This following site gives an annual cost of $158 for Salt and $313 for chlorine ($155 savings). Assuming it takes 20 minutes longer a week to maintain chlorine at a personal cost of $20 an hour, that would be $347 savings annually.

Yearly Salt Savings -$155
Yearly Maintence Savings -$347
==========================================
Total Salt Savings -$502

Working out a simple ROI, that would be about 3.6 years for an ROI for the $1800 investment.

Would love to know if these #s are accurate. Is 20 min weekly a good #? These #s would also be different for seasonal pools

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_cost_to_convert_a_chlorine_swimming_pool_to_a_salt_water_pool

Here is a link that might be useful: Answers.com

Your calculations are very close to what I estimated as well.

+ less aggravation.
I chose salt.

You're not going to get a ROI for salt because you'll have to replace the salt cell every few years and that balances out whatever savings you might see on chemicals. But to me, even with no ROI salt is the way to go. We started out with an inline chlorinator and it was a constant battle trying to keep the chemicals balanced. The problem is when you fill the tube it's dumping a lot more chlorine in then when you get towards the end of the stack, so the chemical infusion is inconsistent and requires constant testing and balancing. Plus trichlor tabs keep putting CYA into your pool and it doesn't go away like the chlorine does (except with splashout). All trichlor pools will require a partial drain and refill to reduce CYA each 1 to 3 years. Our CYA was already pushing 100 at 6 months time! We switched to an Intellichlor and it is so much easier to maintain. We absolutely love it. Add acid once a week, salt every 6 months or so, CYA once a year and that's about it. Our testing went from being needed every 2 days to twice a month. My wife and kids all love the feel of the water more although honestly I can't tell a difference. But I'd definitely recommend it just based on the easier maintenance.

Regarding in-floor cleaning systems, my boss has a rectangular pool with in-floor and he doesn't care for it. He's constantly netting stuff out by hand. Maybe his system was poorly designed, I don't know. But it should have been straightforward with a simple pool shape like his. We have a Pentair Legend cleaner and rarely have to net stuff out.

How much do plan to heat your pool? We've done it twice in 7 years. I'd be closer to wanting to chill the pool in summer.

1) Being in the North East means your swim season is substantially shorter than a Southern pool. The cell won't be subjected to year round use.

2) Replacement cells are several hundred dollars less than a complete system. Buying the next size up so it runs at a lower power often lengthens the life expectancy of the cell.

3) Salt pools are chlorine pools. They just get the chlorine in the pool in a more direct manner without the addition of more and more stabilizer like tabs or di-chlor or the addition of unwanted extra calcium like cal-hypo.

4) The use of Clorox bleach provides a low cost way to boost chlorine when needed for any pool.

5) ROI has other facets besides financial. Getting a pool is not an act based on a financial ROI to begin with, its a family time thing,

Scott

Thanks everyone so far. Leaning towards Salt right now. Still on the fence about the Infloor vs Polaris

BTW, poolguyny, you are really unbelievable. You comment on almost every post including the several I've posted. Thanks. When I asked my pool builder about the gunite thickness (separate post) as you suggested, he was impressed with the question as it was pretty technical.

A long time ago, someone came up with the great idea of plumbing the main drain so it can be shut off to suction and valved to allow return water to go to the drain. This will allow heated water to get deep without needing an in-floor system and costs a lot less.

Pool sweeps are very effective and usually cost less than a full blown in-floor.

Scott

cutter....I second the salt system for the reasons tresw mentions above...continuous, consistent sanitizing which reduces problems that require more chemicals to treat once the problems arise.

Our pool has a Paramount floor cleaning system and it is truly maintenance free, which is what we wanted due to travel schedules. About once a month, we do get small piles of sand/silt that collect in 3 different spots in the pool. These spots are about 4-5" in diameter and easily cleaned with a spa cleaning wand with a few pumps. Otherwise, the big debris is always removed within a day or so of falling to the bottom of the pool and the pool is always clean in appearance. I'm probably the only one who notices the piles of sand because I'm finnicky about that kind of stuff.

I think the key to installing a successful infloor system is to follow the blueprints provided by the infloor cleaning company and making sure that your valves are adjusted properly to balance the water being pulled from the main drain (the vaccuum) and the water being delivered to the pop up heads (the cleaners pushing the debris towards the main drain). Once this balance is established, our infloor does it's job without being seen and has been maintenance free for 4 swim seasons now.

Hope this helps!

trhought - you have a PV3 system, correct? I'm getting ready to start my pool build and will be having this system installed. Are there different types of heads for this system or are they all they same? When you say "follow the blueprints" does this mean simply the placement of the heads and which heads belong to which zones or is there more to it than that?

Go with a salt system...its absolutely worth the convenience. The water feels great, and I have found the amount of time i spend doing chemistry is MUCH reduced.

Regarding the infloor system...There are a lot of cons against it, particularly if you are using it JUST for cleaning purposes. I had one in my old pool. and in our new house we DID not install one. We had an issue with one of the heads in the pool breaking frequently. Also a VERY costly below the pool plumbing leak. Thi shappened about 6 years after the pool was built.
The infloor system does a good job at circulating heat, and chemicals. I found that my old pool infloor system ALWAYS had a bit of residual leaves on the floor of the pool, particularly at the deep end.

