It did not seem freezing below 33? 32 is freezing but the pool will not freeze. The danger lies the internal areas of the heater where water pools in small amounts. There is a high likelihood of expansion of water and breaking heat exchanger gaskets, etc. About 2 years ago, so cal saw a fairly deep freeze for our area where temps hit the upper teens overnight and the damage was huge to heaters. For the occasion dip into the lower 30's or upper 20's we may see here, the freeze protection is valuable for protection of the heater only. There is more nuisance turning on with automation at the default settings of 36 so most set them down to the lowest settings. If you don't want it on at all, set the system to SERVICE but there is a risk even though it is slight. For newer pumps like the IntelliFlo, they have a built in freeze protect that is barely noticeable that pretty much is just a protection for the drive capacitors. Power bills will add up if you have a freeze protect kick on every night for a week so you have to use good judgment.

busyredhead-

The lowest freeze protection allowed by our automation system is 33 F. You may not be able to go lower than this on your system so may have to check.

As repair guy stated, there is risk to bypass the freeze protection. When our system goes into freeze protection, it runs at low speed on our 2 speed pump so the energy consumption is not that large, especially since this only happens a handful of times each year and for only a few hours each time. A variable speed pump will also save energy during freeze protection as repair guy suggests.

Hope this helps!

Thank you. I'm glad I asked. I definitely don't want to hurt my pipes. The freeze we had a couple of years ago is exactly the type of thing I worry about which is why I don't want to disable it. I have the Hayward Aqua Logic system. My pump is running on high with freeze protection. Is there a way to set it to run on low speed for this setting??

busyredhed-

I'm not familiar with the Aqualogic system. My Jandy system has a menu option for freeze protection. It lists all accessories and pumps controlled by the Jandy system and you simply put a check mark next to the device that you want freeze protected. In my case, I have both the filter pump and low speed-filter pump checked. So when the filter pump goes into freeze protection so does the low speed relay which makes the pump run in low speed.

Hopefully the Aqualogic has an option to do something similar.

Hope this helps!

When we lived in Dallas, we often had higher electric bills (home heater was gas) in the Winter than Summer as a result of the temps dropping into the low 30's and 20's for weeks at a time.

You can enable any circuit on a Aqualogic to b freeze protected. Oddly, if a light is on AUX 3, you can have the light turn on at freeze. I only say that to show that you simply need to disable freeze for high speed and enable it for low speed.

repairguy,

If I set my aux1 for "low speed", it doesn't give me the option to set freeze protection. If I leave it on "manual on/off" as it is now, it gives me the option, but doesn't allow me to set a temperature.

Only the "filter" lets me set the temperature if I enable it there.

However, when I disable it in the "filter" menu and enable it in the "aux1" menu, it warns me that I have disabled my freeze protection.

What happens if I keep my "aux1" set to "manual on/off" and enable freeze protection, and then keep it enabled in the "filter" menu set at 33 degrees??

Thank You,

Poolman1's ideas may have some merit if the day time temps and sun don't get too high/strong. Running a filter cycle at night if the sun and temps are strong/warm will deplete any residual free chlorine giving algae and bacteria the opportunity...

I also discourage setting freeze protect below 34. Also watch out for spa drains. Increase the flow for spillover spas returns and crack the spa drain so that water flows. Aux pumps for water features should be turned on in freeze protect too.

I appreciate the suggestions. I got a reply from Hayward this morning explaining to me that low speed doesn't provide adequate water flow to prevent freeze, so they don't allow that option in most of their systems(including mine). Anyway, right now we are getting from 32-37 at night and during the day we don't get over 49. I re-set my high speed from 3am-4:30am and my low speed I am keeping at 6am-8am. I will see how it goes. I only have one pump that runs my pool, spa/spillover and jandy jets so I think I just have to worry about the main circulation.

Poolman,
on the idea of running it at night when the temps are warmer, does that mean that it's better to run the system during the day during the summer?? I usually run it at night and only during the day if we are using the Jandy jets.

busyredhed-

Thanks for the feedback and sorry to hear about the limitation of the Hayward system on low speed freeze protection. Low Speed is more than adquate to prevent freeze protection so it sounds like an oversight in Haywards design strategy or they are just being extremely conservative on freeze protection.

Like poolman recommends, the next best option is to run in the early morning when temps are normally the lowest. This does require some babysitting obviously if the temperatures remain below freezing into the daylight hours.

