Choosing a solution

[blairth12]

I have a 5 year old salt water pool with all Jandy equiptment. DE filter 60sqft, 13000 gallons, IG, Plaster. The salt cell is not producing chlorine. The PDA shows (no flow) much of the time (although the flow seems to be good). I have narrowed this problem down to 2 possible causes. 1) The sensor when installed was glued in place. This makes it near impossible to clean or service. Could this sensor be too dirty or defective? 2) My pool is under a pine tree and is therefore very dirty requiring very frequent filter cleaning (every 4-6 weeks uggh although I have gotten it down to about 20 minutes all told). There was no backwash valve installed so the only way to clean it is a complete cleaning. The grids look to be in good shape but when cleaning they hold water longer than I think they should if I put water in the water inlet.

Which is the most likely solution to this problem? 1) install a backwash valve so that I can get a backwards flow thru the grids providing a thourough cleaning of the grids. (I know I should probably do this anyway) 2) Replace the grids providing for a better flow rate. Although the water seems to flow thru my waterfall well (this is my main indicator that filters need to be cleaned) and the pressure in the filter seems to be okay. But the grids do clog up quickly (even adding conditioner is an exercise in patience). 3) Replace the sensor hoping that there is not really a flow problem.

I beleive I have had this problem intermitently struggling to keep the chlorine level high enough. But now I dont think it is working at all. The cell is only about 2 years old and I cleaned it recently. Even with the chemistry balanced out I am still struggling to have a stable situation.

Do any of these theories make no sense or which order should I try these solutions?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank You,

Blair Thompson

 

[JohnT]

Have you done an acid wash on your grids?

 

[frogabog]

Hi Blair, welcome to TFP.

While the solutions you suggest may be helpful, there might very well be an underlying cause for your SWG not producing enough chlorine. We can help you discover the cause of your problems.

The first thing we're going to need is a full set of test results. You can go to a pool store for the moment and have the water tested (recommended), and/or you can provide your own results. A proper test kit is part of this solution, and quite honestly the only real valuable information about water chemistry you can provide us. Pool store results are helpful, but often as skewed as a test strip, unfortunately. A good test kit with FAS-DPD capabilities is essential. See my Pool School or my sig for a link and information on test kits.

To be able to diagnose and help you with this, we need:

TC
FC
CC
TA
CH
CYA

If you provide these results we can better help you.

Also, take a stroll through pool school (upper right of every TFP page, white button) more than once. A SWG is no different than a manually dosed pool other than the mechanics. More often than not, a nascent algae bloom prevents a SWG from producing sufficient chlorine to kill said algae bloom. You may have been in this "kill, then re-bloom" cycle the entire time you've been experiencing problems.

CYA level is of paramount importance although we'll take the pool store's results as suspect (they are very rarely accurate). Having that result however will help us help you with diagnosis of the SWG's issues.