So I salted my chlorine pool. A review.

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glitter&guns

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Jan 25, 2013
242
The Great State of Texas
About a month ago I decided to go ahead and salt my non-saltwater pool. I have a daughter with curly hair and I thought the softened water would be easier on it plus there are some lovely Irish complected ladies in my home and our skin is pretty sensitive. I thought I would review the process in case anyone else is thinking of it.

Let me preface by saying I have been (thanks to all of y'all) running a happy pretty pool for 2 swim seasons now. I have NO complaints about my water, but thought the softening might make it a little better for my crowd. I bought about $20 worth of water softner pellets (if you do it, be sure to get the kind that are only salt - some have other stuff in them). I poured them in the pool, inserted family, and we played for about an hour while they dissolved. I was happy with the results, but it didn't really hit me until today how happy I am.

I had family from out of town in yesterday and it was far later than it should have been when I got out of the pool last night. I ALWAYS shower/bathe before going to bed, but I was just too whooped to care last night. When the alarm went off at 5:15am so that I could take my daughter to volleyball practice, I threw down coffee and threw on clothes and took her, intending to shower the instant I got back. I got back to the house and decided to clean the backyard from last night's festivities before I showered. Then I decided since I had the trash can out, to clean the trash out of my truck, etc etc (you get the idea). It is now 10:30 am and I just realized that my skin is so amazingly soft. I pulled my hair down out of the messy pony tail it was in, and I could actually just fix it without taking a shower - it feels amazing!

I give the salting a big huge thumbs up. If I ever have to drain the pool for some reason, I will most certainly salt it again. Thanks for those of you who have posted about this in the past. I never would have done it without the reviews here.
 
RobbieH said:
I wish the salt in my pool would make my wife do all those errands! To be fair, it doesn't work on me either. :)
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Having teens involved in so much I have finally discovered the motivating factor for allowing 16 year olds to drive. Early morning practices. I would probably never hand out car keys if practices didn't start during the dark. I still have a couple of years to go before I can laze while they handle the driving.
 
Buy pool salt. Don't go out and by water softener salt. Big difference. Pool salt will pretty much dissolve as it hits the water as it's like table salt, not pellets.
 
ps0303 said:
Buy pool salt. Don't go out and by water softener salt. Big difference. Pool salt will pretty much dissolve as it hits the water as it's like table salt, not pellets.
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I went back through several posts on TFP (going back a number of years) about what kind of salt to use. I kept coming up again and again that as long as water softener salt was ONLY salt (some have additives) it was the same thing as pool salt, just a different shape. It is also about half the price. We actually had a lot of fun playing with it in the pool before it dissolved.

Here is one of the posts that discussed what goes into salt destined for different uses : http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/53684-Water-softener-salt-with-a-SWG
 
No problem using softener salt. I use the solar salt which is just slightly bigger than the pool salt (which is just ground up more). Some use pellets as well.

Why does it matter how long it takes to dissolve?
 

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JeromeM said:
Did you just add the same QTY of salt that PoolMath told you to add if you had a Salt Water Pool?
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OK, to be honest here, I was very "estimate" on my addition. I looked over the amount of salt that people in prior posts were saying that they added, checked for the size of the pool, and "abouted" it from there. I think I am about dead on as we can just pick up the salt on our lips (well, some of us can, some of us can't). I also think it took a little time for the salt to bond up with the water because at first it did taste saltier and the water didn't feel any different. I noticed after a while that the salt is harder to detect and the water feels totally different. So if you do it, be sure that you give it a while before you expect major changes. Ours might have taken a week or maybe it just seemed like it did. I need to have my salt level confirmed, but there isn't a pool store overly close and I haven't been on the ball enough to get a sample and drive to the next town over to have it tested. I will try to do that this weekend and let you know where I am.
 
zimm said:
Now you have salt in the pool, add a SWG and you can stop buying chlorine!
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That is exactly what I did 4 years ago. Added 2000ppm for feel and a month later installed the SWG and bumped it up to 3000. In hindsight I should have just gone straight to SWG since I fought to get CYA down and ended up spending $$ to add it back in.
 
I added salt to my pool twice several weeks ago. I used pool salt both times. I don't remember the brand from the pool store, but the second addition was Morton from Walmart. The stuff from the pool store was almost completely dissolved by the time it got to the bottom of the pool. I had to brush it for about 2 minutes to help it finish dissolving. The Morton from Walmart took 15 minutes of pushing huge piles of salt around the bottom to get it to dissolve.
 
Ok, question. Adding softener salt to a chlorine pool is for softening only, right, not for chlorine production? Maintaining the pool would be the same as before and the only difference is the pool has salt in it, no change in filters or anything? Thought many people added borates to pools for the same softening effect plus other benefits.....? Could you use both or is it an either or thing? Still learning.... Many thanks in advance for the clarification. :)
 

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