Removing Scale from Jandy SWG

[davidwat]

Moved from HERE

Is it reasonable to descale my Jandy PLC1400 with vinegar? I don't have a good storage site for hydrochloric acid.

 

[PoolStored]

Is it reasonable to descale my Jandy PLC1400 with vinegar? I don't have a good storage site for hydrochloric acid.

It can be used. It will take a lot longer though, at least 2 hours or so. Think about a coffee pot, most manufacturers suggest running a hot water cycle and then adding vinegar in to clean and letting it sit for at least 2 hours. Acetic acid is a much weaker acid than MA and the calcium acetate salt is much less soluble than calcium chloride.

And, to be clear, ALL acids will damage the cell plate coatings.

My suggestion would be to use the weakest concentration possible and to only clean plates that have VISIBLE scale on them. Use something soft like popsicle sticks instead of acid of you can to pop the scale off.

 

[proavia]

Is it reasonable to descale my Jandy PLC1400 with vinegar? I don't have a good storage site for hydrochloric acid.

Diluted Muriatic Acid works fine also - but MA (even diluted) is much harsher on the SWG plates than vinegar.

You should first use a popsicle stick (or other soft item) to remove the large scale
Then a flush with water - from both ends of the cell
After you get out as much scale as possible, use vinegar (cleaning or regular white) if needed

In the future, keep your CSI between 0.00 and -0.30 (negative 0.30) to minimize SWG scaling.
It is possible to never have to clean the cell if you keep the CSI in that range. Some here have gone YEARS without having SWG scale and they live in areas with extremely hard water.

Are you using PoolMath?
If so, enable Tracing Combine Chlorine, Salt, Temp and CSI - and share your PoolMath logs here.

 

[davidwat]

Thanks for the explanations and advice. I just dl’d PoolMath today and got a CSI of 0.17, but I’m not sure that is historically representative of my pool. Here are images of the 4 1/2 years old swcg. There appears to be enough erosion of plates that cleaning may not be justified.