E,
If saltwater ate rocks, would you not expect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans to have devoured the US by now??? It has been millions of years and the sea is 10 times as salty as a pool..
I have three houses with saltwater pool... I bought the oldest one about 12 years ago and had it re-plastered, new tile and new flagstone coping, at that time the pool was not a saltwater pool. Almost immediately you could see the flagstone starting to flake off in very thin layers.. Some stones would flake and others did not.. About a 50/50 split and location of the stones were all around the pool... About two years later we switched over to saltwater.. I have been paying special attention to the flagstone since switching to saltwater about 10 years ago.. The "bad" stones still flake and the "Good" stones still don't.. If saltwater was a problem, I would have expected the situation to get worse, but it has remained about the same.. Even after 10 years the bad stones are not anywhere bad enough to for me to take any action..
The point is that the saltwater had zero effect on the stone.. the problem is the stone itself and not the type of water in the pool..
It is your pool and you can do whatever you please.. But, if I were building a new pool today, I would not use a pool builder that believes in myths.. And even if the saltwater myths were true (which they are not) I would still build a saltwater pool as they are heads and shoulders above non-saltwater pools.. They are the easiest to take care of and I love the feel of the water. When I get out of a standard chlorine pool I feel like I need to take a shower.. When I get out of a saltwater pool, I feel like I just got out of the shower.
In the 5 or 6 years that I have been on this website, I have yet to see one single picture of any damage caused by saltwater.. You would think in all that time, that there would be a ton of evidence about the evils of saltwater, yet we have none...
Thanks and good luck with your pool build..
Jim R.
If saltwater ate rocks, would you not expect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans to have devoured the US by now??? It has been millions of years and the sea is 10 times as salty as a pool..
I have three houses with saltwater pool... I bought the oldest one about 12 years ago and had it re-plastered, new tile and new flagstone coping, at that time the pool was not a saltwater pool. Almost immediately you could see the flagstone starting to flake off in very thin layers.. Some stones would flake and others did not.. About a 50/50 split and location of the stones were all around the pool... About two years later we switched over to saltwater.. I have been paying special attention to the flagstone since switching to saltwater about 10 years ago.. The "bad" stones still flake and the "Good" stones still don't.. If saltwater was a problem, I would have expected the situation to get worse, but it has remained about the same.. Even after 10 years the bad stones are not anywhere bad enough to for me to take any action..
The point is that the saltwater had zero effect on the stone.. the problem is the stone itself and not the type of water in the pool..
It is your pool and you can do whatever you please.. But, if I were building a new pool today, I would not use a pool builder that believes in myths.. And even if the saltwater myths were true (which they are not) I would still build a saltwater pool as they are heads and shoulders above non-saltwater pools.. They are the easiest to take care of and I love the feel of the water. When I get out of a standard chlorine pool I feel like I need to take a shower.. When I get out of a saltwater pool, I feel like I just got out of the shower.
In the 5 or 6 years that I have been on this website, I have yet to see one single picture of any damage caused by saltwater.. You would think in all that time, that there would be a ton of evidence about the evils of saltwater, yet we have none...
Thanks and good luck with your pool build..
Jim R.
Last edited:
