This article described the advantages and disadvantages of Salt Water Chlorination.
The author believes that the system was developed as just another marketing gimmick to increase the amount of money spent on swimming pool accessories.
There is no doubt that it automates the pool water sanitation process - but there is another more cost effective and less environmentally unfriendly way of doing it.
I suppose the main question is - what is a salt water pool like to swim in.
Well first of all it is absolutely nothing like sea water where the salt concentration is much, much higher.
Does it feel any different? Some people say that it is softer or silkier - I am not really into semantics like that so to tell the truth I don't know - what I do know is that I cannot tell the difference.
Does it smell of chlorine? The answer to this is No- any pool filtration system that is correctly set up and running properly will not smell of chlorine.
To be honest pools where the water smells of chlorine and that turn your hair green are nearly always found to be pools that do not have automatic sanitation and pH control systems.
What are the other issues? The first one is purely cost - the pool will contain several hundred Euros (or Dollars) worth of salt.
If it has to be emptied for any reason you lose all that salt and have to buy more.
The amount of salt used is quite staggering - a 12 x 6 or 40 foot x 20 foot pool will need nearly a full pallet of salt.
Part of this is constantly lost by splash-out and filtration.
It is in fact a very inefficient process because all the water has to be salty and only a minute part is turned into chlorine at a time.
All the rest of it just floats about in the pool.
And the salt needs to be the right sort - otherwise the chlorination system will not work! The second issue is what do you do with the salt water if the pool has to be emptied? It is illegal to put it into a water course or ditch because the salt will kill a great number of both plants and animals.
Not only that each time that the pool is emptied there will be a progressive build up in salt concentration.
So you should have a properly designed soakaway that can be used to filter out the salt before it gets into the local streams - this will not be cheap.
The third issue is the corrosive nature of the salt water - in most pools it will be OK - but if there is anything that will rust near your pool - the salt water could make things worse.
The life of heat pumps etc will certainly be adversely affected.
The fourth issue is one of reliability.
The harder the water the more often the cell has to be taken apart to be cleaned - even if the salesman says that the polarity is constantly reversed to avoid this - but they will still need to be cleaned once a year - and it's not a pleasant job.
The fifth and maybe most important issue is that in hard water areas the cells will only last 3 to 5 years before requiring replacement.
The replacement cost will be at least 1000 Euros when labour and travelling are taken into account - and through sod's law it will always fail at the worst time! What about supply and installation costs? Well we charge about 3000 Euros for either salt water chlorination or an automatic liquid chlorine injection and pH control system.
The soakaway for the salt water can cost nearly as much again in some circumstances.
The only way to absolutely guarantee that the health of anyone using a swimming pool is not impaired is to use chlorine to sanitate the pool water.
Both salt water chlorination and liquid chlorine injection do the job equally well but is very difficult to see why salt water chlorination should be chosen to do the job because there is really no excuse for periodically having to empty a full swimming pool of brine into the local environment of your garden.
So is Salt Water Chlorination just a marketing Gimmick - Yes! For more information follow this link Swimming Pools in France.
The author believes that the system was developed as just another marketing gimmick to increase the amount of money spent on swimming pool accessories.
There is no doubt that it automates the pool water sanitation process - but there is another more cost effective and less environmentally unfriendly way of doing it.
I suppose the main question is - what is a salt water pool like to swim in.
Well first of all it is absolutely nothing like sea water where the salt concentration is much, much higher.
Does it feel any different? Some people say that it is softer or silkier - I am not really into semantics like that so to tell the truth I don't know - what I do know is that I cannot tell the difference.
Does it smell of chlorine? The answer to this is No- any pool filtration system that is correctly set up and running properly will not smell of chlorine.
To be honest pools where the water smells of chlorine and that turn your hair green are nearly always found to be pools that do not have automatic sanitation and pH control systems.
What are the other issues? The first one is purely cost - the pool will contain several hundred Euros (or Dollars) worth of salt.
If it has to be emptied for any reason you lose all that salt and have to buy more.
The amount of salt used is quite staggering - a 12 x 6 or 40 foot x 20 foot pool will need nearly a full pallet of salt.
Part of this is constantly lost by splash-out and filtration.
It is in fact a very inefficient process because all the water has to be salty and only a minute part is turned into chlorine at a time.
All the rest of it just floats about in the pool.
And the salt needs to be the right sort - otherwise the chlorination system will not work! The second issue is what do you do with the salt water if the pool has to be emptied? It is illegal to put it into a water course or ditch because the salt will kill a great number of both plants and animals.
Not only that each time that the pool is emptied there will be a progressive build up in salt concentration.
So you should have a properly designed soakaway that can be used to filter out the salt before it gets into the local streams - this will not be cheap.
The third issue is the corrosive nature of the salt water - in most pools it will be OK - but if there is anything that will rust near your pool - the salt water could make things worse.
The life of heat pumps etc will certainly be adversely affected.
The fourth issue is one of reliability.
The harder the water the more often the cell has to be taken apart to be cleaned - even if the salesman says that the polarity is constantly reversed to avoid this - but they will still need to be cleaned once a year - and it's not a pleasant job.
The fifth and maybe most important issue is that in hard water areas the cells will only last 3 to 5 years before requiring replacement.
The replacement cost will be at least 1000 Euros when labour and travelling are taken into account - and through sod's law it will always fail at the worst time! What about supply and installation costs? Well we charge about 3000 Euros for either salt water chlorination or an automatic liquid chlorine injection and pH control system.
The soakaway for the salt water can cost nearly as much again in some circumstances.
The only way to absolutely guarantee that the health of anyone using a swimming pool is not impaired is to use chlorine to sanitate the pool water.
Both salt water chlorination and liquid chlorine injection do the job equally well but is very difficult to see why salt water chlorination should be chosen to do the job because there is really no excuse for periodically having to empty a full swimming pool of brine into the local environment of your garden.
So is Salt Water Chlorination just a marketing Gimmick - Yes! For more information follow this link Swimming Pools in France.
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