How Does A Salt Water Pool System Work?

The salt is poured into the pool. A separate component called a salt water chlorinator or salt cell is used to convert the sodium chloride in the salt to just chloride to be released into the pool. The salt cell works on a process called electrolysis. Electrolysis is where bonded elements in a liquid solution are separated by passing through two charged plates. Opposites attract during this process. Positive charged particles move toward the negatively charged plates. Negative charged particles move toward the positively charged plates. The chlorine becomes positively charged and is released out into the pool in very small amounts compared to a traditional chlorine pool. Your regular pool pump keeps the water moving through your salt cell.

A salt water pool system requires a salt water chlorinator with a control panel. This chlorinator or salt cell is what converts the salt in the pool to chlorine. Yes. The pool will still have chlorine in it but at a much lower concentration. A traditional chlorine pool has 3 -10 ppm of chlorine in it. A salt water pool has 0.5 -1 ppm of chlorine in it. Much less. This salt cell takes the sodium chloride that salt is made up of and outputs just the chloride into the pool.

The control panel monitors the water and helps to determine when the salt cell or chlorinator needs to run. Some control panels are more sophisticated than others and will therefore cost more. We are getting a very simple system that costs approximately $2,000 installed. This is up front cost added to the cost of the pool. There are cheaper routes to go when choosing your salt water chlorinator. You can purchase the components yourself and convert your pool over from chlorine to a salt system or buy the components and install them yourself with your new pool. We did not want the hassle of installing them so we purchased them through our pool vendor. The same exact salt water chlorinator and control panel can be found at Amazon.  

This is the beauty of this system. There are up front costs to the system but very little maintenance is required. There will be 2-3 salt applications required during the year. The salt concentration in the pool is very small. It is approximately 3,200 ppm and can be compared to the amount of salt in a tear. My pool vendor compared it to tears as well. Estimates of $10-$20 per year in salt is what is needed. This is a major improvement over the $100 per tub of chlorine that we were used to buying with the other pool. We would go through two of the tubs per summer. The salt water system is much cheaper to maintain.

• Maintenance Costs are much lower.

• No chemicals like chlorine so the water is much less irritating to your hair, skin, eyes, and swim suits.

• Much less green algae forms with this pools system compared to the chlorine systems. So clean up, scrubbing green algae, and treatments don't have to happen.