Most people that have a solution feeder and correctly sized retention tank hate them eventually. Most of my pellet chlorinator customers are buying more pellets about evey 18-24 months for a delivered price of $148.40; which 18 months is $8.24 a month and the chlorinator and mixing tank is nonelectric and there are no moving parts in the equipment to go bad like in a solution feeder system.
With a solution feeder a comparable amount of chlorine costs about $15--about 1/10th the cost of chlorine from pellets.
There is some nasty maintenance with pellet chlorination and some people end up buying a whole lot more pellets than Slusser is letting on.
Here are some quotes from one of Slusser's customers that is (trying) to use the pellet chlorination.
"Today (Friday) was the 6 week mark when I should check the chlorinator pellet level.
I had rubber gloves and goggles. I shut off the valves surrounding the hopper, drained the boiler valve into the magic bucket, loosened the lid, unscrewed the hopper connections on either side, and placed the hopper into the bucket. I removed the lid and saw milky water and lots of mush - NO pellets, just chunks and mush. LOTS of mush. I could not see through the milky water. So I poured out the water, put the mush into a pan, and inspected the pipe. I didn't remove the center pipe, but if you think I should remove and clean it now, I will. I already have the muriatic acid for the job.
Anyway, I wiped off the center tube of the hopper, poked a toothpick into the #1 hole to clear it out, and just replaced it all without cleaning it.
My one HUGE problem was this: NO WATER TO RINSE ANYTHING! I had to drag it out to the creek and do my best there. Ha!! Call me stupid, I deserve it, but how am I supposed to rinse the hopper, my hands, or anything else without a water supply?? Should I just have a second bucket filled with warm water?
Should i have seen whole pellets at this point, or is a great big pile of chunky mush normal after 6 weeks? Should I have seen actual pellets, or should I have added any pellets to the mush mixure? Should I re-remove the hopper and do a muriatic acid clean RIGHT away, and how long should I wait until checking it again? The white mush/chunks came to a little bit over half the height of the hopper, so there wasn't really room for pellets. And, the PVC pipes on either side of the hopper have a white crust inside of them... is that the chlorine? Can and should I be cleaning these pipes at all?"
And then after the system was installed only 3 months the following:
"CHLORINATOR:
**I need to order more pellets; I just emptied my last 2 bags**
I checked the level of chlorine mush again 4 weeks ago, and it had hardly moved. So I reinstalled (drained the water as well) the hopper and waited another 4 weeks. Last Saturday I took the hopper down to find it was COMPLETELY EMPTY of pellets! There was just a bare minimum amount of mush in the bottom of the hopper, maybe a quarter inch.
I did the muriatic acid cleaning, replaced the pipe and cap, set to minimum dose (1), and refilled with pellets to the base of the cap, and reinstalled. Again, both sides of the piping to the left and right of the hopper were stained with red chlorine residue (flaky iron-stained material). Now this Saturday is my scheduled time to flush the mixing tank.
I want to know: if I had JUST a tiny bit of chlorine left in the hopper, was that enough to protect the carbon filter and softener? What can I do to check? There is no staining in my house water and the water still seems to be of the same softness.
I also increased my water consumption to about 400 gallons a week. I DID check the hopper AFTER I increased my water usage."