hindhaw - I dug up two old threads. You may have seen the same ones a couple of times. I think the large majority of people here have an Aqualink/Aqualogic and without problems. You will also see posts with problems for other pieces of equipment, from all brands. These couple of posts are not reasons to not buy a salt system. Fwiw, for us, as of yet, the salt cell itself is fine. It was an electrical problem.

Quote: "Why are your CYA levels climbing from your inline chlorinator. The pucks in the chlorinator should not be strong enough to make your CYA climb to levels that you need to drain your pool. Plus I've heard that CYA will evaporate out over time. So I can't see why this is occurring in your pool." CYA does not evaporate and does not get used up. The only way to get rid of it is to do a partial drain and refill. This is the classic known problem with inline chlorinators, at some point you WILL have to drain and refill if you use one. It may be once a season or it may be every three years, it depends on how much splashout and rain you get. Trichlor pucks try to give your pool everything it needs including CYA, so even when your pool reaches max CYA levels the pucks just keep feeding more and more in. Once the level reaches 100 chlorine becomes ineffective. If you go over to TroubleFreePools.com you will read many stories of people who have a sudden algae invasion that they can't get rid of no matter how much shock they dump in. They are always told to get full tests run and post the results, and usually it's a high CYA level that's the culprit. If someone made pucks with no CYA, the problem would be solved! I don't understand why they don't, but maybe it's because the CYA is also needed to bind the puck together or something. Quote: "As for chlorine vs SWG, no matter what you're still going to have to shock your pool" If you get a high quality test kit and make small adjustments when they are needed you will rarely if ever need to shock your pool. Ours has never been shocked. We check TC/ PH/ TA every 2 to 3 days and conduct a full range of tests one a week. There are many people over on TFP that are using BBB and have never shocked. Quote: "As for chlorine vs SWG, no matter what you're still going to have to shock your pool so you can't get completely away from adding chlorine." There's a misconception that chlorine versus SWG is "either/ or". If you have an SWG you still have chlorine in your pool. The SWG generates chlorine using the salt that's been added. In fact the target test FC levels are the same for both. Quote: "As well, stay away from limestone in a pool regardless...its too weak of a stone. I have chunks of it falling off my house just from rain" Isn't that the truth! I put some around our Koi pond 6 years ago and it gets very little foot traffic. I have been amazed at how easily it sluffs layers, one piece of it has almost completely disintegrated!

I recently was able to experience first hand both options. We've used the SWG since we built about 4 years ago. True to form the cell did need replacing but we were (ha, are) in a place of financial cut backs so was unable to replace the cell, so had to add chlorine for a few months. HATED.IT. I could barely stand the pool while I was having to add chlorine, not the work part, that was fairly simple, not the testing part, I test all the time anyway no matter the system. I hated the feeling of the water, the stinging of the eyes, the drying of the hair, the redness in kids eyes leaving our house, the smell in the air outside. All of it. Was finally able to replace the cell a few weeks ago. Love my pool again! Soft hair, no red eyes, no chlorine smell in the air, all is right again. There really are no overall financial savings with salt due to the need to replace the cell. We are not seeing any corrosion, and we used native limestone both inside and outside the pool. From a time standpoint I think that it's similar, though of course with the SWG running again I don't test my water daily, but honestly that was a simple minimal thing to do anyway. For me it isn't time nor money but water quality. I vote SWG hands down in that department.

Hi Racket - I think it's unfortunate because having a SWG and swimming in a salt pool are wonderful! I think it's a great benefit to have chlorine being generated steadily and being able to maintain a steady chlorine level. Moreoever, at least for me, I have never had any combined chlorine which means I have never needed to shock. On the other hand, I do hate dealing with acid and having to dump some into my water over 5-6 days or so. I think it's unfortunate that some pool builders are starting to move away from SWG because it keeps potential pool owners from being able to experience this way of chlorinating a pool. With all due respect, I think it's much too simplistic to say that because one notices a certain type of corrosion or damage only on salt pools that the salt itself is to blame. How can one say that it is NOT because the pool owner was running their pump too long, or setting their chlorinator at too high a level which caused their chlorine level to rise much too high becoming a much more active corrosive agent? (I personally know of people that run their pumps 24 hours a day, for example.) Here's a personal story. I have my SWG set at 35% which allows me to keep my chlorine level at 5-6ppm. I was away on a trip for about a week. When I came back, I was shocked to find out when I checked my water that my chlorine level was up to 11ppm! Well, up until a couple weeks ago, we had about 3 straight weeks of rainy weather here in the Dallas-area. I concluded that it was the lack of sun exposure that caused my chlorine to creep up that much (not as much chlorine burn off from the sun.) I happen to check my water very regularly. Can you imagine the typical pool owner that doesn't, or just takes their water to Leslie's once a month? Or how about pool owners that allow their stabilizer levels to get so low that they aren't able to hold a good chlorine residual and they think the solution is to increase their chlorinator setting to compensate, not realizing that the chlorine they're generating has now become 30x more corrosive because of the low CYA level? I have read stories of salt pools being blamed for corrosion on structures made out of 316L Marine-grade stainless steel. If these stories are true, then salt pools with salt content at 3000ppm is somehow more corrosive than ocean water with salt content 35000ppm? Perhaps. But chlorine at high levels is easily corrosive enough to eat through 316L stainless steel. I'm not ready to blame salt quite yet. Mind you, I'm watching my pool very closely to see if I start to see any ill-effects, but so far, nothing yet. Having said all of this, I do think that SWG manufacturers need to be more upfront with the true care and maintenance aspects of owning a salt pool. It isn't as "care and maintenance free" as they would like the consumers to think!