what do u want to know?

Oh, just the negatives, if there are any. Why are they less popular than regular chlorine pools? I have one guy coming to give me a bid tomorrow who seems hellbent on advising me NOT to go saline. Everything I've heard and read seems so positive...just wondering what his position is. I know that some feel SWG pools are brutal to landscaping...we have very little. Another issue is supposedly the salt is problematic to some decking...we're going with composite wood and, again, that's supposedly a OK combination.

I really really want a saline pool, but would like to know what the basic complaints are, I guess.

Thanks for asking and for any help you might offer!
Michele

Check out this link.

Here is a link that might be useful: Saltwater

Yowza! That guy has it in for salt. He made my head hurt. Thanks for the link though...

Michele

Although we carefully approached the salt trend this time around (It was trendy in the 80's) I regret putting in the few salt systems that we have. Have witnessed light niche corrosion in 1 years time, diving bd stand corrosion in 2 years time, rebar corrosion in 4 years, concrete coping deterioration 2 years. I have one customer who is very meticulous about maintaining his chemistry that has not had damage other than calcium nodules in his spa. He is the exception to the rule.

Replacing light niches, diving bd jigs and coping are very expensive. Chipping out plaster and concrete to repair rusted rebar is just plain scary because you wonder where the next rust spot will show up.

Before I got my pool (finished last month), I did extensive research on the salt versus chlorine issue.

Both side have data, stories, etc. No doubt there are two sides to this story. I also cannot claim to have the experience of a pool builder or service provider, who may have seen hundreds of these pools.

In the end, I went with salt.

I belive that the corrosion issues that occur outside the water (coping, diving bd stands, etc.) are real. It makes sense. The low concentrations of salt in the pool water will become extremely high when the water is splashed out of the pool and the H20 evaporates.
You have to fight this by using the correct materials and high quality materials. I ended up going with 2 1/2 inch flagstone.

I am not sold on the salt damage to the pool itself or the equipment. The concentrations of salt in the water should be no more corrosive than the chlorine concentrations. Obviously, you have to keep that concentration in check, but getting your salt really high is hard to do.

I talked to six people in my area who had salt pools. Every one of them loved thier pools and none had any corrosion problems. This could be a sampling error, where I got the only six people happy with salt. It also may be that all thier pools are going to fall apart next year. But I had to go with the information I had.

Good luck with your choice, it is tough with all the conflicting info.

Thank you all so much for your input.

Everyone that I've spoken with who has saline LOVES it. The warnings seem to come from builders so, I'm so torn. Obviously, builders see a lot more pools. On the other hand, I can't understand why all these salt pool owners are so happy. We're not having a ladder or a board. since we're going with composite I feel like I'll have to be proactive on keeping the decking washed off anyway.

ARG! I'm so confused. I just don't understand how the levels of saline can be SO high as to cause corrosion on coping, but it obviously does - sometimes.

Anyway, thanks so much. I know I'll just have to make my own decision.

Now, how difficult is it to go FROM saline to regular traditional chlorine if I wanted to switch? I know the procedure from chlorine to saline...kind of.

Anyone?
Michele in Austin, TX.

You just drain the water.

Builders don't like it because they see the damage its doing to what they built and know that the blame will fall their way.

Reno,
HUH!!!
Most of the pools I put in have salt systems.

As a builder I hate them. They are pretty much the only calls for service I get. Not because of the equipment, but because they make it so easy they get ignored, till there is a problem, then I get a call.

Really the biggest problem is either the customer is taking care of their own pool, and god forbid would actually open the manual or all of the other training materials we give them to answer a question.
Or there is some Idiot that bought a pool pole and is servicing pools. S

My poor wife handles the phones, and threatens me often if I sell another one. But they still go into most of our pools.

Hope this helps from a builders point of view.
Just read the owners manual and follow the simple directions.

Almost every customer asks "Do you build salt water pools" because they have heard on the tennis court or a party that one of their friends just got one. Its very similar to the baquacil trend. They want it! If you go into a bunch of stories about adding acid every two weeks and washing off the coping and be careful about this and that or this might happen.....their mind says "thats not what I want to hear".

The other guy comes in and says "SWG's are maintainence free"....

Adding acid or adding tablets... it's all the same. If you do not want added maintenance aded to your life, then do not get a pool of any kind.
Michele,
I have a SWG pool, but only for a year. So far, so good. The girls love the tangle free hair! I love the reduced chlorine smell.

I just don't understand why EVERY single SWG owner I've talked to LOVES it and almost every PB I've talked to hates them. WHERE are all the people who are calling their PBs with problems? I wanna hear from them. I'm serious, I've yet to hear from any owner who is unhappy with the SWG. Just doesn't make sense...I'm so confused...still.

Thanks everyone,
Michele

mamamermaid, the reason that pool owners don't see the problem is because they only have one pool, and so when something goes wrong, they tend to think that it's just part of the deal, that's about how long this or that will last.

