Salt water pools first came into the lexicon back in the 1980s in earnest even though the concept dates back two decades earlier. They became widely adopted in the 1990s but it wasn’t until the early 2000s when people really started taking notice given the benefits offered and new technology that came on the market to make salt water pool systems a viable option.
Despite this, I’ve found it difficult to pin down exactly how popular salt water pools are. I decided to do some research and here’s what I found.
Estimates suggest that up to 70% – 80% of new pool installations use salt water chlorination systems up from 15% in 2002. Existing pools can also be converted to salt so it’s a popular option especially when you consider the automation benefits offered that are unavailable with regular chlorine pools.
Let’s take a closer look at the popularity of salt water pools and what they offer over other types of pools.
How popular are salt water pools?
I found it difficult to actually locate current information on the percentage of pools that are built with salt water systems. I imagine that there could be some geographic slant to the numbers: It is generally discussed that salt water systems have been gaining popularity in the US, Canada, throughout Europe and Australia for years among other countries.
Although you often hear about Australia as being the birthplace of the salt water pool, the earliest salt water chlorination system was actually invented in New Zealand. However, the concept was copied and commercialized by other companies around the world.
So how popular are salt water pools these days?
I decided to randomly contact pool builders in the US, Canada and Australia to get their thoughts on two specific questions:
-What percentage of your new pool installs are salt water systems?
-How many pool owners convert existing pools to a salt water system?
The answers ranged as follows:
What percentage of your new pool installs are salt water systems
The pool companies I contacted offered a wide range of answers starting at 30% – 80% of their pool builds being salt water installs. It’s not hard to see why: Salt water pool systems offer a significant level of pool automation that older style pools simply don’t have.
US-based pool companies mostly suggested 30% – 75% of their new pool builds are salt water based. I’ve read some pool company owners who suggest that up to 95% of their pool installations are salt water. And yes, above ground pools can have (smaller) salt chlorination systems too.
A wide range to be sure but then again, some pool companies specialize in certain types of pool installs only. If you only offer salt water pool systems, your numbers will clearly be higher. If you offer ozone pool generators as well as regular chlorine, bromine and salt water pools, your overall salt system installs might be much lower.
Australia is widely regarded as being a leader in the movement to salt water pools and estimates as far back as 2012 suggest that up to 80% of their new pool installations are salt water. 69% of pool owners surveyed said they already own salt water pools whereas the remaining 31% at the time had regular chlorine pools.
Then again, I’ve also heard some Australian pool companies suggest that they believe it’s 50/50 between salt and regular chlorine pools and that if anything, salt isn’t as popular as what it used to be.
In Canada, salt water pools are increasingly popular as the sanitizing choice but it’s not difficult to find pool companies who either won’t install salt water pools or who will install them but don’t openly recommend them.
In Europe, some hotels now use salt water pools including the SantAnna Mykonos beach resort in Greece with its huge 2,100 sq m (22,600 sq ft) and the 210 sq m (2,260 sq ft) outdoor pool at the 5 star BIO-HOTEL STANGLWIRT in Austria.
How many pool owners convert existing pools to a salt water system
I was surprised to find out that the pools companies I contacted suggested that they don’t convert many pools to salt water chlorination systems. Having said that there could be a simple reason why this is, other than people simply not converting regularly chlorinated pools to salt water systems:
You don’t have to contact your pool company to upgrade to a salt water chlorination system.
These days it’s cheaper to buy a new chlorinator system online and either install it yourself or pay someone to do it other than your pool company. And if pool owners do this, their pool company may not be involved or even aware.
And even if you do buy the chlorinator from a pool store (online or in person) you can still get someone else to install it possibly cheaper and quicker. Since you’re probably going to get the system installed during the pool season many pool companies are busy building pools at that time and may place a lower priority on this work since pool building is much more lucrative.
