I have two houses on my property, one with a Master Cool and one with the old style cooler using three 28" x 28" pads. Each fall I have a mess in the cooler to clean up, so have installed bleed-off T's (with restrictors) to reduce mineral deposits. BUT - nowhere can I find instructions on exactly what is the right amount of water to bleed off. Does anyone have a good rule-of-thumb on how to judge that I'm bleeding off the right amount of water?

Thanks, Bill

 

Living in Tucson, you'll have a high evaporation rate, so you'll probably need to bleed off quite a bit of water. Here in SE Idaho, our highs are 95*-100* for maybe 2-3 weeks. I bleed off a stream the size of a pencil lead and get 3 yrs from a set of pads and our water is extremely high in minerals. I suggest starting off bleeding a small amt. After 2-3 days, taste the water from bleed off. If it tastes salty or chalky, bleed off more. In order to prevent mineral buildup, the bleedoff should taste almost as good as the water going into cooler.
Hope this helps,
Mike

 

Hi Mike, I don't think my taste buds are precise enough to tell me whether I need more or less restriction on my bleed lines.

I just finished adjusting the bleeders. What I did was tighten the restrictors to the point where the flow became a drip, then backed off on the restrictor just to the point where the drip turned back to a tiny flow. I'll leave it like that and see how things go.

- Bill

 

In Phoenix, I set the bleedoff high, but rather than send it down the drain, I ran it to a pair of citrus trees that were nearby.