A salt water pool uses chlorine just like a regular pool but produces the chemical itself by way of a salt chlorinator. While you will need to manually add chemical chlorine to your salt water pool from time to time, it requires much less than a regularly chlorinated swimming pool.
Despite what you might have read, chlorine is a required and necessary part of salt water pools, albeit in a slightly different form from other pools in terms of how it is supplied.
So the price and availability of chemical chlorine is a concern for salt water pool owners as it is something you will need to buy to keep your pool running.
Read on and we’ll discuss how and why…
A major pool chlorine manufacturer burns down
In August 2020 when the COVID pandemic was in full swing, the already struggling supply chains were dealt an additional blow when a major pool chlorine supplier caught fire and burned down, quickly eliminating the single largest chlorine source.
As we wrote about on this website at that time:
On August 27, 2020 a huge fire broke out at the BioLab Chemicals plant in Westlake, Louisiana and took almost 3 days to extinguish. This plant produces around 70% of the chlorine used in the North American pool and spa market.
Salt Water Pool Report
With this fire, the largest single supplier of chlorine for US, Canadian and Mexican pool owners was eliminated overnight. While this impacted regular chlorinated pool owners the most, there is a reason that this news is relevant for salt water pool owners too.
Salt water pools and how they use chlorine
You might wonder why a salt water pool owner would care that there is a chlorine shortage – or why they’d even care about pool chlorine full stop. I mean, a salt water pool doesn’t contain chlorine, right? It has salt instead of chlorine, doesn’t it?
A salt water pool is a chlorine pool. It produces the chlorine by converting dissolved, liquid salt into chlorine by way of a salt chlorinator. In a regular chlorine pool, you manually add chemical chlorine. That’s the difference but they’re still both chlorinated swimming pools.
You will also need to add chemical chlorine from time to time in your salt water pool so that’s why the cost and availability of it is important to us as salt water pool owners.
Confused?
Don’t worry!
We’ll answer the chlorine and salt water pool questions you need answers to on this page below and also discuss why there is a chlorine shortage and why chlorine is so expensive to purchase in the first place.
Why does a salt water pool have chlorine in it?
Chlorine is used in pools as a sanitizing agent to keep the water clean and safe for swimming. It kills germs and bacteria brought into the water by bathers as well as keeping algae and other pests at bay.
A “regular” old school chlorine pool gets its chlorine by the pool owner manually adding liquid chlorine, chlorine tablets or powder shock. This is typically done on a weekly basis.
A salt water pool on the other hand creates its own chlorine by using dissolved salt that runs through the salt chlorinator using a process called electrolysis. An automated chlorinator adds a slow but steady stream of chlorine into the pool. The chlorinator produces enough to keep a consistent flow of chlorine.
The problem?
A chlorinator isn’t powerful enough to quickly raise the chlorine level the way concentrated chemical chlorine can. This is why we sometimes need to manually add chemical chlorine to your salt water pool.
How much chlorine does a salt water pool require?
A salt water pool requires a chlorine level of 1 part per million (ppm) to 3 ppm to sanitize the water. So there is some room in that range to get it right. The good news is that your chlorinator – when you choose one that properly suits your pool size – is designed to meet this requirement.
A salt water pool requires less chemical chlorine to be manually added to it than a regularly chlorinated pool. Your salt water pool probably only needs chlorine manually added when you open and close the pool plus at selected times during the summer i.e. heavy bather load, excessively sunny periods, etc.
For the most part, your salt chlorinator will provide enough chlorine during the pool season to keep the water clean and sanitized.
When do salt water pools require chemical chlorine?
As stated above, there are times when you will need to add chemical chlorine to your pool because the chlorinator simply can’t meet the demand quickly enough.
These times include:
- Pool opening in the spring – Over the winter, your chlorine level will drop to 0 and needs to be restarted from scratch. The chlorinator isn’t powerful enough to do it on its own.
- Periods of heavy pool usage and/or periods of very hot sunny weather – Heavy pool usage and direct sun kills chlorine so it may need to be replaced quicker than what your chlorinator can supply.
- After periods of heavy rain which dilutes the chlorine – When you get heavy rain, chlorine is diluted and you may have to drain water which further dilutes (removes) chlorine that you then need to replace.
- Pool closing in the fall – When the chlorinator is shut down for the winter, no chlorine is produced. Adding chlorine as the pool is being closed can help to prevent algae from setting in if the temperature suddenly increases late in the fall after the pool has been shut down.
Salt on its own does nothing to the water in your pool. You need the salt chlorinator to convert the dissolved salt into chlorine.
Why is chlorine so expensive to purchase?
Chlorine wasn’t cheap to begin with but the chlorine factory fire in Louisiana in August 2020 was a big blow to the industry’s capacity to serve the lucrative and popular North American pool market. As supply was reduced by as much as 70%, the price of chlorine accordingly went up as the supply went down overnight.
Chlorine is a dangerous product and is listed (at a minimum) as hazardous. Chlorine is labeled as a poisonous gas so storage and shipping is very different from other, less hazardous materials.
With that in mind, here’s what you can expect to pay for various chlorine pool products.
| Product | Best use | Cost |
| Bag of shock (13.3 oz) | Shocking the pool when required. | $8 |
| Chlorine pucks (100+ pucks) | Quickly raising chlorine levels or when required i.e. chlorinator or salt cell needs to be replaced. | $100 |
| Liquid chlorine (5 gallon pail) | Pool opening and closing. | $100 |
| Granular chlorine (50 lb pail of calcium hypochlorite) | Shocking the pool. Quickly raising chlorine levels or when required i.e. chlorinator or salt cell needs to be replaced. | $280 |
A 40 lb bag of regular water softener salt pellets is about $10 give or take. Be sure to get the regular water softener salt and not one that contains extra ingredients like rust defense as you only want pure salt for your pool.
And before you pick any type of salt, check to see what your pool company and/or chlorinator manufacturer recommend.
How long will the chlorine shortage last?
While the major fire took place back in August 2020, the hope was that the new replacement plant would be up and running in 2022. There were delays due to the ongoing COVID pandemic due to continued lock downs and supply chain issues.
The result?
Short to medium term (at least) supply issues and higher prices.
Over time, the return of the chlorine production should help to alleviate the supply gap in the North American market but that will take time. Chances are a number of chlorine pool owners will convert their pools to other sanitizing options including salt water as well as to bromine or ozone, which may help to lower the demand for chemical chlorine somewhat.
The good news?
Salt water pool owners generally need much less chemical chlorine than other pools. As long as your salt chlorinator is producing chlorine, you’ll only need large amounts of chlorine to open and close your pool along with some chlorine to shock the water perhaps several times during the swimming season.