But me, I have 150 pools and about 30% of them are salt pools. And let me tell you, I make lots more repair income off the salt pools than I do the chlorine tablet pools.

The reason builders hate salt pools is because of "go backs". Ideally, a builder wants to finish a pool, get paid, and not hear from that customer again. That's not a bad thing. They just want to be busy with new customers instead of going back and earning the same money again dealing with problems and complaints from their old customers. Salt pools result in more problems, hence more go backs, hence less profit and more headaches.

Michele,
I posted a request here about a year ago for anyone to provide pictures of absolute SWG damage to a pool.
No one has done so yet...

Thepoolguy11... what type of call backs are you getting?

Salt is not corrosive. Electrolysis and chlorine are. Poorly bonded pool systems including niches, ladder cups, ladders, rails, decking, etc... are the areas that if not bonded to the same ground as the equipment, will have problems.

Pure water is an insulator. When salt is added, it becomes an electrolyte, that is it conducts. If the bonding is broken, batteries can form stray current not drawn to ground via the bonding grid, This is when corrosion happens in nearly every case.

It is because of this I like seeing new pools being constructed with them. The fact that come in colors is an added bonus.

Pool water can be bonded as well. There are collector lugs made for the inside of skimmers and the also work in drain pots.

Light niches, rails, ladders, and ladder cups made of plastic are effective deterrents to this corrosion.

Decking and coping problems are rarely caused by anything other than freeze/thaw cycles and settling.

There are some higher up front costs associated with the changes but the savings later on make them worth it for everyone involved.

Scott

Poolguynj; I hear your arguments a lot. Ask a metallurgist if salt's corrosive. When they're done chuckling, they'll tell you it is.

Why do you guys undercoat cars in New Jersey and we don't here in Texas, or anywhere else in the Sunbelt? Because salt is corrosive and you all put it on your roads. All we do is sand our roads down here.

I remember in the Olden Days, the banks in Rochester, NY wouldn't make 5 year auto loans when those became vogue because cars weren't worth repossessing after about 3 years. Why? Salt related corrosion due to those long, cold snow and ice covered winters and the salty roads that kept everyone moving.

Ya know, I haven't commented at forums in a couple of years and now I'm remembering the reason I quit is because it starts to feel like a full time job trying to point out these kinds of things.

But the problem is that someone like you, who clearly knows a fair amount about bonding and grounding, will come along and make a statement like that and the next thing you know, people who know less on the subject will be out there repeating that as if it were fact because they read it on some forum somewhere, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Part two of what's wrong with your advise is that pools are never filled with pure water, even the non-salt variety. It is dangerous to even remotely imply that non-salt pools are non-conductive. Pools become more conducting when you add salt, but they are very conductive before the salt is added.

Part three is that while you're correct that decking and coping problems can be exacerbated by the freeze/thaw cycle of salt water, salt water that is evaporated on decks and copings will leave behind that salt and after sufficient splash-out you'll get recrystallization of the salt inside the stone or concrete, resulting in crystallization expansion pressure being exerted on the pores of the material, causing internal fracturing, resulting in eventual crumbling of the material. The larger the pores of the material, the more rapidly it will be affected. Sodium chloride, once recrystallized, exerts one of the highest expansion pressures of any of the halide compounds.

Part four is that salt cells have a life of approximately 10,000 hours operation. In sunbelt areas, where the pools aren't winterized, you often hit that 10,000 hours in about 3 years. Coincidentally, that's the typical warranty for most salt cells. So, everybody forgets to factor in the several hundred dollar cost of a new salt cell when they talk about how much money they're saving on their salt pool. When you add that to the admitted up front costs of buying the system and upgrading all your metals and materials to withstand salt attack, electrolysis, galvanic corrosion, etc. it's still a losing proposition.

And @ ncrealestateguy: hate to plug my blog here, but I've written about 60 posts over the last 3 years, posts that include lots of pictures of salt damage to pools. I detail all the problems I see and problems other people see with salt systems. You can read there about the problems and callbacks. They are myriad. I would post the link, but someone's already done it in this thread and I'm pretty sure it's on my profile, too.

I have two posts in particular that you should read, Making Salt Work and The Great Thing About History. They are still on the front page, just scroll down a bit.

I have had mine going on 4 years now with none of the problems mentioned above. However, I have heard of problems with natural stone but that can usually be fixed with sealers. A hose down of stone after a party is probably a good idea too.

Because salt pools are gaining in popularity here in the US, been used elsewhere for a lot longer, a lot of things tend to be blamed on salt pools when some of the issues may of happened without a salt pool anyway.

Has anybody used this product or a similar one?

Here is a link that might be useful: cement aid

I'm in the hunt for a new pool heater. One installer told me that heater warranties used to be five years, they've lowered them to one, and they now have a total dissolved solids limit in regards to the warranty.

He said it's because salt systems are killing the heaters. Not just corrosion, but also abrasion with loss of copper from internal bends in the heat exchanger water path.

