Anybody have a "Saline" Pool?

[Russ Filtz]

Does anyone use a saline-type disinfection system in their pool? Supposedly this does away with using chemical agents such as Chlorine, although chlorine is produced in smaller levels during electrolysis?

Seems like it might be a good system if it works, but don't want to take chances with ruining my pool either!

[Matt Meiser]

I work just outside of Saline, Michigan. Does that count?:rolleyes:

I know nothing about pools, but I know we use a system called Nature2 in our hot tub that almost totally eliminates chemicals. I think my wife shocks it once a week with a relatively small amount of shock and occasionally adjusts the pH. When we first got it, we were using a lot of chemicals and having a lot of trouble keeping them in balance. Since following Nature2's directions, our problems have virtually gone away. Most importantly, the water stays clear and odor free.

[Russ Filtz]

Thanks, just want to investigate before committing. One site said this kind of thing started overseas mainly in Australia. Now like 98% of all pools over there are saline instead of chemicals.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I use the 12% sodium hyperchlorite in the 5 gallon jugs. It works perfectly and is really cheap.

[Mike Tempel]

I have a salt water pool with attached hot tub. I live just east of Houston. What can I tell you about it? I put in a bag of rock salt (about $4-5 a bag) about once every 2-3 months - depends on how much fresh water gets added via rain or normal top offs. I also use muratic acid for pH balancing about once every 2 weeks (a case of 4 one gallon bottles will last me about 2 months) and some other chemicals once in a blue moon (stabilizer, metal free), etc.

I love the salt water pool. Sounds like a bad idea when I say salt water but we are talking max of about 3400ppm salt content. Have you ever tasted a tear drop? That is how I can relate having too much salt in the pool. I don't have to worry about my daughter's blond hair turning green or fading out suits and towels or smelling like chlorine the next time I break a sweat at work.
We have a "chlorine generator" or salt cell on the water line from the pumps - it converts the salt to chlorine and sodium. When that breaks down it forms.....salt! so the process starts all over again.

I know this info is kinda all over the place - I just got up from graveyards and have to go back in tonight. I will check again tonight and if you have any questions I will try and answer them to the best of my knowledge.

[Bill Lewis]

A high school friend of mine has a pool company. I worked for him on and off some 25+ years ago. At the time he was servicing and installing "Lectronator chlorinators" (product name). They form free chlorine ions through the process of electrolysis, breaking apart the Na from the Cl. Back then, they were the way to go, much less expensive to operate and service than chlorine based products, and obviously safer too. Sodium Hyperchlorite is produced pretty much in the same fashion as these saline systems, except it's a little more complicated to get the high percentage solutions.
I would have to say that if I had a swimming pool this is a system that I would definately consider.

I'm actually interested in a commecial application for this, so if you have some (US)suppliers I'd appreciate the links. Periodically, I've done searches in the past for hyperchlorite generation equipment. Unfortunately I have only run across foreign distributors and manufacturers. We have a "pool" at work that we use for testing. It's 3.5 million gallons and maintained to clarity levels higher than most swimming pools through the use of typical pool chemicals and high level filtration. Unfortunately we lost the use of gaseous Chlorine several years ago as our sanitizer.

[Mark Singer]

My pool is saline and it is really great! Pure water no smell and not salty...I love it!

[Paul Downes]

I just heard about this salt pool idea a week ago. We were vacationing at a condo in Northern Michigan and all their pools are saltwater. I've never cared for the clorine approach. The kids all liked the pool.

[Mike Circo]

If it is good enough for Dolly it should be okay for us.

Went to Dollywood a couple of years ago. They have a waterpark next door now. The cleanest park, with the cleanest water I ever went to. No slime, smell, or anything. I detected the tiniest hint of salt in the water and asked a maintenance-looking guy about it. Yep, saline method.

Based on that huge application I'd say it works well.

BTW. If in east Tennessee, don't miss Dollywood or the water park. Truly one of my favorite places.

[Russ Filtz]

Okay next question. Any known good suppliers and costs? My quick googling brought a few up, but seemed they work on a distributor system and didn't give direct prices. The system seems very simple and I'd rather install it myself.

[Mark Singer]

Russ,
It was part of my overall system , but if I remember it added a couple of thousand to the cost.. It seemed reasonable. We are on the Jandy Computer System and that handles the pool , spa, 3 fountains, the pool linear jet feature, syncronized lights , landscape lighting and is really nice

http://www.jandy.com/html/products/controls/

[Frank Hagan]

Okay next question. Any known good suppliers and costs? My quick googling brought a few up, but seemed they work on a distributor system and didn't give direct prices. The system seems very simple and I'd rather install it myself.

You can search through the Google listings. A lot of these are dealer installed only due to the complexity of working with water and electricity, but you can check places like http://www.aqua-pool-warehouse.com/Catalogs/CatChlorinator/salt-water-chlorinator.asp for some you can buy as a DIYer.

Full disclosure: Jandy Products is a manufacturer of one brand of salt water chlorinators, and they are a division of Waterpik Technologies (but recently sold to Zodiac). I used to work for another division of Waterpik Technologies. However, I was in the boiler and water heater division and not associated with the pool products during my 8 year tenure there. That aside, I heard only good things about the salt water chlorinators they recently came out with. The ozone generators manufactured by Teledyne Laars (the prior owner of Jandy) were another story, and they are no longer produced.