Salt water pools make the stinging eyes, itchy skin and bleached bathing suits of old-fashioned chlorine pools a thing of the past. Although the initial cost is considerably higher than a standard chlorine system, once you've converted you can never go back.
Though the water in a saltwater pool is saline, it's nothing like swimming in the ocean. The salt concentration in the pool tops out at about 2800 to 4000 parts per million (ppm), compared to 50,000 ppm in ocean water. Saltwater pools are less salty than a teardrop (you usually can't even taste the salt) but the soft, luxurious feel of the water, not to mention freedom from the burning feeling of too much chlorine, is immediately noticeable.
Saltwater pools also use chlorine as a disinfectant, but in a lower concentration, and it's supplied to the water in an entirely different way. Instead of an erosion system, a built-in generator uses a form of electrolysis to separate water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, and then combines them with salt (sodium chloride) to form sodium hypochlorite (chlorine), which sterilizes the water. At the same time, the chlorine thus created is also constantly recombining with the sodium, becoming good old salt again.
