We Know Pools

Salt swimming pools are growing in popularity

For a growing number of pool owners, there’s no longer any need to buy, store or handle expensive chlorine products to sanitize their water. They’ve joined the ranks of converts to salt chlorine generators; devices that use plain salt to produce pure chlorine on demand to keep their pools fresh, clear and sanitary. They were pioneered in Australia where approximately 90% of all pools are sanitized with this technology.

With a salt chlorine generator, pool owners add a small amount of ordinary salt to their pool water—about a teaspoon per gallon, which is below human taste levels. In simple terms, a salt chlorine generator uses an “electrolytic cell” that converts salt molecules into sodium and chlorine. The chlorine sanitizes pool water by killing bacteria and then converts back to salt. And then the process starts all over again. Subsequent salt additions are very infrequent in almost all situations. This video on the IntelliChlor salt chlorine generator explains how...

The benefits of automatic chlorine generators are significant:

The water frees softer and silkier.
The pure chlorine generated by a chlorinator contains no impurities that can irritate eyes and skin, or fade swimwear.
Convenience and time savings. No more running to the store, handling and storing liquid or solid chlorine products.
The constant, low level of chlorine produced eliminates wide fluctuations of over- and under-chlorination.

Have you been in a salt pool? What differences did you notice?

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Comment by Kris - Community Manager on January 5, 2012 at 8:47am: I can't answer your question about the corrosion, but I have it in the discussion forum on Santizers as: "When using a salt chlorine system, what part of my system may not ...

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Comment by Kris - Community Manager on January 5, 2012 at 8:42am: Thanks so much for your comments! I have read that the higher acid demand is common with a salt chlorine generator. You may be interested in a discussion on poolfyi called "Constantly Adding Acid" http://poolfyi.com/forum/topics/constantly... -- Rick Chaffee suggested adding an IntelliChem system to manage the acid demand.

Comment by William J Marshall` on January 4, 2012 at 10:01pm: I've used a chlorine generator now for two summers and am into my second winter. The water feels softer and silkier and I have saved time dealing with chlorine during the warm season. However, things that I did not know up front are that there would be a large acid demand. The chlorine generation process raises the pH of the water and you need to periodically add acid to keep the pH in the desirable range. Also, when the water temperature gets down in the 50's the chlorine generator does not work. You will need to add chlorine in the winter, although way less than needed in the summer. I am also worried about corrosion. Within two months of installing the system, a screw on a faucet became corroded. I wonder if there are other parts of my system that may not be corrosion resistant. In particular, I worry about rebar in the pool shell.

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