Hayward Chlorine Feeder

[waste]

I have a 24 feet round above ground pool, 54" depth, with a Hayward 1.5 HP EC45 DE filter. When I purchased this pool in July 2005, it came with the Zodiac Nature II filter/cartridge and Hayward Chlorine Feeder. On another post, I've learned that I don't need the Nature 2 filter/cartridge. I will just keep the filter and not replace the cartridge. However, what should I do with the Hayward Chlorine Feeder? For the past two years, I've dropped in the tablets and left it alone. Should I continue to do this?

Thanks!

Anna, you don't need to dump the chlorinator. However, you probably want to look into using bleach - there are a lot of posts here on how and why to do so. The problem with the auto feeder is that the pucks used in them drive your cya (cyanuric acid) way up (lessening the killing power of the chlorine in your pool) and tend to drive the pH down. At the top of this thread is a post by Watermom giving Ben's 'best guess' as to what adjustments need to be made on the chlorine, for a given cya level.
Your best bet is to get yourself a decent test kit that will tell you chlorine(both total and free), pH, total alkalinity and cya (some will give you calcium hardness but, since you don't have a concrete pool you don't need to worry about it). There is an excellent kit available via this site, but if you can't afford it, Walmart has a decent one for under $20. You need to learn how to use it, and get accurate results, and then post the numbers here, where many people will help you adjust your chemistry. ( You could also take a sample of your water to a pool store that offers free testing and post those numbers here - DON'T buy any chemicals from them nor follow their advice! - post the #s here and let us help you save yourself money and headaches.)

Give Poolsolutions (the sister site to this one) a good read and you'll understand what I've suggested a little better. - Happy pooling!