Salt pools are great. Just ask anyone who owns or uses one. Generating and controlling your chlorine on-site eliminates the need to buy and handle chlorine tablets. In addition, the water feels soft, silky and inviting. One of the main benefits to the salt pool owner is less maintenance but this doesn’t mean that salt pools are maintenance free. You still need to test, balance and clean your pool on a regular basis.
Our chlorine generation (salt pools) customers typically have us out once a week for service and cleaning but sometimes this isn’t enough. The National Pool Industry Research Center conducted a study monitoring salt-chlorinated pools on a weekly basis. With weekly adjustments to the chlorine levels, the pool’s free chlorine (the good stuff) remained stable throughout the study. The water’s pH, however, was more difficult to control. Every time the pH was adjusted into the “ideal” range of 7.2-7.6, it was found to drift up to 8.0 or above within 3 days or less.
Experienced service technicians have noticed this upward pH drift for several years now. Muriatic acid is the most frequently used chemical to combat this drift and lower the pH back to acceptable ranges.
It’s important to remember that your pool’s water conditions are dynamic and not static. The chemistry can change, due to many factors, in a matter of just 24 hours. As evidenced by the IPSSA’s study and our field experience, this is especially true for pH levels in salt pools. Even though we may visit your pool for service once or even twice a week, we strongly encourage our customers to take part in the water testing while we’re not there and alert us if something is out of range.
Understanding your pool’s chemistry trends, chemical needs and characteristics is derived from frequent water testing (including your source water). What the pool owner or the pool service professional doesn’t want is a perfectly balanced and clean pool Wednesday afternoon and then potentially cloudy, scale-forming water come the weekend.
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