Over the past four decades thousands of backyard swimming pools have been installed. The use of chlorine was the norm for sanitizing the pool. Be it liquid or dry, a whole industry sprang up producing chemicals for swimming pools. Unfortunately dry skin, damaged hair, and red burning eyes where the result after a day of swimming. Since nothing could be done people tolerated these problems, all the while dreaming of a solution.
Then someone came up with the idea to use salt in pools. When one thinks of salt they think of the ocean. These pools are not like the salt water found in the ocean. They still have chlorine but at lower levels. This confuses people but shouldn't, the salt is used to generate chlorine as the salt passes through a cell. The salt ranges from a low of 2700 parts per million to a high of 3400 parts per million. Each system is a little different so the owner's manual should be consulted.
Salt water pools solve the problems of dry skin, damaged hair and red eyes as the solution of salt is at the right levels to give one a comfortable swimming experience. Another benefit is not having to transport chlorine from the pool store. This also makes for lower chemical costs. Should you purchase a salt water system? Lets look at some of the drawbacks before you make that decision.
Lets start with the initial cost of the system. They can run well over a thousand dollars installed. The cell may only last five to seven years depending on how well the systems is maintained. By this I mean that the salt levels must be kept at the correct parts per million or damage may occur to the cell, which can be expensive to replace. So you still need to purchase the salt, this may be only a few times a year depending on how much is purchased at one time.
Another drawback is the pool still needs to be tested for chlorine and acid demand. Yes you still need to test for chlorine. The salt cell generates the chlorine but adjustments must be made to prevent the levels from becoming to high or low. Then you need to test for the ph level. If the ph level becomes too high or low the salt cell can be damaged leading to replacement and extra cost.
Then there is the question of how much time is needed to run the pool pump. Many people want to run their pump a few hours a day. They become accustomed to the low electric bills. Then when they purchase the salt system they find that more hours are needed for the system to work correctly. This leads to higher bills so people tend to turn the pump time back down. Guess what happens then? Well if the pool experiences heavy use the chlorine level drops or disappears. So one has two choices, they can either run the system longer or add liquid chlorine. The later kind of defeats the whole idea of a salt water pool.
Another drawback is that a salt system cannot be installed in pools that have copper pipes. Many pools in the sixties and seventies had copper plumbing. Salt will eat away at the copper over a period of time. So plastic pipes need to be installed which can become very costly.
These are the major pros and cons of owning a salt water pool. You decide is it worth it to have soft skin nice hair and the absence of red eyes? Many think it is the only way to go and wouldn't ever go back to fresh water pools.
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