Looking at putting a pool in soon. Interested in hearing thoughts on saltwater vs chlorine pools. I think I'm leaning towards saltwater but could be swayed.

Saltwater is great, but it'll eat up your decking if you don't seal it and/or use the wrong stone. I'd go that route, but expect to replace cell every few years. Overall cost is similar, chlorine more frequent, but smaller increments.

Cell is going to run you $2k to replace just FYI.

So if you have to do that every couple years chlorine may be a better option. And if your pool service company has any sense they won't load it up with too much chlorine and there won't be any difference smell between the chlorine vs saltwater pool.

Saltwater all the way...maintenance is almost nill. Even if you go away for a few weeks and come back, the pool will be fine. I never feel like I have to fight this never-ending chemistry battle to get the water just right. I can throw some acid in the pool every now and again and spend more time enjoying the pool.

2k? Got mine on amazon for less than 500 and replaced it myself. replaced it after 6 years.

Agree on the maintenance, basically it's just acid. And if you are building the pool, as someone said, keep in mind to not use porous stones like flagstone. I have travertine and it's held up fine.

Corps_Ag12 said:

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Cell is going to run you $2k to replace just FYI.

So if you have to do that every couple years chlorine may be a better option. And if your pool service company has any sense they won't load it up with too much chlorine and there won't be any difference smell between the chlorine vs saltwater pool.

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The Aquarite Tcell 940 we use is about $700 online. Maybe it's 2grand at Leslie's. It produces over 700lbs of equivalent Tri-chlor so the math adds up to more than 2 years. We went salt last year and will never go back.

HalifaxAg said:

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Saltwater all the way...maintenance is almost nill. Even if you go away for a few weeks and come back, the pool will be fine. I never feel like I have to fight this never-ending chemistry battle to get the water just right. I can throw some acid in the pool every now and again and spend more time enjoying the pool.

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Yup, especially fighting the cyanuric acid levels as a by-product of the pucks and having to drain and refill to keep it under 50. Salt is cheap and the cell will last 4-5 years so the cost will balance out in the end compared to the extra water needed and buying pucks (or bleach / liquid chlorine but that has its own challenges).

if youre getting a heater, the high PH and TDS levels in salt water will take years off the life of that heat exchanger. something else to consider.

I've had a salt water pool for over a decade. I have travertine around the lip of the pool and flagstone around the hot tub and far wall. No issues at all.

I've replace my Jandy1400 salt cell a few times at ~$650 each. Pretty easy to do. Not having to deal with constant headaches with CYA issues due to dichlor makes it well worth it. All I need to do is add acid roughly once a week to keep PH level in check.

Oh, I have a heater and no issues with it due to salt water either.

Yeah 2k is really high. Got one for less than 1k (forgot exact number).

Generally I don't think the money is that much different long term, it is nice to not have to worry about chlorine and chemicals constantly as someone another posted already indicated. Chlorine tabs and some acid every once in awhil.

Completely understand that you can get them online cheaper than Leslie's and install them yourself.

That's just an example of some of the quotes I've seen to install a replacement salt cell system recently from a service company.

I run liquid chlorine with a rola-chem chlorine feeder. It cost about $300. Not sure how long it will last. All i need to add is acid as well.

The salt generates chlorine, not tri-chlor.

Running tri-chlor tabs is a bad idea as your CYA will raise too high.