Pool companies have their own biases and get paid to install pools and sell stuff
After reading the above, you might not be much clearer as to what percentage of new pools builds are installed with a salt water system. There are so many variables to consider not the least of which is the bias of the pool companies in question.
Pool companies who build pools make the most money from actually building them. They then expect that you will buy chlorine from them every year and the fact is that you will spend more money buying chlorine than you will spend buying a few bags of salt from them each season. And since salt water pools generally require fewer chemicals, that’s less things they can sell you, too.
Your salt water system may also require more maintenance and troubleshooting due to its increased equipment that a regular pool doesn’t have: Your chlorinator, water flow sensor and salt cell. While pool companies can make money from service visits, it’s a pain more than anything and they’d rather be charging you money just to open and close your pool each year for $200 – $300 (or more) per visit.
Plus, while you have to buy a new salt cell every few years, you can skip your pool company and pick one up online. It’s more difficult to buy large amounts of chlorine online given that it’s a hazardous chemical so you’ll probably get it from them.
I traded emails with one pool company and they spoke about how they have switched to only installing ozone pool systems because they think salt is too corrosive to be used in pools. But ozone pools still require an external form of chlorine (or bromine) whether directly added to the pool or through a salt chlorination system. So an ozone pool isn’t strictly running on ozone.
And perhaps this particular company wants to market themselves as the ozone pool experts and felt it necessary to put down one type of pool to make their offering seem more desirable. Wouldn’t be the first time in marketing history that anyone has taken this route.
So some pool companies may highlight the negatives of salt water pools not so much because they are negatives, but because they have a bias towards other pool types as those options make more business sense for them. It’s something to at least consider.
When I upgraded my salt chlorinator system I bypassed my pool company
I didn’t even use my pool company when we needed to replace our old broken Lectrinator chlorination system with a modern and automated Hayward Aqua Rite system for our pool. Going from a plug in Lectrinator system to a hard-wired Haryward chlorinator meant I actually needed an electrician to do the work and I happened to find one who also specialized in pool systems!
He essentially had to install the new system from scratch as the old Lectrinator box was simply unplugged and thrown away. The Hayward salt cell was the same size as the existing one we had so it was just a matter of taking the old one out and screwing the old one in. My pool company wasn’t even required. No sales for them.
Many old school chlorine pool owners may not even actively deal with a pool company except to buy chemicals and perhaps do water tests. In other words, they might bypass the company completely and buy a chlorination system online and either install it themselves if they have the skill or hire someone else to do it.
Is it worth converting a pool to salt water?
The up front cost of a salt water chlorination system is high. Depending on the chlorination system you use, you might spend around $2,000 give or take to buy and have a chlorination installed. This includes the cost of the chlorination unit itself, the flow sensor and the salt cell which are typically the three main components. But given that chlorine costs on a regular pool run $300 – $800 per year, over time the salt system pays for itself and more so when you add in the automation benefits.
If your salt cell lasts 4 pool seasons which is not unreasonable, you’re depreciating it at a cost of about $100 – $150 per season. Add $20 – $50 worth of salt each year and it’s still less than the lower end of the chlorine cost range and we haven’t even talked about the time savings offered by a salt water pool yet.
If you value convenience and lack of maintenance certainly when compared to a pool that requires manual addition of chlorine or bromine, then a salt water pool makes sense.
If you’d like a system that comes with a pump timer and that measures salt levels automatically, that includes water flow and water temperature sensors and one that can also run your pool heater, water feature, lighting and even a separate whirlpool on the same system automatically, then a salt system make sense for you.
If you’d like the ability to run your pool remotely using a phone app, modern chlorinators come with that too.
And if you’d like to have a pool system that actively measures and adjusts chlorine levels while monitoring pH, you can purchase a Sense & Dispense addition for your Hayward salt chlorinator which does just that.
While a salt chlorination pool system costs more money up front, you can save some money over time by using the automation features to run your pump on a timer while spending less on chemicals but you will also immediately see the benefits in terms of the time and convenience savings, too.
