Saltwater Pool

Jim, One of the dads on here has one. Maybe you can find him. I will see if he is on my friends list.

In California, where it can get very hot during the summer, salt water pools are not generally recommended by pool companies because the pools get a lot of use, and it can be hard to keep up the salt water. Our pool can do either, and when we had it resurfaced (so we were going to have to empty it and start over anyway) we received bids from 4 different pool companies. They all said that if we went to salt, we would end up going back to chlorine, so we just stuck with chlorine. Chlorine is a lot easier, actually. We hired a pool guy, and he comes once a week, is in and out in 10 minutes, and keeps our chlorine perfect. You can't smell it (not even on the kids' swimsuits, and they are in the pool all day every day whenever it's warm enough). We never have to do chlorine shocks or anything like that. The pool guy keeps the pool just chlorinated enough so it doesn't grow algae, and that's it. He supplies the chemicals and charges us $75/month. It's hard to argue for a salt water pool when he would charge us twice as much and have to come twice as often, you know? I think the trick is to use the minimum amount of chlorine, and just keep the chemicals balanced.

My hubby grew up with a chlorine pool and we have salt water now. Salt water pools are chlorinated, but not as much as a traditional pool. My husband talks about how his old pool faded their swimsuits and how the chlorine turned their blond hair a green hue. We have non of those problems. The water doesn't burn as much when you open your eyes. You don't have that reek of chlorine. And our neighbors who have skin issues say that our pool doesn't dry out their skin like a regular pool.

As an added bonus, salt doesn't bleach things like chlorine tablets do. I remember when I was dating my husband all the cars had a bleach spot in the carpet somewhere from spilling chlorine tablets. :)

I'd say maintenance cost and repairs, they are about the same either way you go.

we've had a saltwater pool for 8 years now, and it is FAR easier and cheaper to upkeep than a chlorine pool... we are a family of five and a dog that swim nearly every day. we typically buy 3 or 4 bags of salt PER YEAR($8 per bag?), then we typically add a little alkalinity and conditioner once or twice PER YEAR, and muriatic acid weekly. that's it. just a few weeks ago, we had to replace our Polaris booster pump(nothing to do with the salt cell, this is what makes the auto pool vaccum work) b/c it was becoming VERY noisy, but still worked - cost $450. that's the only repair we've done in 8 years. I'm not into breathing or swimming in the heavily chlorinated water, and this is very easy on the skin(and dog fur) and eyes. so maybe $100 a year on chemicals? for those saying it's twice the work and twice the chemicals, I have to really wonder if they were taught properly how to maintain it, I can't imagine spending $50 a month to have someone dump $3 worth of acid in my pool once a week...

edited to add: living in the dfw area, we REGULARLY hit 105-110 60+ days throughout the summer, and almost everyone around here has a salt pool and if they don't, they would like to convert their chlorine pool to a salt pool...

When we had our pool put in 5 years ago we went with chlorine. My daughter's long, light blonde hair was ALWAYS green no matter what we did to try and prevent it. So I had our pool changed over to salt water 3 years ago after we had experienced a salt water pool while away on vacation. We love it! No more green hair for my daughter and I NEVER have to add chemicals! I agree with S B. the salt water doesn't dry out your skin either. I am very happy with our decision to change over!

We have a saltwater pool and love it. We don't add any salt during the winter months as the salt cell generator shuts down when water is below 60 degrees so a little chlorine can be added if needed during this time. Our pool is pretty low maintenance.

less chemicals is always a plus

Find a good pool company (or several) and ask them for specifics about the differences. We have a standard chlorine pool with sand filter. My kids have blonde hair/blue eyes... and they have never had green tinged hair. Their swimsuits don't fade out, either.
Personally, I think a lot of the "bad" stories you hear about "chlorine" pools are more related to poorly maintained ones. If you keep the water balanced properly, most of those issues go away. Our pool and patio never smell of chlorine. If you smell chlorine, that's a sign the pool is out of balance. If your eyes burn, that's a sign the pool is out of balance. Etc.

