When you winterize your pool and shut it down at the end of the season, it’s always best to bring your salt cell inside the house where it’s warm. There is no reason to leave a salt cell outside in the cold of winter when not in use as very cold weather may damage it or otherwise decrease its lifespan.
The salt cell of your salt water chlorinator should be looked at just like any other plumbed part of your pool. By draining all the water from the system during winterization, capping off water returns and taking your salt cell indoors, you’re ensuring the pool won’t suffer damage from freezing water during a cold winter.
Shut down power to the system too while you’re at it. For me, that means turning it off at the breaker in the basement.
Inspect your salt cell
You can also use winterization as an opportunity to inspect the salt cell to see if it needs to be cleaned. Over time, a scale can build up on the metallic plates inside the cell and it’s only visible when you have shut the pool pump off, unscrew the salt cell, and can take a look inside the cell.
In that regard, it’s a good time to do so at the end of the season when the pool has been winterized. There is no reason to keep the cell outside during a frigid winter that may damage it and cause you to replace it sooner than you’d like.
If your salt chlorination system has a reverse polarity feature to clean the cell during regular use, you may find yourself without any further cleaning to do.
But if the cell’s metallic plates have a build up on them, you’ll need to follow manufacturer directions to properly clean it.
My personal experience with salt cells
I live in a cold weather zone that gets freezing cold winters so I always bring the salt cell inside and store it in the basement where it’s warm.
While some people might cap the space where the salt cell normally goes, I just leave it open since any water that happens to get in the pipes will drain out. Some people might put a tarp or other covering over the space but I don’t bother doing that either.
We do get a fair bit of snow and sometimes the pool plumbing is actually covered with snow but we’ve never had any trouble. The plastic PVC piping withstands the cold weather and ice by design.
It’s the salt cell that you should be worried about given that it’s a functioning part that works with electricity and has metallic plates inside and plastic brackets that can crack if they freeze, get wet and then refreeze again.
Since a salt water chlorinator normally shuts down and stops producing chlorine for safety reasons at around 60 degrees F, you can imagine that since it gets a lot colder in many areas during the winter, colder weather could severely damage the cell.
Since it only take a few seconds to unscrew the salt cell and bring it indoors for winter, your best bet is to do just that.
Final thoughts
Taking your salt cell in for the winter is the right thing to do to keep it safe and warm during winter. It’s meant to be used in the summer with water that isn’t freezing cold and given the replacement cost of a salt cell is usually in the hundreds of dollars, you’re best served by protecting it.
Check out my other articles on winter-related topics including Should I Add Salt To My Pool In Winter, How To Winterize A Salt Water Pool and Is A Winter Pool Cover Worth It (with costs).