 
Wow, sorry you had to descale your SWCG so soon. I'm now second guessing my plan of waiting to check mine until the end of the swim season in a few months.
 
So maybe I am celebrating too soon that I fixed the cell. Four days later the check cell maintenance light is blinking on the unit. It's not in the manual but it is in the help manual. I suppose that I am taking it apart again but my praise for the system is much less now than two weeks ago. I suppose it's under warranty.......... Yes it's still generating chloride... Maybe another chunk broke loose but I thought it was pretty clear though...
 
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Something isn’t right. Sorry you have to investigate further. It was odd enough you had the first issue so soon, and now this ? Very rare for sure.
 
We will see. On that unit it's like the low salt and hi salt lights.. if the unit thinks its on the high end or low end but is can still function then those lights will blink. I took it apart and there was still a little scale on the plastic parts that hold in the plates but not the plates themselves. Put it back together it still blinks. But the help manual suggests that you reset that light by holding in the function button... I did and it went away. I will see if it stays away. I have two theories, and I may contact CircuPool to ask them. Theory #1 is that a chunk broke loose and temporarily shorted a plate out and it detected it. Theory #2 is that there is a timer built into the unit (since the blinking light survived a power cycle but a reset worked). And I just happened to scale up in the same week I was supposed to service the cell anyway...

I did raise the salt level of the pool a little bit, to about 3600 on the K-1766.. it thinks it's averaging about 3700 but that's still within range .. When it first comes on it thinks the instantaneous level is 4100 but that does drop after a few minutes. It's not complaining about hi salt.

I guess I will see in the next week, but I likely will ask them manana...

The manual could mention this and the "help manual" could be less vague about it. If there is one thing I don't like about the CircuPool products it's the lack of technical information. I suppose I should look for what that same blinky-blinky light means on the Hayward AquaRite, since so far everything else is the same on that unit.
 

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