Other costs when switching to a salt chlorination system
Converting to a salt water chlorination system is probably going to cost $2,000 or so depending on what system you buy. Your unique circumstances an add to the cost however depending on your existing pool equipment layout, your backyard, etc.
Other considerations that might affect the cost of your salt chlorinator install include the following:
Electrical costs
Many chlorination systems these days are hard wired so you might need an electrician to do the work. If your pool equipment is far away from your house, the cost to lay wiring all the way from your basement to the back or your house can increase.
Even if you have wiring already laid, you might need to upgrade your breaker panel if you don’t have capacity to add the chlorinator. We were able to add the new chlorinator system on the existing breaker but before the electrician visited our home, he had told me it may cost several hundred dollars to upgrade the breaker if we didn’t have capacity.
Our pool equipment is at the back of our house and we needed the electrician to do this work when we switched from a plug in Lectrinator to a higher end Hayward system. You might too so it’s worth knowing in advance.
Side note: I’d advise against hard-wiring your own chlorination system. Insurance companies generally don’t like when you do your own electrical work and might deny a claim if a fire occurs due to an incorrect DIY wiring job. I know of someone who bought a resale home with a pool and had a fire that destroyed their pool equipment. The fire department determined the previous owner(s) must have done the electrical work themselves and incorrectly at that.
Chlorinator box installation location
Hayward chlorinator boxes – the actual control unit itself – weigh up to 20 lbs alone. My old Lectranator Systems box weighed maybe 2 lbs and was about 1/4 the dimensions of the Hayward Aqua Rite system it was being replaced with. It hung with two nails on what looked to be a homemade wooden panel with stakes in the ground and had been installed by the previous home owner. It looked amateurish but it worked.
When I switched to the Hayward chlorination system, I extended the wood panel to make it twice as high and secured the extension in place myself in the ground to accommodate the heavier and bigger unit. The old wooden panel simply wasn’t big or high enough to hold the much bigger Hayward unit.
In your case, you might need to hire someone to build a structure to hold your new chlorinator box.
If you have your pool equipment close to your house, you might install the box right on your house wall as my neighbors did when they built a plunge pool. If you’re not handy, don’t feel like doing the work yourself or have a unique situation in your backyard that requires some work you might need to hire someone to build a panel or other method to actually hold and support a chlorinator unit that might weigh around 20 lbs. That’ll add to the overall cost of your pool install.
Summary
How popular are salt water pools these days? It seems that the answer varies wildly depending on who you ask and possibly where you live. Australia, the United States, Canada and Europe are popular locations for salt water pools and have increasingly seen a movement from regular chlorine to salt water pools since about the early 2000s. Over time, companies like Hayward have increasingly built their business with salt water technology that automates much of the mundane aspects of pool work.
People are also becoming more familiar with the concept of salt water to sanitize and see (literally) the benefits of opening their eyes in salt water pools and leaving the pool without the strong smell of chlorine on their bodies.
Given the availability of self cleaning pools, the automation of a salt water pool goes hand in hand with the trend towards swimming more and maintaining your pool less.
Plus salt systems make buying those little vials of testing chemicals unnecessary. While chlorine pool owners need to take water samples several times per week and add chemicals to the water samples to test them, a salt water pool owner just needs to buy a box of test strips and be done with it.
While ozone pools are now a thing, the fact is that they haven’t really caught on and still require you to either add some chlorine or bromine or use it in conjunction with a salt chlorination system. In that regard, salt water pools are increasingly becoming the chosen option for swimming pool builds and should be expected to continue this way for the imminent future.
Finally, listen carefully when speaking with various pool builders when choosing one to install your pool or if you’re thinking about switching to a salt water pool. Everyone has biases so consider the source. When any pool company gives you good or bad aspects of salt water pools or competing options, make sure you verify the information and keep in mind that they may have a business reason for saying what they’re telling you.