Salt in a non SWG pool

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R

Rangeball

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May 25, 2007
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Last year (or before) at pool solutions there was a thread discussing using salt for increased water comfort in non SWG pools. I asked this question there, but don't recall if we ever got to a conclusion and now can't find the thread, so I figured I'd start over :)

Typically you see 2800-3500 ppm salt recommended for SWG. By nature of SWG operation, some of the salt is "turned into" chlorine.

I'm wondering for those of us using salt without SWG just to get the improved water feel, we don't need 2800-3500 ppm, since we won't be "losing" any salt to chlorine generation, right?

Is there any way calculate how much of the salt content is left as salt in the water when it's not chlorine? I'd think that would be the number us non SWG salties should shoot for :)
 
For pure comfort/water feel reasons a salt level of around 1000 is said to be nice. I have heard of people using anything from 500 to 3000 for this. Salt is cheap, add some, see how you like it, add some more, see if anything changes. People can start tasting the salt somewhere between 2500-3500, this varies from person to person quite a bit. To avoid the tatse of salt I would suggest staying under 2000.

With a SWG it isn't that the salt is lost to being turned into chlorine, only a few ppm are being chlorine at any given moment and they turn back into salt when used. Rather, the SWG cell needs a fairly high salt level to work. 3000 is a compromise between the cell being efficient and trying to minimize the taste.
 
Jason, where salt could be tasted was one of the areas we got into in the other thread that I can't find.

I added salt to my pool last year. Enough to get me to 1000 ppm if I recall correctly. Water feels great. I was mainly wondering if getting closer to SWG levels would provide a noticeable improvement in water feel, but I don't want to risk tasting the salt. Right now you can't.

I'll be ordering some salt strips soon (hopefully) cause I don't want to add more until I'm positive where I'm at. I've been exclusively bleach for 1.5 years now, so I know I'm getting some from it, but I've also lost water when closing, opening, etc.
 
Perhaps you are thinking of this thread?

The taste threshold varies greatly from person to person. SWG manufacturers tend to say that 3500 is the threshold. In my experience at 3500 *everyone* can taste it. Many people report tasting salt around 3000. I have seen occasional reports of people tasting salt down to 2100 and several who can't. I haven't seen any reports from people who have tried numbers between 2100 and 1100. Around 1000 and below a fair number of people report not being able to taste it.

The very slight taste of salt around 3000 ppm is not at all a problem for most people.
 
Found it-

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread ... dding+salt


Also snagged this from another chem geek post-

"If you add enough liquid bleach to add 2 ppm of chlorine to your pool, then you are adding 2.2 ppm of salt (NaCl)."

I figure I'm adding about 4-500 ppm of salt from bleach each season. Of course some of this is lost at close and open, but it's probably why my water feels so good right now.

I won't add more until I test with strips. I can't taste the salt and the water feels nice, but I just want to make sure I'm not leaving anything on the table :)
 
For every 1 ppm of chlorine you add to the pool, you get 0.8 ppm of salt directly from the liquid (or granules, if Cal-Hypo) you add and then another 0.8 ppm of salt from the chlorine when it gets used up (broken down by sunlight, oxidizes an organic, etc). So for every 1 ppm FC, you get 1.6 ppm salt. This rule applies to all hypochlorite sources of chlorine (sodium hypochlorite which is bleach or chlorinating liquid, calcium hypochlorite or Cal-Hypo, and lithium hypochlorite). Trichlor and Dichlor do not have the extra salt -- only the amount from the chlorine itself so 0.8 ppm salt for every 1 ppm FC.

Richard
 
Thanks Richard. That adjustment puts me adding 576 ppm each season through normal chlorination, a bit more the 3 times that I need to shock (open, close, and maybe in between, maybe :) ).

I may have plenty of salt in my water. Hopefully soon I can test and find out.
 
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