If you are over-riding the freeze protection on the Aquapod, I would recommend programming the pump to run at low speed during the night rather than high speed to save energy. Again, low speed is adequate for freeze prevention and high speed would only be needed for cleaning your pool and circulation if that is important to you during the winter.

Hope this helps!

Just to muddy the waters here. I have been getting very frustrated with my pool equipment running all night. I have a salt water system. My jandy PDA's lowest setting for freeze protect is 34 degrees F. I took a glass of pool water and a glass of tap water and set them outside last night to see what the freeze temps were. The tap water froze near 32 degrees f but I noticed the pool water was 26 degrees f and wasnÂt frozen. This makes sense due to the salt content. If possible wouldnÂt it be safe to lower the freeze protect temp below the 34 degree setting and how can I do that?

Water won't freeze above 32 (the more gunk in it the lower the temperature it freezes...whole point of salting the highways). The reason for the higher freeze setting is to make sure that all parts of the system are above freezing. Just because the temperature at the sensor is at 32, doesn't mea that some part of the system that's more exposed isn't colder.

I have a pool & I am wondering how do I set up the pools freeze guard to start running at a certain temperature, like 32 degrees?

EX: last night my freeze guard was on because the outside temp was 34 degrees. The pool water was 61 degrees.

Does the freeze guard go by the temperature outside or temperature of the water?

NOTE: my email address is marinemp_mom2003@yahoo.com

It goes by air temp. You can change it under the configuration menu for filter setup. I set mine to 40. It was coming on all of the time my first year

thank you so much for getting back with me. I wish I could say I knew where this configuration filter menu set up is but I have no clue. I have a pool company that comes out in Cleans My Pool/Repairs so I will ask them if they could do this for me. Knowing them they will probably tell me they have no idea. So I'll probably have to get with the people who put in the pool over 12 years ago. Again thank you for helping me with that issue. I am embarrassed to say this but other than some basics. I really don't know how to properly take care of the pool. At least I'm honest.

I just looked at the news the temperature outside right now it's 45° and my freeze guard on my pool is actually on as I'm typing this. I am getting this fixed one way or another because that is just throwing money literally into the wind!

Yeah, it runs up the bill. Mine is a hayward pump with aqualogic control panel and remote. I change all of the settings from the remote or at the control panel. I have a timer, settings, diagnostics and " configuration" menu. If you have the same brand of panel controls, that is where you would find it. I am sure the pool people know where. You can also google your brand of filter/control panel with model number and probably find the .pdf on how to change settings. Good luck. :-)

Yeah I'll probably have to Google it. My panel inside the house is a Compool Cp 3600 something like that. You know I pay a company to come out and they clean my pool & service it when I need something fixed but when I need something like this usually they have no clue how to do it.

i'm presently trying to find a new company to clean my pool and service it as the one I'm working with used to be great. However, things that they should be noticing "serious things", they don't even notice or if they do they don't mention it to me and then it's just a financial nightmare.

Thanks again for all of your help and suggestions. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Alright gang, I just read this entire string of comments and questions. First, I have owned a pool in AZ for 30 years. I never had a freeze protection option and NEVER had a problem with my filter or pipes, even when the night temps hit mid 20's. That does happen occasionally in AZ. I moved and now have a pool with the freeze warning option with the lowest setting of 33. I disable it unless I know the temps will drop below 30, just to be safe. But two things; the water in the pool does not freeze in these conditions. It would have to be about 10 degrees because when the sun comes up the temps quickly increase and a the big body of water doesn't have time to freeze…this isn't Green Bay! Also, the pipes and filter serve as a natural protection for the water and it would need to be well below freezing for a long period of time for the pipes to break. I sure wish my configuration would allow a setting of less than 33. I thing 30 would be more than adequate. Just say'n.

Great string. in Las Vegas we flirt with mid 30s at night occassionally and I got tired of the freeze protection turning on too soon. Discovered my pool's air sensor was reading 34F when it wws only 39F. Replaced it eith a new unit ($10) and it sas was worse:. accurate above 40F but sloppy beloe. Found a company named BAPI in Wisconsin that promises much better accutacy. About $30. It's only good for the air sensor... because the pool's water sensor requires a special shape. The temp curve you are matchibg is 10K-2.