Before anyone comments: yes I know I need to get accurate test strips. Can anyone recommend a brand?
The facts: I have a Hayward T Cell T-15 on my pool. It’s approx 10.5 years. Living in Houston it sees use nearly year round.
It’s oversized for my roughly 8,500 gallon pool. My builder told me “better to be oversized and work less hard, it’ll last longer”. No idea if that’s true or not because I wasn’t on here at the time however it’s done well over the years.
This last season I’ve been having trouble with erratic readings. The salt level would fluctuate between where I keep it in the high 2xxx to low 3xxx range down to “low” under 2200 or even lower. I’ve tried to give it the acid bath and cleaning as they call for and it would pick back up. I usually keep my SWG set around 35-40% in order to not blast the pool (remember oversized) unless it’s really hot but I was starting to get sporadic algae outbreaks.
At the end of the season, I couldn’t get the thing to read above low and make chlorine, so my pool is now green. I’ve tested with my strips but either I have a bad batch, I don’t know how to read, or a poor design because I can’t seem to get a true reading on what the salt level is. Just before it got cold it was reading in the 800 range on the controller! I did add one bag of salt because I knew it was low from the rain, and it didn’t change. Then it jumped up to 2700 and this morning it’s reading 3200 so something is off.
Is it just time for a new cell? Have I gotten my money’s worth?
Replace with a more reasonable sized cell? Would be nice to stick with that brand and simply unscrew, re-screw and plug in.
Any other thoughts appreciated. And tips on good, easy to read, test strips are welcome!
The facts: I have a Hayward T Cell T-15 on my pool. It’s approx 10.5 years. Living in Houston it sees use nearly year round.
It’s oversized for my roughly 8,500 gallon pool. My builder told me “better to be oversized and work less hard, it’ll last longer”. No idea if that’s true or not because I wasn’t on here at the time however it’s done well over the years.
This last season I’ve been having trouble with erratic readings. The salt level would fluctuate between where I keep it in the high 2xxx to low 3xxx range down to “low” under 2200 or even lower. I’ve tried to give it the acid bath and cleaning as they call for and it would pick back up. I usually keep my SWG set around 35-40% in order to not blast the pool (remember oversized) unless it’s really hot but I was starting to get sporadic algae outbreaks.
At the end of the season, I couldn’t get the thing to read above low and make chlorine, so my pool is now green. I’ve tested with my strips but either I have a bad batch, I don’t know how to read, or a poor design because I can’t seem to get a true reading on what the salt level is. Just before it got cold it was reading in the 800 range on the controller! I did add one bag of salt because I knew it was low from the rain, and it didn’t change. Then it jumped up to 2700 and this morning it’s reading 3200 so something is off.
Is it just time for a new cell? Have I gotten my money’s worth?
Replace with a more reasonable sized cell? Would be nice to stick with that brand and simply unscrew, re-screw and plug in.
Any other thoughts appreciated. And tips on good, easy to read, test strips are welcome!
