CircuPool RJ-45 Plus Salt Chlorine Generator
Best overall — A 45,000-gallon SWG at 1.9 lb a day with an OLED display that reads out your salt level, a 7-year prorated parts warranty, and no warranty penalty for buying online and installing it yourself
Sold in 2 pool sizes on this listing: 45,000 gal, 60,000 gal — this page is the 45,000 gal. Check the size before you add to cart.
🏆 Winner — The Best Salt Water Chlorinators of 2026 — and the Truth About Whether Salt Is Cheaper
⚔️ Matchup — CircuPool RJ-45 Plus Salt Chlorine Generator vs Hayward AquaRite (W3AQR15) Salt Chlorine Generator
Preferred sources show up more in Google's Top Stories and can carry a "preferred" badge in AI Overviews.
Check price at Amazon →Also at: CircuPool
Sold by PACE RESEARCH LTD, shipped by Amazon · read 2026-10-14
Specs
| Max pool size | 45,000 gal |
| Chlorine output | 1.9 lb/day |
| Cell life | Not published (CircuPool withdrew its 15,000-hr rating in 2026) |
| Cell type | Titanium |
| Warranty | 7 yr prorated parts (year 1 free; years 5–7 at 80% of base price) — no dealer or DIY clause |
| Cell cost/yr | ~$140 (cell $699, on a ~5-yr basis) |
| Best for | Salt readout + the longest warranty |
| Model | RJ-45 PLUS |
| Controls | OLED display with a salt-level reading |
Pros
- The deepest independent owner record of the CircuPool systems: 4.5★ across 163 Amazon ratings on its own listing, not shared with the RJ60+
- No DIY-install penalty: buy it online and install it yourself without voiding the 7-year warranty — unlike Pentair and Hayward, which limit or void warranty on online/self-installed units
- A display that shows your actual salt level, where the SJ-45 shows only a green or red light
- Highest output (1.9 lb/day) and biggest capacity (45,000 gal), so it's already oversized for a typical pool — exactly the headroom the 'oversize the cell' rule calls for
Cons
- Its recent critical reviews on Amazon describe cells or units quitting inside about two years, and three owners describe a slow or costly warranty claim. CircuPool no longer prints a cell life in hours, so there is no rating to measure that against
- The SJ-45 makes the same 1.9 lb/day on the same $699 replacement cell for $600 less at CircuPool — what the extra money buys is the salt readout and four more years of prorated warranty
- On Amazon it is sold by Pace Research Ltd (Tomball, TX), whose storefront shows 71% positive feedback on 17 ratings; CircuPool sells it direct for $50 less
- Direct-to-consumer brand with a smaller local dealer/installer footprint than Pentair or Hayward — more of the install and troubleshooting falls on you
Cells or whole units quitting inside about two years, and owners describing a slow or costly warranty claim — on the RJ45+ listing itself.
5 of the 10 most recent critical cards (13 in all) describe a cell or unit failing within about two years; 3 of those also describe warranty friction · critical reviews read 2026-10-14
“My RJ45+ has worked as advertised and has been a real blessing to have.”— Holydoc, Trouble Free Pool · Verified owner
FAQ
Who is the CircuPool RJ-45 Plus Salt Chlorine Generator for?
You want the deepest independent owner record of the CircuPool systems, a 7-year prorated warranty, a display that shows your salt level, and the freedom to self-install. The SJ-45 makes the same chlorine on the same $699 cell for less money, so buy this one for the controls and the warranty, not the cost.
What do owners say about the CircuPool RJ-45 Plus Salt Chlorine Generator?
4.5★ across 163 owner ratings (Amazon, read 2026-10-14). What owners complain about: Cells or whole units quitting inside about two years, and owners describing a slow or costly warranty claim — on the RJ45+ listing itself.
Who sells the CircuPool RJ-45 Plus Salt Chlorine Generator on Amazon, and can it be returned?
Sold by PACE RESEARCH LTD, shipped by Amazon, when we read the listing on 2026-10-14. Sellers and return terms can change, so check both on the listing before you buy.
What is the warranty on the CircuPool RJ-45 Plus Salt Chlorine Generator?
7 yr prorated parts (year 1 free; years 5–7 at 80% of base price) — no dealer or DIY clause
Does the CircuPool RJ-45 Plus Salt Chlorine Generator warranty still apply if I buy it on Amazon?
CircuPool answers that in its own warranty document, which we read on 2026-09-10: This warranty extends to the original retail purchaser and original installation site only, beginning at the original date of purchase, and is non-transferrable. We quote the maker rather than deciding your case — read the document before you buy if the warranty is why you are buying.
Record
- — CircuPool withdrew the 15,000-hour cell rating this card was crowned on: the figure now sits only in hidden page markup, it was visible as late as January 2026, and the manual never stated it. The card stops claiming it, the cell cost per year moves from ~$100 to ~$140 on the five-year basis every other cell on the page uses, and the lowest-cost claim passes to the SJ-45, which uses the same $699 cell for $600 less. The RJ-45 Plus keeps best overall on its owner record, its salt readout and its 7-year warranty. The same day the Amazon listing B01F41OY1K was found selling the RJ45+ again (4.5★ across 163, its own base), so Amazon is the primary buy path again.
- — Chlorine output corrected from 2.0 to 1.9 lb a day. CircuPool's own RJ-45 PLUS page reads 1.9 in both its header and its spec table; the 2.0 we carried since June survives on that page only in a 2020 customer answer. Its start-up advice, from the current manual: begin at 75% output and adjust after two to three days.
- — Warranty re-read on CircuPool's own RJ PLUS manual: the seven years are prorated — parts free in year one, then the owner pays 20/40/60% of base price in years two to four and 80% in years five to seven. No purchase-channel or DIY clause anywhere in the document. CPSC checked clean the same day.
- — Corrected a false comparative claim on this card, and pinned the warranty to what actually preserves it: seven years, kept if you self-install. Cell type confirmed titanium. The critical tail runs against that term — cells quitting between the first season and about three years, with owners describing a warranty that is hard to actually claim.
- — We had been penalising a rival for a pooled rating while our own winner pooled too. The CircuPool figure was retired down to 4.5 across 161 with the pooled flag on it. A standard applied to one product and not another is not a standard.
- — The rating was invalidated by the listing moving underneath it. We read 4.5 across 341 in June off B01F41OY1K, which was then the RJ45+ page; by July that listing was serving a different model. The buy link moved to CircuPool brand-direct while Amazon was out of stock or showing the wrong unit.
Warranty — and what changes if you buy it on Amazon
7 yr prorated parts (year 1 free; years 5–7 at 80% of base price) — no dealer or DIY clause · you are buying this on Amazon
This warranty extends to the original retail purchaser and original installation site only, beginning at the original date of purchase, and is non-transferrable.
CircuPool’s own warranty document · read
Read it yourself: CircuPool warranty document · we read it . Terms change without announcement, so treat this as a dated snapshot. How warranty works by buy path →
What we have seen it sell for
- — $1,745 recorded
- — $1,695 recorded
Each date is when we recorded that price, not necessarily the day it changed — we publish what we can prove. Prices we later corrected are left out rather than shown as moves.
✓ Safety: no active recall — No active CPSC recall found (checked 2026-10-14: saferproducts.gov RecallTitle and ProductName for CircuPool returned 0, with a Hayward control returning 4 in the same run).
Cell cost per year, compared → · Size your pool first → ·All pool gear →
Data last verified: 2026-10-14. Ratings are real, dated reads — never scraped or invented. Full methodology and monetization disclosure: how we test.