Freeze Protection

[RayNorCal]

Hi,
we have a pool/spa built in 2019 with all Pentair equipment with the Intellicenter.
My problem is with the freeze protection. Whenever the temperature reaches 35degrees
all pool pumps come on. They stay on for about 30 seconds, then turn off.
30 seconds later all pool pumps come on, and so on ...

It seems that here in Northern California, 35degrees is a common at night temperature in winter.

When the temperature reaches 34, all is on and stays on.
When the temperature reaches 36, all is off and stays off.

The way that I am currently addressing the situation is that when
the weather forecast indicates close to freezing temperature, I change
the air sensor calibration to indicate less that the real temperature.
When the forecast is otherwise, I change the calibration to indicate more
than the real temperature.

Pentair customer service advised the following:
. reboot the panel
. check the software for latest update
which I have done to no avail.

Any advice is appreciated.

 

[mas985]

I live in northern CA and have never used freeze protection. Unless you are at altitude, you most likely won't need freeze protection.

Note too that even if temps get well below 32F, the water does not freeze immediately. Take a read through this post:

The Physics of Freezing and Freeze Protection

Recently, there have been a lot of questions from those living in moderate climates about using automatic freeze protection or running pumps to prevent freezing and what a pool owner should do when temperatures drop so I thought it might be useful to have a thread which dealt with the issue from...

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[Bperry]

Hi,
we have a pool/spa built in 2019 with all Pentair equipment with the Intellicenter.
My problem is with the freeze protection. Whenever the temperature reaches 35degrees
all pool pumps come on. They stay on for about 30 seconds, then turn off.
30 seconds later all pool pumps come on, and so on ...

It seems that here in Northern California, 35degrees is a common at night temperature in winter.

When the temperature reaches 34, all is on and stays on.
When the temperature reaches 36, all is off and stays off.

The way that I am currently addressing the situation is that when
the weather forecast indicates close to freezing temperature, I change
the air sensor calibration to indicate less that the real temperature.
When the forecast is otherwise, I change the calibration to indicate more
than the real temperature.

Pentair customer service advised the following:
. reboot the panel
. check the software for latest update
which I have done to no avail.

Any advice is appreciated.

If you have a variable speed pump, you could let it run 24x7 at very low speed all year for less money than running a single high speed pump for part of the day. That would fix your freeze problem as well. Our pool growing up in nor cal never froze in the 40 years I was there.

 

[colonelkirby]

My system exhibits the exact same behavior. It only affects the pump for my sheers because my filter pump runs 24x7. Clearly Pentair has a problem with the algorithm. Nothing I have tried seems to resolve it. Sure would be nice if they produced a fix.

 

[Bperry]

My system exhibits the exact same behavior. It only affects the pump for my sheers because my filter pump runs 24x7. Clearly Pentair has a problem with the algorithm. Nothing I have tried seems to resolve it. Sure would be nice if they produced a fix.

They should be including some kind of hysteresis in the system, so that when it does get triggered on it, stay on for a period of time at a minimum before shutting off

 

[RayNorCal]

I called Pentair customer service: the agent claimed not to understand the problem. I explained it several times.
Their solutions amount to boilerplate:
. reboot the panel
. make sure to have the latest software update
. have your local pool company send a technician
I specifically raised the issue of whether the software has a parameter to stay on or off for a period of time.
The agent says no, but he might not know.

P.S.: when the call was done, the agent did not hang up. I wanted to wait for the feedback part to come on.
After a minute I hung up.