We built a new pool, and are running a polaris 280. Although these things break (wheels off at times), and the bags get holes in them (buy extras on EBAY), the thing gets our pool spotless. I would not buy the new polaris sport, or neighbor has one and it has broken OVER AND OVER, at about 4x the cost of the 280...the 280 is really the workhorse of the line.

If you DONT want a hose and polaris running around your pool, the infloor systme may be the way to go. Its expensive through.

ANother word of advice: if you are considering color lighting, put 1 more light thatn you think you need...really. Depending on the color of the bottom of your pool, you may have dark areas at night.

Just signed the contract this evening. Thanks for all your help.

We went for the Salt option as everyone has pretty much said it's the way to go.

We currently passed on the Infloor PCC2000. It's just so much money ($4800) when you factor in all the other costs of the pool. Leaning towards just going w a Polaris 280. Do we need to install a pump with that?

For lights for 38 X 18, got 2 intellibrights.

mudn...yes..ours is a PV3 system.

There are 3 different heads that can be installed in each opening in the pool floor (small, medium and large). The only differnce in each head is the opening, all other dimensions of the head are identical.

The small heads (small openings) are for steps and other more complicated features under water. These areas are engineered to have a higher concentration of heads to get the hard to clean nooks and cranny's present in these more complex features. The smaller heads have a lighter jet action and are also good for placement near the perimeter of the pool in shallow water to prevent splashing when the head is blasting right at the perimeter of the pool. The larger heads (larger holes) are for cleaning larger areas and allow more water to exit and creates a stronger jet. These are typically found in the deeper ends of the pool where there are large flat surfaces to clean. The medium heads are for heads near the perimeter of the pool in deeper water and for areas of the pool that may have more curvature and slopes.

Paramount will get a design of your pool from your PB. They will then engineer the floor cleaning system by specifying location and size of each head in each zone. There's typically 6 zones in their design and this is determined by the 6 port valve that comes with the Paramount system. More zones are possible by placing more than one multi-port valve in the system. This is usually for larger pools and most pools only have one multi-port valve and it will be 6 zones.

Paramount will look at the shape of the pool floor and shapes of the perimeter as well as depths, steps, beaches, tanning ledges and determine the proper location for each head in each zone. They will also specify the size of head for each location. This is all on one print and I would ask you PB for this print once it is complete.

After the rough plumbing is complete, I verified each head location with a tape measure and had their locations changed accordingly on a few heads.

After gunite, I then inspected each head location and looked at how it would be projecting it's jet to see if it would reach the places it was intended knowing what size each head was to be in the end. This was an important inspection because we had a step added near our beach during gunite that was not on the original plan. We also added a grotto bench in front of our waterfall which was not on the original plan. Both of these additions required a change to the specified head locations and sizes. The modified plan was sent to Paramount and they recommended new head locations based on the new features that were added. This involved chiseling out channels in two areas of the gunite and adding a few more head to reach these new places. Morale of the story, if you make any changes during gunite, which I understand is pretty common, make sure Paramount has an opportunity to review the changes and make the necessary updates to their engineered system. This will require a litte extra work with chiseling and such, but the end result will be a floor system that performs as it was designed.

Finally, during start-up, the start-up person will be the one who installs the heads into each opening by swimming to each opening in the pool floor. Make sure you have the blue print with you at this time. This is when the right head size gets placed into the proper location. My start-up guy said he has been doing it so long he can tell which size goes in each hole just by looking at it. He was surprised by some of the sizes that were called out on the print when I was telling him which size went in each hole.

After all that, adjust the pressure being delivered to the cleaning zones to about 18-22 psi recommended by Paramount(some zones will be different than others because of different size holes in each of the heads of that zone). There is a gage at the top of the multi-port valve to tell what the pressure is. I had a bypass valve installed upstream of the multi-port valve to allow the pressure to be adjusted for optimum performance and efficiency. The MDX drain will be plumbed in parallel with the skimmer and SDX drain. You will be able to balance the flow between skimmer and drains by closing or opening the port in the skimmer. Closing the skimmer port will cause more suction at the drains and less flow at the skimmer. After a few weeks you will find a sweet spot allowing the skimmer to do its job as well as the main drain suction to be adequate to suck in debris that is passing near it.

I run our system at high speed (18-22 psi at the multi-port valve) for 2 hours per day to ensure each head has made a complete revolution with proper jet action to do its cleaning job. This also provides good skimming action. The rest of the day is spent at low speed cycling the heads and delivering clean, chlorinated and sometimes heated pool water to the floor of the pool.

Well that was a long explanation..maybe too long...but wanted to share my experience with installation and setup of the Paramount PV3 system for those who may be considering one.

We've been happy with it's performance and haven't had any problems or maintence items for 4 swim seasons now. It just does it job without being seen. The appearance of the pool is always clean without unsightly hoses and cleaners in the pool. Everyone always comments "How do you keep your pool so clean"

Hope this helps!

trhought - Yes very helpful! Thanks for taking the time for your detailed explanation. It is much appreciated.