This is a question that we’re asked quite often. It is also a question that most industry professionals don’t quite have an accurate answer to. We’ll help clear it up in this article.
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There is no shelf life to salt cells. Most of us are familiar the term shelf life when it comes to the milk in our refrigerator or spare batteries in our junk drawer. The good news about salt cells is that there is no shelf life. You could place a new salt cell in your garage today and it will be just as good 10 years later.
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There is no set amount of time a cell will last. This is a common misconception even among pool service techs. A cell doesn’t last a set amount of hours. Sure you may be to find an average amount of time that a cell lasts but factors can alter this average greatly.
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Is it an OEM or generic cell? An OEM cell means that the original equipment manufacturer made the cell. In this case, the cell would be manufactured by AutoPilot Pool Pilot. While a generic cell is made by a 3rd party company not affiliated with AutoPilot Pool Pilot. A recent industry study showed that an OEM cell outlasted a generic cell by 120% life! That’s right, the OEM cell outperformed a generic cell lifespan by 120%. So for the sake of this article, we’re strictly talking about cells manufactured directly by AutoPilot Pool Pilot and not any sort of generic product.
Alright, so we’ve learned that we don’t measure cell life in time. So just how do we measure the life of an AutoPilot Pool Pilot salt cell? Cell life is measured in the amount of chlorine the cell can produce over the life of the cell.
100 lbs. of pure gas chlorine equals:
- 100 gallons of liquid chlorine
- 112 lbs. of trichlor chlorine tablets
- 150 lbs. of cal hypo chlorine
So what affects how long a cell will last? Take a look at our “What affects the life of my AutoPilot Pool Pilot salt cell?” article for more details on this.
