How To Add Salt To A Pool
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If you are the new owner of a salt chlorine generator (electronic chlorine generator / salt system) then you might be wondering how to actually, you know, add the salt to the pool. Do you just chuck it right into the deep end? Well, kind of, yes...but first there are a few things that you should probably know about adding salt to your pool. Also you can do a little better than just dumping the salt into the deep end of your pool but we will go over all of this on this page.
To set the baseline information here, adding salt to your pool is not enough on it's own. You need an electrolysis cell to actually create chlorine from the sodium and keep your pool safe and sanitized. Next, unlike a lot of the chemicals that you might add to your pool the salt does not need to constantly be replenished. You are going to add a whole bunch of salt right now, and then moving forward you only need to add salt to replace the water lost to pump out and splash out, which is minimal. Let's jump right in with what you need to know before adding salt to your pool.
Learn how many ppm your salt system needs - Many salt chlorine generator systems use in or around 3000 parts per million of salt to function. These systems will have a range for the sodium level and commonly you want to aim towards the middle / high end of the desired ppm range. This allows for some splash out and minimizes how often you will need to add more salt. Note, some systems might use as little as 1200 to 1500 ppm of salt and it is important to avoid overshooting your salt levels as this means you will need to pump out some water and replace with fresh water to lower the levels.
You need lots of salt - If you were to start at zero parts per million and add salt to a 20x40' swimming pool (let's assume 30,000 gallons) then you would need right around 800 pounds of pure pool salt in order to reach 3200 parts per million. That is 267 pounds of salt per 10,000 gallons of water in order to reach 3200 ppm. This is 0.0267 pounds of salt per gallon of water. For a quick reference take the volume of your pool in gallons and multiple by 0.0267. So an 18,500 gallon pool for example would need about 494 pounds of salt for example.
Measure the existing sodium level in the water - Do not make the mistake that so many pool owners have made before. This is especially true for pool owners who have an older or existing swimming pool which you have previously been using chlorine to maintain. Chlorine can leave a salt residual in the water which will build up over time. It is common for existing pools to have a hundred, a few hundred or even a thousand or more parts per million of salt in the water. To avoid over salinating and then having to partially drain and refill your pool be sure to check the level of salt in the water before you determine how many pounds of salt to add.
Use the right kind of salt - Do not cheap out with water softener salt, ice melting salt or any other type of salt other than pure salt intended for use in swimming pools. This salt has less impurities than other forms of salt which when used can result in staining in the pool. You do need quite a lot of salt so the inclination is there to buy cheaper, but if you end up adding iron and other metals to your pool you will end up spending more fixing these problems than you saved using inferior salt.
Add the salt in stages - Instead of adding all of the salt at once it might be a good idea to add around 3/4 of what you calculate that you will need in the pool. Once this has dissolved fully you can test the water again and make a more accurate calculation about the remaining amount of salt that you need to add to reached your desired salinity.
How to add the salt to the water - Commonly a technician might place bags of salt all around the perimeter of the pool in stacks. As determined you sometimes need many hundreds of pounds of salt so this would amount to quite a few bags. Slice each bag with a box cutter or razor knife and pour the salt, fairly quickly, as you walk towards the next stack of salt bags. You are not too worried about it piling up at the base of the walls where you are pouring it because you will need to do a bunch of brush work to push around and dissolve the salt anyway. Just avoid putting hundreds of pounds of salt all in one pile. It can take up to 24 hours for the salt to dissolve so push around the salt as much as you can when you first add it to the pool, but then come back and brush the pool some more every few hours to help the rest dissolve. Do not power up or turn on your salt chlorinator until the salt has all fully dissolved into the pool water.
That is how you actually add the salt to your pool. Dump it in, push it around, and try not to overshoot the amount you need. Measuring the salt levels in the pool are not something that you will need to do very often. Most of the salinity measuring you do will be now when you initially add the salt, and then only periodically throughout the year to replace splash out and pump out. Still, you want a quality salt test kit, and for most pool owners a Taylor Technologies test kit will be your best option. If you have a salt pool consider getting the Taylor K-2006-SALT test kit if you want a long term, professional grade test kit for salt (and everything else) for testing your pool water. At the very minimum pick up some salt test strips so you can test the approximate salt level in your water at home.
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Swimming Pool Steve is an award winning, second generation swimming pool and spa specialist from Ontario Canada. With over 10,000,000 views on the Swimming Pool Steve YouTube Channel, winner of the 2018 Pool & Spa Industry Leadership award and author of hundreds of pool and spa articles both online and in print Steve is committed to helping pool and spa owners as well as pool and spa industry workers learn more about the technical side of building, renovating, repairing and maintaining all types of swimming pools and spas. Follow Swimming Pool Steve on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
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