Pentair Minimax CH

[jrv331]

I bought a used Minimax CH gas heater and the guy told me the inlet/outlet ports were switched. Meaning the inlet is now the outlet. He said there was a switch to change them back to normal. I have looked all over in the manual and inside the heater, I see nothing like that.

Ive tried to contact him but no replies. Any of you techs know of this? I know I can switch what side the ports are on, nothing about switching the flow though.
Thanks
John

 

[spishex]

I think he was probably talking about what side it was oriented on. I don't see anything in the manual that mentions switching the inlet/outlet ports, just the headers. The only thing you'd have to do to make it work is change the direction of the flow control valve, so if there are unions or caps on both ends perpendicular to the lines in, then it might be possible. If there's just access for the valve on one side then you'd have to flip it upside down, but I don't think the bolt pattern would match.

 

[jrv331]

There's a cap on one end only and all the parts are installed the way they look in the diagram. Just I was wondering if he was thinking of the side placement when trying to explain it to me. Just out of curiosity, what would happen if they were reversed and I put my "in" hose to the "outlet" on the heater?
Thanks
John

 

[spishex]

Well, the valve in between the lines allows excess water flow to bypass the heater, so if that were backwards it would be permanently closed and all water flow would go through the heat exchanger wearing it out faster and heating the water less efficiently. You'd probably get a plume of built up gunk into your pool since you'd be reversing the flow through the heat exchanger and basically "backwashing" some of the debris that's accumulated in the various corners. You'd also need to switch your high limits since they are specific to direction. The outlet limit allows for warmer water than the inlet does.

Can't think of anything else off the top of my head that would happen. Fun experiment, but I don't know that I'd go so far as recommending you do it to your own perfectly good heater. :-D