Chlorine, though it has been tried and tested as an excellent swimming pool water sanitizer for over 100 years, is being pushed to the side by the coming of the salt system.  The salt system, introduced to the above ground swimming pool industry within the last decade, has come out of the gates hot and popular, but has shown signs of some bad qualities.

Let’s start with the pros and cons of each sanitizer:

Salt Pros:

·         Inexpensive to maintain

·         Easy to maintain

·         Leaves the water healthy and soft

Salt Cons:

·         Speeds up the rust process of the steel components of the swimming pool

·         High initial cost

Chlorine Pros:

·         Very effective sanitizer (kills bacteria virtually as quick as you place it in the water)

·         Easy to get a hold of (every pool store carries chlorine)

·         Works quick if pool water gets out of hand

Chlorine Cons:

·         Expensive to use

·         Requires more time maintaining than salt

·         Chlorine burns eyes, dries skin, bleaches liner and bathing suits, creates a chlorine smell around the pool

With the pros and cons displayed for salt and chlorine, most consumeres prfer salt.  Most all customers that have used salt in their pool love it.  Salt is an extremely easy sanitizer to use with very little monitoring or maintenance required, which customers love. 

The biggest problem with salt is that it will speed up the rust and corrosion process of the pool.  This problem has mostly been resolved by the introduction of the salt system pool, which is a swimming pool framework constructed with resin components instead of steel. Resin is a heavy duty plastic material that does not rust or corrode.  Resin has been around the above ground swimming pool industry for years, but only a handful of the pool’s components where made out of resin.  The salt system pool is a pool that all of the components are made of resin, except for the pool wall.  The pool wall is still made of steel because if the wall was made out of resin then the price of the pool would become astronomical and unaffordable for the average above ground swimming pool customer. 

The benefits of salt far out weight its harmful effects, but using a salt system requires the pool owner to purchase the proper pool so that they may use salt without the worries of its harmful rusting properties.   

If you already have a steel pool and are thinking about switching to salt, I would not recommend it.  Stay with chlorine or look into a Nature2 or UV system to reduce the amount of chlorine that the water needs to stay clean.  If you are in the market for a new above ground swimming pool, then I would highly recommend salt, but make sure that you purchase a pool designed and warrentied for the use of a salt system.