Hayward Automation Question - How to interlock and schedule my heater/salt chlorinator

[Muppet1856]

I have a Hayward OmniLogic with a Hayward VS Pump and salt chlorinator with a sense and dispense. The system is in a configuration with a shared heater/filter for a pool/spa with a spillover. I have found through my own trial and error that heating the pool while in spillover is REALLY inefficient - it overheats the spa and barely heats the pool. The same can be said for chlorination.

I generally would like to leave the pool in spillover for the majority of the day for aesthetic reasons.

Here are my questions:

1. Is there a way to interlock the heater/chlorinator so it will only run when in pool or spa mode and never in spillover?
2. Is there a way to make the system switch modes based on measured water temp? I don't care about the spa temp generally - spillover will bring it up to temp once I switch, and I'll run the spa separately at a MUCH higher temp anyhow and need to run the heater.

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

Welcome to TFP Muppet!

Sorry you haven't had any responses yet. I'll give your thread a little bump to the top of the queue.

While waiting around, wade around in Pool School. Here's a good set of articles to get you started:

Pool Care Basics Archives

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[Peiloy]

I am not sure about the chlorinator, but the heater can be tied to a mode by configuring equipment to mode in the interlock settings. I imagine that the chlorinator can be tied to this too, but I don’t use a different bodies of water in my pool so cannot check. When you say your chlorinator is inefficient in spillover mode, is this while the heater is running in that mode? I don’t think that the spillover should affect the chlorination, but due to the high temperature of the spa when in spillover mode and heater running, it could be possible that chlorine demand in the spa is increased thus consuming the chlorine before the spillover. Finally, I don’t think that you can change modes based on temperature, but you can change equipment states based on temperature using the interlock section. Hope this helps.

 

[Muppet1856]

The inefficiency I’m talking about is that only a trickle of water spills out of the spa into the pool, but the water is being drawn from the pool. That means the spa will get chlorinated heavily but it would not mix into the pool all that quickly.

Basically, the chlorinator would be working overdrive without raising the pool chlorine because the water isn’t making its way there very quickly. The Sensor that reads the chlorine would continue to read low demanding bell to continue to produce.

 

[Peiloy]

I don’t know if the chlorinator can be interlocked, but you can check in the interlock settings. Also, I am not sure how your plumbing is set up, but can you increase the speed of the vs pump so that more water goes through the spillover thus increasing the circulation? Do you have the cell fully controlled by the sense and dispense or just the acid? The reason I ask is because I also have a sense and dispense but find that the ORP is a poor way of determining chlorine level. My ORP drops when the chlorinator runs because of dissolved gasses from the chlorination process, so the system ends up calling for more chlorine than is actually needed which turns into a vicious cycle. So I control my chlorine by setting it to run for a percentage of time instead. Most people here actually advise to not use the automation/ORP for chlorination because of this and the effect CYA on ORP readings.