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Chlorine or salt pool?

I am overlooking the green landscape from the restaurant deck at Ongawa Lodge: Our team is re-doing their pool and I am the driver/supervisor and additional eyes to make sure this pristine lodge gets an end product suited to its beauty. The pool looks mighty inviting.
But I digress.
A question we regularly get is: What is best, a salt pool or a chlorinated pool? A “salt pool” is actually nothing but a pool, filled with salt, using a chlorinator to produce chlorine gas from the salt.
You thought it was just mere salt, right? Here are the facts:

Advantages of a saltwater chlorinator
A chlorinator is a device which uses salt to produce chlorine gas.
It results in a chlorine cost-saving for bigger pools (pools with a capacity of 35 000 liters or more).
Saltwater has a softer feel to the skin.
Chlorinators constantly release chlorine into the pool, minimizing dosage of chlorine.
A self-cleaning chlorinator unit is available which is more expensive but makes the pool maintenance less.

What one needs to know about a chlorinator

• A chlorinator needs to be set manually for the percentage of chlorine which needs to be released into the pool.
• In times of rain, algae will grow more aggressively in the pool. The chlorinator does not know it has rained and does not automatically produce more chlorine. You will need to manually set the output higher.
• A chlorinator cell has a lifetime of about 4 years. Replacements cost anything from N$1 800. It is thus important to estimate the cost of chlorine needed for your pool over a four-year period versus the cost of a new cell. Allow us to help you with this calculation.
• It is important to turn the chlorinator off during winter and when the pool is covered for long periods of time. Upon covering a pool and considering that the free chlorine levels inside the pool were normal, there will be no extra bacteria inside the pool to attack. If you left your chlorinator running by mistake, the additional chlorine being produced every day by the chlorinator (which does not know the pool is covered) will start attacking plastic items in the pool, resulting in a shortened life span of these items as well as metal stains on the pool walls.

Please e-mail us at [email protected] and I will answer more detailed questions you might have on this subject.
Until next time.

Burgert Terblanche



Tel: 061-232839, Fax: 061-238602
Macadam Street, Windhoek
Email: [email protected]www.licpool.com