Anyone using salt w/o SWG in their chlorine pool?

[brent.roberts]

I put it in because many folks on the old forum had reported that it just made the water feel better. And it did do that. It felt more natural, where as lots of pool water feels sort of harsh. Hard to explain.

It all dissolved in 15 minutes or so. I poured it slowly into the skimmer and you could just about pour it continuously. I guess a bag every 7 to 10 minutes or so.

If you want to try it, dump in the first couple of bags and then swim in the water. Add one at a time after that. It's easy to add a bit more and the only way to know when you're done is to go too far. So don't go much to far. It will gradually get reduced through rainfall and backwashing and refilling anyway and when you do go too far the only downside is you can taste the salt a bit more than you might have liked.

[Prov35]

I think I'll give this a try myself. I have a 20x40 inground. I'll start off with about 150 pounds, and then work up from there. Does it help or hinder algae growth in any way?

[Rangeball]

I think I'll give this a try myself. I have a 20x40 inground. I'll start off with about 150 pounds, and then work up from there. Does it help or hinder algae growth in any way?

I've never seen anyone state salt helped with algae, just better water feel.

[brent.roberts]

I don't know how big your pool is. Just keep in mind it's easy to add a bit more a few days from now than to get rid of it. I guess in IL you get some snow once is a while ... just in case you buy too much.

[Bleach=Chlorine?]

Hmmm... this is very tempting. Have to price out the salt today at Lowe's.

[Scarlett]

How does the salt affect a pool heater? Is it corrosive?

Thanks!

Scarlett

[SLR_65]

Hi Guys,

Last year we had an Intex EasySet 12' pool. I followed the BBB approach from this forum and everything went very well - no major problems, no algae, etc..

Unfortunately my sister-inlaw's black labs ATE our pool last fall!!!! (and the pool toys, and the lawn furniture, and the insulation off the central ac lines!!! The puppies are no longer welcome guests . . . (and the jury is still out on whether my sister-inlaw is still welcome! <grin>))

This year I was set to buy a 16' pool, but a friend of ours gave us their 14' EasySet pool . . . they kept having algae, cloudy water, etc. last year and didn't use it much so they decided it wasn't worth the effort. I'm pretty sure it was just inattention to the water quality that was at the root of their problems last year.

They did a good job cleaning it up before storage last year - it was very clean when we got it, but I added enough bleach to bring the chlorine up to 20ppm last night and put the solar blanket on it. I bumped the chlorine high just in case any algae ickies were still lurking about. It's been cold here so we wont be swimming for a few days anyway, and I just added enough CYA to bring it up to 30ppm (used bleach calc to figure the amount) and it's currently disolving in a sock tied to the ladder so I figured with a low CYA level the bleach will dissipate fairly quickly anyway.

Well, onward to my question . . . I've been reading the discussion in this thread on adding salt to improve the water feel but there doesn't seem to be a clear target ppm. I've seen 900 to 1600 mentioned, and then 2,200 or so mentioned.

Anyone care to give a SWAG of what ppm to target? Maybe 1500 and call it good one way or the other??

Thanks for any input!

Steve

[poolbuoy]

I want to add the softener salt in a Esther Williams aluminum extruded vinyl 18x36 pool.
Questions:
how much to add to achieve 2k-3k ppm in 14,000 gallons?
Will it destroy the extruded aluminum or not affect it?
what is solar salt? IS it the same as water softener salt?

I want to try it soon.....

thanks, Scott

[Rangeball]

Anyone know a good ppm recommendation to shoot for when using salt without SWG, just to get the water quality affects?

Brent, my IG is the same dimensions as yours, and holds 21,200 gallons. If it's the same capacity as yours, perhaps I'll start with 3 bags, swim a bit to see then add the 4th if necessary and skip the 5th

Spouse is gone for a few days, I'd love to dump some in and see if she notices

[Rangeball]

I had a thought.

Suppose you want to run a SWG and salt is recommended at 3000 ppm (made this up for examples sake). You add the required amount of salt and test the water to make sure you hit the PPM needed.

Fire the unit up, and salt is converted to chlorine and returned to the pool. It eventually breaks back down to salt, and the process starts all over again.

With the FC of say 5 ppm, if you tested the pools salt content after SWG was operational, what would the PPM of the salt be? I assume once converted to chlorine, the "chlorinized" salt wouldn't register as salt?

If this is the case, we should be able to come up with a salt PPM recommendation that gets the good water feel without SWG.