How to Maintain A Saltwater Pool: The Essential Guide For Beginners

Knowing how to maintain a saltwater pool is essential if you are a new salt pool owner, or if someone else has been caring for your pool and you want to take control of your pool care. In this blog, we’ll teach you about the four pillars of pool maintenance!

This information applies whether you have a “salt” pool or not (which just means you are using a salt chlorine generator). For the sake of the article we will assume you are chlorinating the pool with a salt system since the benefits have made it so popular and prevalent.

We’ll go over the essentials of maintaining a saltwater pool that will help you have a better idea behind the dynamics of your swimming pool so you can keep the pool looking good with minimal work.

Understanding How to Maintain a Saltwater Pool: The 4 Essential Pillars

There are four main areas of saltwater pool maintenance, just like any other pool: sanitation, circulation, water balance, and basic upkeep.

Where you see the most impact on making a switch from traditional to saltwater pools, because saltwater pools are easier to maintain when it comes to sanitation and water balance.

Sanitation: Key in How You Maintain Your Saltwater Pool

Sanitation is what keeps a pool from being a smelly, green, algae-filled swamp, and it’s an essential piece of the puzzle that is maintaining your saltwater pool.

To put it simply, if you want to avoid stuff growing in your water, you need to continually kill off the bacteria, algae, and other contaminants and major sanitation hazards. Without that, your water is going to get all green and cloudy, harbor pests, and potentially become unsafe.

As you might have guessed, it’s important to add salt to your saltwater pool. However, you won't have to add as much as you'd think. While several bags of salt are needed when you first install your saltwater chlorinator, you'll only have to supplement it with smaller amounts over time. Keep in mind that you may make adjustments seasonally or after significant storms or heavy pool usage.

This process is basically setting your chlorine generator to match your pool’s needs. Its chlorine output level should be set so that it is creating chlorine at least as fast as the pool is consuming it, so that you maintain a 1-3 ppm level of free chlorine.

Since a salt chlorinator works automatically with your pump every day, it becomes pretty easy to consistently maintain a good chlorine level. Remember to oversize your generator to reduce wear and tear, and produce the right amount of chlorine whenever you need it.

Pool Circulation: The Heart of Maintaining A Saltwater Pool

If you want crystal clear water, the next step is to ensure you are getting sufficient circulation throughout your pool and is key to maintaining a saltwater pool.

That means we’ll be looking at your pump and filter system, which helps water move around while capturing debris and dirt. Like any body of water, the more your pool circulates, the easier it is to keep that water clean.

Adequate water circulation, whether you’re using a salt system or traditional chlorine, typically calls for about 8 to 12 hours of run time on average use days for traditional single-speed pumps. There will always be a little variance based on things like environment or bather load, and of course the specs of your pump & filter, so keep that in mind!

If you want to get more advanced in maintaining a saltwater pool, your goal would be “turning over” your pool about once or twice each day. That means that all the water in your pool will run through your filter and pump system once or twice each day, allowing your pool filter the opportunity it needs to capture dirt and maintain pool cleanliness.

If you have an energy-saving variable speed (VS) pump, you will typically have much longer run times, as much as 16-24 hours a day. This is because VS pumps are so energy efficient that you can typically get more circulation while consuming less electricity. To optimize your energy efficiency, it is very handy to install a “flow meter” in your pool plumbing, so you can measure the amount of circulation (pool turn-overs) you get each day and use that information to fine-tune your VS pump’s run time to use as little energy as possible while still providing adequate flow.

You can also add a pre-filter system to reduce how much saltwater pool maintenance is needed. Normal filters require extensive backwashing, cleaning cartridges, grids, and more. But pre-filter systems use cyclonic filtration, which cleans it out in a minute while only using approximately four gallons of water.

How Monitoring Water Balance Helps to Maintain a Saltwater Swimming Pool

People looking to convert to a salt pool always ask us “how do you maintain a saltwater pool? And what they’re really asking us is whether or not it’s hard.

For many people the idea of balancing water chemistry is the most intimidating aspect of pool maintenance; Maintaining water balance can confuse novice and long-term pool owners equally until you get a sense of how your water balance works.

But don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be complicated. The main thing is to check it regularly(we advise a schedule or routine!). The more frequently you measure your water chemistry, the easier it is to balance it, and the fewer chemicals it requires. Here, we’ll just highlight a few of the most important components for maintaining a good water balance in your salt pool:

For proper salt water pool maintenance, start by monitoring your Free Chlorine level regularly.

“Free” Chlorine means chlorine that is “available” in the water to sanitize contaminants. If you don’t add enough chlorine, you won’t have any Free Chlorine because there are still micro-organisms and other contaminants remaining in the water that need to be disinfected Typically, you’ll want to measure about 1-3 ppm in a pool. Too low, and your pool can grow algae or other harmful microorganisms. Too high, and it could be uncomfortable or harmful for you and your pool.