From what I gathered when I asked our pool company(where I get my chemicals and maintenance stuff, and repair work when a pump needs something, etc), there isn't that much difference between them except for a few things:
1) When something breaks on the salt filter, it cost 3x as much to replace/repair, much like today's washing machines cost more due to the electronic panels in them vs. the mechanical ones. For what it's worth, we have a friend who installed salt at roughly the same time we installed chlorine/sand. Theirs has required 2 repairs, that cost a minimum of $500 each time. Ours? No repairs, except replacement of an auxiliary pump for the vacuum, which is fairly typical regardless of what kind of pool. This will be our 9th (?) summer in the house with the pool... and I just replaced the auxiliary pump last month (for the 2nd time). The first one was replaced at about the 2 year mark, because the timer clip came off and it ran without the regular pump on for quite a long time...without us realizing it.

2) Much like an at home salt water softener, you have to provide salt for the filter on a regular basis. So while you may not have to go buy chlorine tabs (I usually have to do this 2 x a year), you will have to buy big bags of salt every month. We had a salt water whole house softener in our previous home, and let me tell you... that alone was enough to make me opt away from a salt filter.
3) If your pool is near your home (not way out in the yard or something), and you have a vacuum (polaris)... the tail sprays water out on occasion. The tail sprays on your windows will leave salt stains, per my friend who has this.
4) You will still need to check your pool's balance regularly. And add this or that (for us, it usually means adding baking soda).

Taking care of a regular chlorinated pool isn't that difficult. As long as you stay on it and don't get lazy or lax. Once it goes green, you will spend a month trying to get it right again, and you will be exasperated with it. (I let that happen one winter about 3 years ago. OY! Never again). But regular maintenance is no big deal. You take a water sample, test it with the drops and add what is appropriate (like I said, for us that usually means some baking soda.. b/c it rains here a lot in the summer.. like every afternoon). You shock it about once a week, and keep the chlorine feeder loaded with tabs, and that's about it. I don't even have to scrub the sides or bottom or scoop leaves... we have a screen and an auto vacuum. 10 minutes, on average, per week. And that's during pool season.

Oh.. and salt filters cost a bit more up front, too, don't they?
Oh.. and also, they still are really chlorine pools. It's just that when you add it into the system it is in the form of salt... the pump system changes it chemically to.... chlorine.
You know... sodium chloride? Just another form of chlorine. And that pump/filter system alters its form... at least that is how it was explained to me.

So.. in total.. the biggest "benefit" after tallying it all... is that you have harmless salt sitting around, vs. chlorine (which technically could be a hazard). But, they package it so that unless you dump the whole bucket of pool shock into the pool intact, or you open it and stand there sniffing fumes... it's pretty much harmless. People all around you have done this for decades, and how many fires or deaths have you heard about that were caused by pool chlorine mishandling? Exactly.
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One other thing.. be careful about estimated costs. I just went to one pool company's site that had their version of what the differences between the two types are, and they were saying that the chlorine costs average $50/60 month. Which is absurd, according to the history I have with our pool. I MAY spend @ $250 a YEAR. $50-$60 a MONTH is wayyy out of the range of what it costs us.

Our pool can do either. We tried keeping up with the salt water but it seemed to not be able to keep up with all the bodies and heat over the summer.

We called a pool service company. They came and explained their services. It just made sense for us to just convert to chlorine because of how often we use our pool and how often we invite other people over. It was cheaper to go with the chorine service each month. 45 buckaroos a month for someone else to maintain it was worth it to us. They come weekly and have been wonderful!

But..the saltwater was definitely easy on the skin, swimsuit material...and eyeballs! We just wear goggles all the time to save the eyeballs, buy a couple cheap suits to use over the summer, and do a couple tomato sauce rinses in the hair to solve the green tinge/stringy feel of the hair.

I have blond hair and never had green in it when I was growing up, swimming in my friends pool. My neighbors have a pool and standing right over it on the deck, it does not smell strong. You almost don't even notice the chlorine smell. They are very diligent on how they take care of it.. Also, my daughter has not had any problems with it drying out her skin when she would go over to swim and play.

That said, a friend of mine had a salt water pool. It was the thing to get a couple years or so ago and her husband is always getting "the best". Anyway, she hated it. He did not want to do the maintenance after a while and she hated doing it. They had to have some repair done last summer and it took half their vacation money.

I was going to get one but went with regular sand filter. Apparently chlorine is the only chemical it takes care of, the rest you still have to deal with.