I have a Pentair intellichlor IC40 for a ~22,500gal pool that has worked well through the first 3 years of service. We're in the north east so the pool is closed all winter. Anyway, I follow TFP's recommendations and was running CYA at 75 last year and the salt cell was able to keep the pool at ~8ppm FC at 35% output. Upon opening the pool this year however it seems the salt cell isn't working well. After opening last week, I got the pool to ~3500ppm salt (the pentair system is reading 3900ppm) and turned on the cell, starting at 75% output as I have yet to get CYA to 75 (currently at 40). Even at 0 CYA in the past though, the salt cell could produce enough chlorine to keep the levels right so I can't imagine that's a huge problem. I added enough 10% bleach to get the pool to 7ppm FC, but the level keeps falling (down to 3.5 over 12 hours the first day I tried this).
Yesterday I added more 10% bleach to get the pool to 8ppm FC and I jacked up the salt cell to 100%, and again, the FC dropped to 3ppm over 24 hours. I'm still getting bubbles from the returns and I tried to grab a sample directly from the return jet which read 4.5ppm (at the same time I got the 3ppm mentioned above) so it seems some chlorine is being produced. CCA is also at 0, so I don't think the chlorine is being used to kill off something. I'm getting no error messages, and the status lights suggest the cell is fine. I haven't yet opened up the cell and visually inspected it, but I did pay for a cell cleaning when we closed the pool (who knows if/what the pool people actually did).
I'd hate to drop $1500 on a new cell until I'm sure this one is dead. Is what I'm describing above typical of a dying intellichlor? Is there anything else I should check before giving up?
Yesterday I added more 10% bleach to get the pool to 8ppm FC and I jacked up the salt cell to 100%, and again, the FC dropped to 3ppm over 24 hours. I'm still getting bubbles from the returns and I tried to grab a sample directly from the return jet which read 4.5ppm (at the same time I got the 3ppm mentioned above) so it seems some chlorine is being produced. CCA is also at 0, so I don't think the chlorine is being used to kill off something. I'm getting no error messages, and the status lights suggest the cell is fine. I haven't yet opened up the cell and visually inspected it, but I did pay for a cell cleaning when we closed the pool (who knows if/what the pool people actually did).
I'd hate to drop $1500 on a new cell until I'm sure this one is dead. Is what I'm describing above typical of a dying intellichlor? Is there anything else I should check before giving up?
