If you do a search you will find many debates over this...."Wash after swimming in SWG pool"...is a good one. Keep in mind the salt system turns salt into cholorine, so both systems clean the water with chlorine. My daughter suffered terribly from eczema. Her worst months were the summer months. I am not sure if it was the chlorine or the water. Ten years ago, I am fairly certain our neighborhood pool did NOT have a salt system. I think most of her eczema flare ups were from playing in the backyard baby pool! Water dries your skin out too. Good news is she eventually outgrew her condition, she is now 12 and its rare if she has a few bumps on her knees or elbows. Unfortunately, I dont know that a salt system would have been the answer to her problems.

There IS a lot of debate, but speaking from my own experience...I love SWG! I live in SC, where I have overhanging trees, torrential rains, etc...and my pool has never turned green (going on 3 years). I buy salt at my local Lowes and replenish as the salt meter indicates...in the spring, it costs about $100 to get it perfectly balanced and so far it has been pretty easy to keep that way. I spend so much less than my friends who go the standard chemical route. One thing no one mentioned to me was that SWG will not run when the water falls below a certain temp. I keep my pool uncovered year-round. In the winter months, I run the pump only 2-3 days per week (since we rarely freeze) and drop a standard issue chlorine tablet into the skimmer basket. I haven't read the "wash after..." posting yet, but people often comment that their hair and skin do not feel "chalky" after swimming in a salt pool. Good luck!

If you don't have a SWG your pool should still never turn green. How can you spend "so much less than my friends who go the standard chemical route"? Guess we forgot about the $1200 or so it cost to install it in the first place.

Thanks for all the much needed info. We have decided that we will definitely go with the salt system because of our kids eczema. We have narrowed our PB down to 3 and we expect to finalize everything within the next 2-3 weeks.

Will keep you all posted!

We LOVE our salt water system. We always feel like we should be doing more because our pool is always crystal clear and we do so little to keep it that way. Granted, it takes a bit for the kids to get used to the mild 'salty' taste in their mouths, but no green hair, no red eyes, and no green pool! We have a child that also suffers with eczema, but in all honesty, we didn't choose the system because of that, so I can't attest to it one way or the other. They are only home for a short while in the summer, so I do not know how it affects their eczema. I will take note of that this year though.

Thanks jimmydean:

Thats good to know! We take our kids to the subdivision pool each summer and they have a real hard time with their skin during the summer because of the eczema. So this is why we are choosing the salt water system. By the way, who built your pool and do you have pictures? We are in the process of making a choice for a PB.

Most of the problems you hear about (burning eyes, dry skin, etc.) are not because of it being a chlorine pool. These are conditions caused by imbalanced pool chemicals. A well balanced chlorine pool doesn't cause these issues.

I think SWGs are great and would have one myself if not for our stone work. In our area of TX some of the PBs no longer install SWG systems with stone because of warranty problems they've had. Apparently the stone in our region is more susceptible to damage from salt.

Our son also has eczema. He swims a lot and we haven't noticed it being a problem, but this will be the first summer with our own pool and he will probably be swimming even more frequently. If it becomes an issue we are going to add salt to the pool and see if it helps. You can add salt to a chlorinated pool and get the same "soft feel" effect. But supposedly you can get that same effect with much less salt than is required to run an SWG.

neilaz,
you are right about the initial cost, and maybe my friends are doing something wrong, but they talk about easily dropping $300-$500 per summer to keep their pool balanced (above the cost for chlorine tabs). One of them recently decided to purchase SWG because of his continuing fights with algae. So I agree, the initial up-front cost is substantial, but I firmly believe that SWG makes for a more stable pool and lower longterm costs (assuming cell replacement isn't need too frequently). Another factor in my favor is that my pool is comparatively low-traffic because I don't have kids. Just speaking from my experience, three seasons post-intallation.

I dont remember where it was (maybe a link on one of the chlorine vs swg threads, or a thread on using an acid pump but not on the forum itself). A guy did an extremely in depth cost analysis of this and covered EVERY aspect. He factored the cost of the SWG, replacement cell @ 5 yrs, all chemicals needed, power usage of the cell, initial investment, pump run time etc, everything except the gasoline cost to go to the pool store to buy supplies although he did mention it. I want to say his conclusion was the SWG, with all things considered, was just slightly higher to run over x amount of years vs a chlorine system. He ended up switching to the SWG because the convenience of not storing and buying chlorine in his mind outweighed the very marginal annualized cost increase of the SWG. If you take the time to read it all, there is no argueing his findings. Maybe someone has a link to it??

Don't get me wrong I do have a SWCG and think it is great. But my friend who does not, outside of chlorine only buys acid and baking soda (as do I). So what the heck are they buying for $500?

The $500 is for the shock treatment to clear the green pool and then that doesn't work so you get double and then they give you this bucket to add with the shock, etc, etc. I have been there. After a month $400 and a green pool went to the other pool store and she said to just add 3 containers or chlorine and keep it higher than the 5 for about a week. Clear pool for about $10.