Salt Water Systems

[dmax07]

I currently do the traditional Chlorine pool. I have a 24' round 54" Tahitian half in ground. My wife wants to convert our pool to a Salt Water System. Would like some advice as to which one is the best. Any recommendations???

[PoolDoc]

Salt water chlorination systems (SWCG's) can be convenient and helpful. Just make sure your wife understands that they are swCg's and NOT swg's!

An awful lot of marketing for SWCG's is done with the implication that an SWCG is somehow 'natural' and / or 'chlorine - free'. They are not; they are just a convenient way of adding chlorine to a pool. And because they add chlorine more consistently than many pool owners would otherwise, they perform better, compared to erratic home-owner chlorination.

One further note: there are, now, some genuinely natural swimming pools. But, neither SWCG, nor ionizer (including EcoSmarte), nor UV, nor almost any of the other so-called "chemical-free" or "natural" pools really are what they claim. You can categorize swimming pools this way:

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Genuinely natural pools, with biological filtration, like sold here:
http://www.biotop-natural-pool.com

Everything else, including:
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Pools chlorinated by hand with trichlor, dichlor, bleach (liquid chlorine) or cal hypo
Pools chlorinated by a feeder, with trichlor, bleach, or cal hypo
Pools chlorinated by an SWCG
Pools brominated by hand or with a feeder
Pools treated with ozone + chlorine or bromine
Pools treated with copper sulfate (in virtually all dry "chlorine free" pool 'santizers) + chlorine or potassium monopersulfate
Pools treated with biguanide (PHMB -- Baquacil, Softswim, etc.) + hydrogen peroxide + foamy algicide
Pools treated with silver (N Jonas Sildate only -- not sure if this is still available)
Pools treated with UV + chlorine or bromine

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There are some other possibilities that are probably sanitary. I once did a VERY expensive indoor pool with UV + peroxide + polyquat 60. The water quality was phenomenal and there was zero pool odor . . . but that customer's net worth ran to 7 figures or more. And, even then, I wouldn't have wanted to swim in that pool with anyone who might have had a transmissible virus, such as several forms of herpes.

But MOST of the other possibilities are either bogus, and turn out to be one of the ones listed above, once you get past all the marketing OR they are really, really unsafe.

Also, you should keep in mind that the genuinely natural pools will do NOTHING to prevent person-to-person transmission of common pool pathogen problems, like norovirus. If you make sure you only swim with people who have nothing catching, I'd guess that they are as safe as a clean lake or stream.