Hayward Heater Needs New Heat Exchanger After 1.5 Years??

[JoyfulNoise]

I will defer to the expert opinions of other but my personal opinion is that pool heaters are really not properly designed to operate year round exposed to the outdoor cold. You have a pump and heater running when the air temps are freezing cold. In order to keep a 2,500 gallon mass of water at 71F when air temps are freezing (even if the spa is covered well), the heater would need to cycle constantly 24 hours per day. As the heater cycles, it's drawing in very cold air initially and the combustion will create A LOT of water vapor. If you've ever run a gas stove, you can see the water vapor that condenses on to the metal caps when it first lights up. Same is true in a heater. A a cold air/gas mixture will not combust completely either. So every cycle of the heater is creating a small amount of soot and corrosive vapors. It’s just not a great scenario. If the equipment were in an insulated shed with a conditioned air space and proper venting/exhaust, then I would say you could do what you’re doing. But I really think the equipment is too exposed to the cold climate that you’re in to run it year round and you’re just going to destroy one heater after another.

But I could be totally wrong …

 

[bobby2175]

Hi everyone! Got a quote for $1000 to clean out the heat exchanger. New one is $1700. Does that make sense to you?