PSA: Save Money by NOT Routinely Acid Cleaning Your Saltwater Chlorinator Cell

[needsajet]

At least one SWCG manufacturer is including an instruction on their saltwater chlorinator cells: "ACID CLEAN EVERY 3 MONTHS"

Doing so will significantly reduce the life of your saltwater chlorinator cell. For pool water that is kept well-balanced using TFPC, acid cleaning is seldom necessary.

Look inside to see if there's any scale. It will appear as a light beige to nearly white accumulation between the plates. You may be able to spray it out or gently pick it out with a soft wood or plastic tool. Do not scrape with a metal tool of any kind. Some SWCG cells have clear bodies for the purpose of seeing scale early in its development.

If you're accumulating scale in your cell, revisit your water chemistry approach and consider keeping the calcite saturation index (CSI) slightly below zero to prevent scale. Where you can see minor amounts of scale in your saltwater chlorinator cell, this will be dissolved very, very slowly in slightly negative CSI water (e.g. across a few months swimming season).

If money is no object, have at it, and do it safely.

 

[Newdude]

This was the likely early death of my first cell. The PB told me to fill it with straight acid for 15 mins mid season, and at the end of the season. He said that he did it with his own and it worked flawlessly. Then I saw it stamped on the cell, directly from Pentair.

Who was I to know better ?

It soaked in acid for 3.25 hours and I never once saw any scaling/building requiring it.

 

[needsajet]

Great description and helpful story, new.

I could barely believe my eyes when I saw that "Acid Every 3 Months" travesty. Masterful wonks with spreadsheets in every company tweaking out extra revenue by any means possible.

 

[yangcha1]

I never acid washed it and it lasted 8 years and still works.

 

[jmastron]

Good advice. For the cleaning implement, I had trouble finding wood thin, strong, or long enough to really get in there, until I remembered a science project my son had done using basswood. I think the one I ended up with is 1/8" thick x 1/2-1" wide x 24" long, and is great to scrape and push out the deposits all the way through. Michaels and probably other art places have lots of sizes.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

If you want to “chemically” clean the cell after mechanically blowing out all the larger solids, then cleaning vinegar (6% acetic acid … don’t use Balsamic vinegar, it’s makes the Italians very unhappy …) is a good choice. I would dilute the cleaning solution 1:1 with clean water (tap or distilled) and then add a single drop of Dawn dish soap. The dish soap will lower the surface tension of the solution which helps to lift away fine particulates. It also makes for good bubbles/foam to help see the scale dissolution. No bubbles then no need to keep the cleaning solution in there. The soap is totally optional though.

 

[mas985]

I think concentration and frequency makes a difference.

I have always used 10:1 MA including my first cell which lasted 9 yrs. Takes more time but is probably not as corrosive. Doesn't hurt the skin either.

 

[jimim]

4 seasons and mine is clean as a whistle but also keep my csi always negative within range from here. Never been cleaned. The guys who close me each year always laugh when they look at it when it’s removed for storage. I learned well here.

 

[Mdragger88]

I have only ever used diluted vinegar when cleaning was needed - which has been maybe a handful of times in the last 10 years and a couple of those times they were actually used cells that I aquired so I was trying to bring them back to life.
In general with my low ch & neg csi I don’t get scale.

 

[Newdude]

In general with my low ch & neg csi I don’t get scale.

General chemistry is another thing that eluded me pre-TFP. Half the years my CH was 0 and the other half, 100 was 'high'.

I didn't even know what I *wasn't* cleaning, just that it needed cleaning.

 

[Mdragger88]

General chemistry is another thing that eluded me pre-TFP. Half the years my CH was 0 and 100 was 'high'.

I didn't even know what I *wasn't* cleaning, just that it needed cleaning.

I believe the first couple times of that “handful” my reasoning was the same - the book told me to