We ran an inline chlorinator on our pool for a few months, but found it difficult to keep the water balanced plus the CYA level climbed so fast that we were facing a partial drain/ refill in short order. We switched to BBB, but it was a hassle hauling huge quantities of chlorine and we didn't like filling the landfills with the empty jugs (no plastic recycling where we live). We finally switched to SWG and it's been wonderful. Yes, you have to add acid once a week and yes you do still need to check your chem's once a week, but it is so much easier than the other two options we tried. Plus everyone (but me, I can't tell a difference) loves the "soft" feel better. We don't have a heater and we don't have any metal furniture or components near the pool, so that wasn't an issue for us. We've only had the SWG for a little over a year though, so time will tell if we have any long term problems.

I have a friend that has flagstone coping and an SWG, I think he's on his 9th season. He's had no problems either.

I suspect that as mentioned above that most SWG pool problems are due to owners thinking they can just quit maintaining their pools if they have an SWG. An SWG minimizes weekly maintenance, but doesn't eliminate it.

The pro and con argument regarding salt water pools will continue.
It strikes me as odd that rail/board/accessory manufacturers are now advertizing their new product specially made for salt water pools. Why do they need special products to be corrosion resistant if they haven't had overwhelming complaints?
I've seen all the problems that poolguy11 describes. Not on ever pool, but on more than I like. Perhaps it's partly due to an increase in the conductivity of salt water, but just the same salt water situations increase corrosion.
Most of my customers love the feel of the water. It's great and the systems are easy to sell. The cell life will very depending on how well they are maintained. I had one cell last 10 years, but the customer cleaned it once a month and kept the chemicals balanced meticulously. The norm is 3 to 5 years and without pro rated warranties the cells retail between $450-$700 depending on brand and they are not getting cheaper.
As a PB, I don't like to sell a product that I know will fail before the end of the warranty or shortly after. A large percentage of service calls are salt water system calls.
I do my best to explain the pros and cons to my customers and lower expectations about the repair frequency. I actually don't get too many complaints about longevity or cost.
Advice for salt water pool lovers...Pay attention to the water chemistry in your pool, particularly the PH. Good luck.

@ mongoct: There is a pool heater for you. It's the Sta Rite Max E Therm, also known as the Pentair Master Temp. It's always been a great heater, but now it's available with a cupro-nickel heat exchanger. Your installer may have read my blog piece about the problems with impingement corrosion in standard heat exchangers. The high TDS, high velocity water strips away the normal corrosion, which actually acts as a sealant of sorts to protect the copper, exposing fresh metal to corrosion, which is stripped away, etc.

The Max E Therm and Master Temp has a coiled tubing style heat exchanger. No sharp bends - the most common place where the impingement corrosion occurs - and with the cupro-nickel upgrade, excellent salt resistance.

The cupro-nickel upgrade is very new and not widely available, so ask your installer to call Pentair for ordering info.

Wow. So much technical information in these posts! Makes my head spin! However...

I've had my saline pool for almost 5 years now. And we LOVE IT! But it hasn't been without problems. Our limestone coping and decking began to FALL INTO THE POOL from "corrosion and pitting" just months after the pool was finished. Our builder first said it was "bad limestone". Then, the following summer, when our coping was literally crumbling into the pool...they said it was our saline system. They replaced half our limestone deck, and ALL of our coping...just 2 years later. They voided our warranty on the coping however, as we chose to stick with our saline system, vs. changing over to regular chlorine. They flat our said they didn't know enough about saline systems and they weren't economical to install for their company. Too many "fixes" on the back end. (WHAT?!) geeze. Saline pools have been built for YEARS all over the nation, and especially in California, where they rarely have issues. I think it's probably due to the choice of building materials in use. Just my opinion, based on research.

So, we chose to stay with our saline system because we like the reduced maintenance and hassle (of adding chlorine all the time) as well as the "feel" of the pool. Our friends and family that swim at our home LOVE IT too! We DID however decide to seal our decking/coping to help protect it from future corrosion, which has helped somewhat. Not completely...but some. And we have to do it at least once or twice a year. Maybe it's just the choice of limestone, which I would be happy to do without if there was a "better" choice that would better mix with the saline for less corrosion.

All this being said...I have to make note of an issue with our chlorine generator. I have an Aqualogic panel that has a bad connector in the panel, that blows out after a few years and needed to be "re-soldered". My pool company (and Hayward pools) wanted to charge me over $800 to replace and repair the panel. It was a simple solder fix to the back panel that I did in less than 30 minutes total. I found this "fix" on this site and was so thankful I did some research on it before spending the money.

So!
All pools are going to have maintenance and issues (ditto what many of you said above), just like buying a car, or a home. It's a huge investment. But if you are willing to take that responsibility...build something you are going to ENJOY USING! If you don't like the feel of chlorine...get saline. Or vice versa. The maintenance is all about the same really, more or less.

Good luck to you!