Saltwater Above Ground Pool

[MisterC]

In the process of getting quotes for an above ground pool. I had my heart set on salt water as a few friends and families have pools that are saltwater (now they are all inground).

I know this topic is well discussed here and I’ve been reading posts for 2 days.

I’ve gotten a few quotes and the installers have all said they will put the system in but highly highly don’t recommend it. Said I will regret it in 5 years when my pool is rusted.

Do most people use regular chlorine pools? I know SWG is still chlorine, just I like the low maintenance.

 

[woodyp]

They know not of what they speak. Too many pools here with zero issues.

 

[Newdude]

$5 says they'll be stunned to see 'sodium hyperchlorite' as the bleach ingredient. Ask them why they add salt everyday if it's a problem. You didn't mention the size so let's use a 20 ft above ground with 11k gallons. Each gallon of 10% bleach/chlorine will raise the salinity by 15 ppm. At 150 gallons its almost half that of a salt pool.

Nobody ever tests the salinity of a liquid chlorine pool, but call a similar salinity a salt pool and it's the devil. Not salt water, mind you, that's 35,000 ppm to the 3500 'salt pool'. NOAA, who knows a thing or two about oceans, considers anything under 5000 to be freshwater.

On top of all that, the liner keeps the pool water from touching the pool. If there's a leak, the moisture will destroy the pool, not the salinity content within pool water specs.

 

[VinnyinNJ]

When we bought our new pool in late 2022 we went to 2 stores, one sold pools that couldn't be used with salt and one that did. I wanted a salt water pool because chlorine used to be cheap and it's not anymore and I wanted ease of use when/if we go on vacation. I think the difference is the non salt friendly pools are made with all steel construction where the salt friendly fools have either steel walls and resin top rail, uprights and bottom rail or are all resin even the walls. Our pool is the steel wall variety. I haven't owned the pool that long but as @Newdude said there are lots of people that have salt water pools ... things were different years ago.

 

[Mdragger88]

You do want a pool with at least resin top rails if its steel walled or better yet a completely resin pool like the Aurora. I would suggest this even if you didn’t go for a swcg.
Because all forms of manually added chlorine add salt to the water.
Just today a fellow “converted to salt” he didn’t need to actually add any as his pool had 3400 ppm worth already!