More on the Darned Swimming Pool

After some long range communication I believe I have convinced the people who manufactured the swimming pool control system that the fault is in their control box.

I write ‘long range communication’ because they no longer have a presence in Western Australia.  Their nearest office is almost 4000km away in Melbourne.

The problem is the pool wasn’t making any chlorine.  It’s a salt pool and the salt in the water is split into sodium and chlorine by electrolysis as it passes through the chlorinator element.   They sent me a replacement chlorinator element ($451) to solve the problem.  However this created the opposite.  The pool was being over chlorinated.  So high in fact that it would be unsafe to swim in the pool.

I started to get tired of the long range communications and decided to dismantle the original chlorinator element.  It’s slightly more than a year old and therefore out of warranty.

On pulling it apart I found the following

Definitely stuffed!!!!

Now it shouldn’t be this bad.  The chlorinator element is supposed to last 3-4 years before needing replacement.  My guess was something had prematurely aged the element and it was now doing the same to the new element they had recently sent me.

I’ve been able to convince the pool company there is a fault inside the control box.  Probably a printed circuit board (PCB).   The control box isn’t controlling the production of chlorine and the element is running continuously.  They have agreed to send me a replacement PCB ($200). 

All the additional costs could have been avoided if they still had a presence in the State.  A site inspection and some testing equipment would have identified the root cause more rapidly.