Hello, and welcome to another Pool Myths Debunked. Today’s myth comes from a comment left on one of our old video it goes as thus…
Wrong! I’ve used Vaseline on o-rings in water treatment for over 38 years, with no o-ring problems.
First things first, o-rings can be made of a lot of different materials. The equipment in your particular subset of water treatment may be using nitrile, silicone, or neoprene. Those materials can be mistaken for one another, but are much more resistant to petroleum-based products.
But the majority of pool equipment gaskets are made of ethylene propylene diene monomer, thankfully referred to as EPDM. As you can see in this chart (page 2-9), while it is good to excellent for most conditions, oil resistance is not one of them.
Hydrocarbons like the ones that form the base of petroleum jelly, which just go to town on the EPDM compound.
So if you slather an EPDM gasket with petroleum jelly or any oil-based substance, you’d better have a backup on hand, because you’re going to need it.
The safest gasket lube to use for EPDM-based o-rings is Teflon lube, also commonly referred to as PTFE lube.
And if you need any pool equipment, pump gaskets, or anything else pool or spa, come visit us over at Inyopools.com
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