Hey group. Hoping someone can check the advise I got from the pool company.
We have an inground pool with a pool heater. The heater was making a squealing sound so I called out the pool maintenance company. They showed me that the pump was very hot to the touch and they opened up the heat exchanger which had a bunch of flakes of rust / delamination / scale, whatever. His comment was the exchanger needs to be replaced as it is deteriorating and this flaking is reducing the water flow, and the squealing is from the water boiling because of the reduced water flow, and the hot pump is likely due to the extra resistance from the flaking ... He cleaned it out with a vacuum and blower, fired it up and no squealing. That all makes sense, but I'd like you to help me verify if I should be thinking about anything else.
A few facts: We bought the house with the pool in Oct 2020. Pool has a heater that was installed in 2016. We have well water, with some iron in the water and I've had a heck of a time dealing with the iron (much easier this year than the past two). We added a SWG, backflow valve, new plumbing two years ago. Prior owner had an inline chorine puck system (with no backflow valve). Prior owner did a Darn job taking care of the pool (and pretty much anything else in the house). I've noticed some flakes entering the pool from the return jets near the steps since we moved here. Sometimes worse than others. I could not figure out what that was, but suspected the heater. My water chemistry has been from decent, to very good since I have owned it except for dealing with Iron. I use metal magic to keep the iron maintained, and I have used ascorbic acid treatment this spring before adding chlorine. Prior owner was using some pool store chemical to deal with iron that I have no idea what it was. Also ... we do NOT have a bypass system setup to bypass the heater, but that will be installed when we do the exchanger. I run the pump 24/7 but I'm considering putting in a timer to shut it down a few hours at night.
I'm not sure what else you might need to know. Does this all sound right? Any thoughts or comments or things I should be doing or looking into while replacing the exchanger?
We have an inground pool with a pool heater. The heater was making a squealing sound so I called out the pool maintenance company. They showed me that the pump was very hot to the touch and they opened up the heat exchanger which had a bunch of flakes of rust / delamination / scale, whatever. His comment was the exchanger needs to be replaced as it is deteriorating and this flaking is reducing the water flow, and the squealing is from the water boiling because of the reduced water flow, and the hot pump is likely due to the extra resistance from the flaking ... He cleaned it out with a vacuum and blower, fired it up and no squealing. That all makes sense, but I'd like you to help me verify if I should be thinking about anything else.
A few facts: We bought the house with the pool in Oct 2020. Pool has a heater that was installed in 2016. We have well water, with some iron in the water and I've had a heck of a time dealing with the iron (much easier this year than the past two). We added a SWG, backflow valve, new plumbing two years ago. Prior owner had an inline chorine puck system (with no backflow valve). Prior owner did a Darn job taking care of the pool (and pretty much anything else in the house). I've noticed some flakes entering the pool from the return jets near the steps since we moved here. Sometimes worse than others. I could not figure out what that was, but suspected the heater. My water chemistry has been from decent, to very good since I have owned it except for dealing with Iron. I use metal magic to keep the iron maintained, and I have used ascorbic acid treatment this spring before adding chlorine. Prior owner was using some pool store chemical to deal with iron that I have no idea what it was. Also ... we do NOT have a bypass system setup to bypass the heater, but that will be installed when we do the exchanger. I run the pump 24/7 but I'm considering putting in a timer to shut it down a few hours at night.
I'm not sure what else you might need to know. Does this all sound right? Any thoughts or comments or things I should be doing or looking into while replacing the exchanger?