In a salt pool, you can set your chlorine output to certain levels, so it’s easy to adjust once you’ve measured the chlorine levels in your water. As you regularly check your Free Chlorine level, you’ll see that the salt chlorinator is keeping the level consistent and that typically you infrequently need to adjust your salt chlorinator’s output setting. After rain or heavy pool use, be sure to use you salt chlorinator’s “boost” mode to temporarily compensate for the higher chlorine demand in those situations.

Next, keep an eye on your pH levels.

This refers to how acidic or alkaline your pool water is. A poorly balanced pH could lead to swimmer discomfort, excessive mineral scaling, or even chemical erosion.

Imbalanced pH also reduces the sanitation power of your pool’s chlorine. That means that a balanced pH is essentially the foundation for your water balance. General pools should aim for around 7.5, and often many people struggle with a high pH. For a high pH, you’ll likely need to add some muriatic acid to your pool water. For ultimate convenience, pH balance systems are available that manage this for you. If your pool happens to tend towards low pH, you typically add soda ash to raise pH levels.

Keep track of your cyanuric acid (CYA) or stabilizer levels to maintain your saltwater pool.

This is kind of like sunscreen for your chlorine - it keeps the sun from rapidly depleting your free chlorine. It has an ideal range up to about 40 ppm; too low of a level can lead to a loss of chlorine levels, but too high it “locks up” your chlorine and makes it ineffective.

Make it easier for yourself to maintain proper balance by minimizing your pool’s demand for chlorine. This can be overlooked easily, even by some pool professionals. . By eliminating issues that essentially force a need for greater ongoing doses of chlorine, you can limit how much unnecessary saltwater pool maintenance you need to perform for water balance.

Like CYA, things like phosphates, nitrates, ammonia, metals, and other impurities in the water can have big effects in this area. Enzymatic pool cleaners can help as well. It is also good to minimize the amount of organic material floating loose in the pool or built up in the pool filter.

Why salinity is important when it comes to salt water pool maintenance.

If you’re already using a salt chlorine generator, keep an eye on your pool’s salinity (salt levels) periodically.

You’ll need to compensate for things like rainfall, splash-out, and draining of the water (evaporation doesn’t count), but as long as you maintain a minimum amount of salt to keep your salt system active, that’s good. These things usually happen gradually over time. Most people add between 2 and 4 bags of salt each year on average.

For most systems, that ideal salinity level is somewhere in the 3500 ppm range. You can test your water with simple salt strips or a digital tester.

Check your complete water balance regularly. Make it a habit. The key is to make small adjustments. When checked on a regular basis, this can save you tons of time or money compared to having to make big adjustments down the road once things have become very unbalanced.

In the beginning, we recommend checking your water at least every week.And of course it's a good idea to check after heavy pool use or after weather: lots of rainfall, dusty or windy conditions, or anything that’s going to dump an excess of water and debris in your pool — all of these can introduce impurities in to the pool and throw off your water balance.

Basic Upkeep of your Pool and Equipment: A Simple Task List

For outdoor pools, which is most swimming pools, you’ll always need a little bit of regular upkeep. Even with a well-balanced water, pools are still physical things exposed to the elements on a daily basis.

Check the Skimmer Basket and Pump for Debris

Check your pump and skimmer baskets regularly to avoid plugging up your system with debris. That goes for leaves and stuff floating on top of the pool, too. Skim or vacuum the debris from the pool; it can actually change your pool’s chemistry if left too long.

If you want to save a little effort, invest in a good robotic pool cleaner! They can learn your pool’s shape, and are an incredibly efficient tool for your saltwater pool maintenance routine throughout the year.

Clean and Replace the Salt Cell As Needed

At Discount Salt Pools, we recommend cleaning your salt cell once or twice per season. Additionally, you’ll need to replace it about every five years, depending on the brand and usage.

So, how do you clean a salt cell? It’s simple! Just follow these steps:

Routinely Clean the Pool and Deck

You already know the importance of removing debris from the pool. But you should also clean your pool tile, pool floor, and the surrounding area. Saltwater will likely splash out of the pool and onto your deck. Simply spray water from a hose to push it back into the pool to avoid any salt build-up.

Keep a Water-Testing Schedule

As stated earlier, it’s crucial to ensure that your water chemistry is balanced. The best way to do so is to have particular days and weeks of the month where you set aside time to test your pool levels. Get to know the specialists at your local pool shop, and ask for help if any of the levels are out of whack.

Now You’re A Saltwater Pool Maintenance Expert

And there you have it! The four essential pillars for maintaining a saltwater pool. Saltwater pools are easy to maintain as long as you stick to a routine and stay on top of simple maintenance. For example, ensure your pool’s sanitation is up to par, ensure your pool is circulating correctly, keep your water chemistry balanced, and don’t forget your basic upkeep.

Saltwater pools, especially when you’re switching to a salt pool from traditional chlorination methods, can be a little overwhelming. But in the long run, it’s worth the initial adjustment thanks to the financial savings and ease of maintenance.

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