Salt and spa

[Jontmiller]

I have searched and searched, gotten close but not the answer I was hoping for.

We have a new pool with SWG and love it, installed a separate spa at the same time that is using Bromine as the sanitizer. Simple question is can I add a bit of salt for feel only without jeopardizing any of the spa equipment. This is purely a feel thing, we get out of the pool with a nice soft skin feel where as the hot tub seems to have removed any possible softness of the skin.

Apologize for rookie question, I promise I searched...

Obligatory photo for clicks


solarstill2crop.jpg by millerjont, on Flickr


pool build-29-2 by millerjont, on Flickr

1157504_10201931879044609_1330351290_n.jpg by millerjont, on Flickr

 

[JasonLion]

Sure, you can add salt to the spa without problems. 2000 ppm is a good level for getting softer feeling water.

 

[Madison Mike]

Sure, you can add salt to the spa without problems. 2000 ppm is a good level for getting softer feeling water.

Hmmmmm. I don't know about this response. I would talk to the dealer or the manufacturer and ask them if your warranty will still be good if you add salt to your spa.

 

[jblizzle]

All forms of chlorine add salt. It is not uncommon to get up to 1000ppm just through chlorination. Wet are taking about levels that are very low and extremely unlikely to cause any problem.

 

[chem geek]

It's higher SWG-like salt levels such as 3000 ppm that would be a concern. SWG's for spas usually use around 2000 ppm. It's a matter of whether your spa components use high quality stainless steel and other metal parts. You should be OK with 1000 ppm but going a lot higher will depend on the specifics of your spa. More likely than not, it should be OK.

 

[Jontmiller]

Thanks for the replies, exactly what I was looking for..

 

[Madison Mike]

Just for the heck of it, I called Jacuzzi and asked them about using salt in my J375. The guy told me that if my spa was still under warranty, that it would no longer be covered if I added salt to the spa. He said that back in 2000 or 2001 Sundance, another Jacuzzi brand, came out with a salt water spa. After one year, they discontinued it because of the issues they were having. This means to me that you are taking a chance with your spa if the manufacturer doesn't recommend it. I did mention that by using bleach as my sanitizer, I am adding salt every day. He said he knows very little about the chemicals we add to our spa, and so he didn't have an educated response to the question.

 

[jblizzle]

At least he knew what he did not know ... that is pretty educated

 

[chem geek]

For those using a standard Dichlor-only approach, the water replacement interval in a 350 gallon spa is after roughly 272 ppm FC so would be around 450 ppm salt added. This doesn't count the time in between soaks if the bather load were lower. With Dichlor-then-bleach, one can usually go twice as long between water changes, but that's still around 900 ppm salt added. When the spa manufacturers are talking about avoiding adding salt, they are usually talking about people who add 2000 ppm for an SWG or add 1500 ppm and then use chlorine on top of that to get to 2000 ppm.

Yes, even the lower salt levels are corrosive, but doubling the time before there are problems shows up as a big deal in warranty repairs, even though it's only a subset of spas that show issues.