1) I'm holding it vertical
@Bperry can you explain what that means? I know next to nothing about pools. Are you indicating that the older a pool the less salt you have to add over time?
I’m evidently having a hard time communicating. Each time you add chlorine or acid those items add a little bit of salt to the water. And overtime that salt builds up. Here’s what a gallon of liquid chlorine adds to my pool water..
Understood. I know nothing about pools so I appreciate the detailed explanation.
If you use the Pool Math app, use the “effects of adding” tool to figure out how much salt each thing you add to the water contributes. Nearly everything you add also add a little bit of salt. And when water evaporates, it leaves the salt behind
Thanks @Katodude and @Bperry. I think I'm still at the same place unfortunately. My SWG (old and new) state the salt is too low which I'm guessing is preventing it from actually generating which is likely leading to my pool turning green and algae growth. If both SWGs are misreading the actual salt level I'm not sure how to fix that to get it working. If I dump a bunch of salt in to get the SWG to no longer read low salt then apparently i'll be WAY too high on salt generally speaking and not sure what ill effects that will cause with the chemistry balance. Honestly no clue where to go from here as I can't seem to figure out the root cause issue.
I’m not much help for that problem. Sounds like the SWG Has a problem. Is it actually telling you the salt is low with a warning light? Or are you just using the reading of 2800 ppm to judge?
No worries, I appreciate any help. It's alarming that it's too low. It won't read instant salt and the average salt always says 2800ppm. This happens with the old T-15 and the new (Hayward branded). It also never produces a current, only ~31 volts and the timer on the SWG sits at 0:00 which seems to mean that it has never actually run even though I have it enabled at 100%.
Some piol stores can test a salt cell. Might want to try that. If its good, then sounds like the controller is bad. Is the pump still only running 3 hours per day? The cell wont make chlorine if the pump isnt running. Maybe obvious but worth mentioning just in case.
Good thought, I can bring both cells in for testing but if two are bad (one brand new out of the box) maybe it is the controller. Everything else about the controller works. I can turn the heater on, lights, etc. The pump is running while the chlorinator should be generating.
This worked perfectly. I have to get a few more spots but the HTH Calcium Hypochlorite shock cleaned up almost all of the black algae so now I don't have to power wash the pool. Thanks very much for the tip.
Don’t know for sure, but only one way to find out. Replacing the salt cell will require draining the same amount of water anyway.
I may not be following. Replacing the salt cell requires you to drain significant amounts of water?
See above reply. Cells don’t work with overly high salinity so you gotta drain anyway. Might as well drain and see if your existing cell starts working.
