One of the more common questions I get is: Do you do salt pools? The short answer is yes I do. What I have come to realize however is that there is an abundance of misinformation and lack of knowledge out there when it comes to what a salt pools is.
A salt pool can be referred to (several incorrectly) as many things. Saline pool, salt generator, salt chlorine generator, non-chemical chlorine pool, free chorine, salt system, salt pool, Zero Chlorine, and even mineral pool. All of these mean the same thing. A ‘salt pool’ is not any different than any other pool. It is not constructed or plumbed any differently. It simply has a chlorine generator installed in the filtration system, and high grade salt added to the water. Whala….A ‘salt pool.’

To understand how a salt chlorinator works you must understand that chlorine comes in different physical forms. Liquid, solid, gas, chemical, non chemical, modified solid, etc. A Chlorine generator works by converting the salt molecule that has been put into the water INTO a non chemical chlorine molecule. This is done by removing a neutron from the salt though a process called electrolysis. The chorine molecule then goes out into the pool, attacks a waste molecule, burns off (kind of like evaporating) and leaves behind the salt molecule to eventually go back to the pump and chlorine generator and repeat.
Maintence on this type of system is VERY easy. Because salt does not evaporate, you will only have to add salt back into the pool to replace the salt that splashes out and that is lost by winterizing your pool. This equates to a just few pounds per year for most people and typically is about $10. Cleaning of the chlorine generating cell is periodically needed. Most private pool owners will do this once a year and it takes about 10 minutes and a ½ cup of pool acid (muriatic). Some of the better units on the market will even clean themselves as well as tell you how much salt is in the pool making ownership and maintenance even easier.

As for cost, in my opinion modest. Typically 1200 to $2000 installed and ready to go. They variables include: Cost of the unit, effort to wire it to your electric panel, and the amount of salt you will need (based on the volume of your pool). Here is the myth. If you own a fiberglass pool, you will not save thousands of dollars on choline. Why? Because you are not using thousnads of dollars in choline. The cost savings commonly discussed online are experienced by those owning concrete or vinyl pools that are accustom to spending $1000 or more per yer on chemicals. The benefits to having a salt chlorination on a fiberglass pool are all the other things….Soft smooth water, non burning eyes, no bleached hair, no ruined bathing suits, and most important of all, EASY.

See more at:

Salt Water Chlorine Generators: History, Types, Operation, and Considerations

Auto Pilot: Salt Nano System

Auto Pilot: Digital Soft Touch

I am told regularly by clients that they ‘fully understand that a pool will only devalue my house and I will not get any money back out of it.’ I find this fascinating because usually the customer will go on to say that they are currently ‘looking at a couple of houses with pools’ OR that they bought their current home because they wanted a pool and couldn’t find any houses that had pools they felt comfortable with. Despite making those statements they fail to see the connection.

First let’s acknowledge a fact: If you ask most realtors what a pool does to the value of a home they will typically say it devalues it and ‘you’ll never get your money back.’ Let’s acknowledge another fact, though they are usually right, they are not right for the right reasons. Approximately half of the Leisure Pools we build are for customers that are currently building their home, buying their home and want us to start right away, OR have been in their home less than 2 years. What does that mean? It means people want pools. Most of the time when we interview our clients they tell us they would have settled on a house that they didn’t like to have a pool they loved and were comfortable with.

The first reason that realtors are often right about pools devaluing property (even though they don’t understand) is because of the type of pool. Concrete (or gunite) pools as well as vinyl pools are huge financial liabilities. They require constant maintenance and upkeep. Both types of pools will require $800 to $1000 minimum in upkeep each year. They will both also require a major renovation (liner replacement or concrete resurfacing) to the tune of $5,000 to $10,000 every 5-7 years. That makes the ownership of a concrete or vinyl pool a liability to the property thereby making it worth less, no different than if it were to need a new roof immediately upon you purchasing it.

The second reason that pools can be liabilities to real estate is that when a vinyl or concrete pool is built in the back yard, it’s exactly that….built in the back yard. The final pool product is the sum of the materials used, the mood and experience of the crew installing it, and the site conditions in the back yard at the time. Very little means for quality control exist in the back yard. All of these factors are unknown when you are looking at buying a home with an existing vinyl or concrete pool and there is almost no way to evaluate the quality of construction once a pool is done.

A FIBERGLASS pool on the other hand is a manufactured product. It is built in a factory, in a controlled environment with quality control procedures in place and just like the appliances and cabinets in the house, a fiberglass pool comes with a warranty backed by the manufacture. Leisure Pools offers a full 35 year structural warranty that is even TRANSFERABLE to the next owner of the home! Fiberglass pools, unlike a vinyl and concrete pool require no renovation work. No liner will ever need swapped, no resurfacing and painting will ever be needed. Once a fiberglass pool is in…It’s done. Meaning no future work and much lower cost of ownership and financial liability.

Unfortunately the pool business has a reputation for being a bit of a sleazy industry. It is riddled with one man operations that call themselves ‘pool builders’ and for either lack of knowledge, ability, or because they are simply crooks, screw the average home owner and give our industry the reputation we have today.

I saw a news story this morning on one such company which I will refer to only as The Pool ‘Guy’. The company has been covered several times on the news for BAD business ‘practices’ (screwing people) and now is closing its doors for the 3rd time in as many years. One of the multiple owners has been charged with embezzlement and theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars. He allegedly took deposits from dozens of customers and then shut down the company and ran. Check out Channel 6 on your side for more info. http://www.abc6onyourside.com/newsroom/features/hall_lame/videos/vid_10.shtml

My team and I take a lot of pride in being people and a company of high standards and integrity. We strive everyday to treat our customers with respect, honesty, and always do what’s right. The story on the news hit a real note with me this morning. You see just earlier this week, while reviewing job reports we found that we had not properly applied a discount to a clients account to the tune of some $3,400.00! That’s not a small check. Somehow the client didn’t notice either. We promptly applied a credit to the clients account and mailed out the check with a letter explaining the oversight.

We talk about how we are a company of integrity and values. Sometimes it’s not so easy to show that we really walk the walk. With the wake that The Pool ‘Guy’ has made in our market and the challenge that bringing integrity to our industry has been, I wanted to take the opportunity to not only tell people, but this time SHOW people that integrity is not just a catch word but is truly what Leisure Pools is about. I have attached the letter below of your so inclined to read it.

The take home here is that not all pool companies are crooks AND when you’re talking to a pool builder about your project, consider asking yourself this question: ‘If this guy owed me money would he pay me?’ AND ‘If I didn’t know it would he tell me?’ I bet your decision and comfort level will be very clear.

I often hear from clients and fellow builders alike how much they ‘hate’ the building department and the ‘stupid’ inspectors. They usually follow up such statements with a story of a specific inspector and how ‘dumb’ he was and why something did or didn’t apply to them and their project and go on to say how they just won’t get a permit next time. Now, I have absolutely have had my tiffs with building departments and inspectors, BUT at the end of the day it is very important you find a way to get along and work with inspectors and building departments.

Permits- Personally I think the main purpose of a permit is to make sure the government gets its tax money. I believe this because there are many municipalities that do not inspect anything but INSIST on having permits pulled with fees paid prior to starting. The second (and most important) reason to go through the plan review and permit process is to make sure that the project design and installation method is sound and to code. As complicated and frustrating as it can be, the building department’s (good ones) objective is to insure the work and project is safe. From a homeowner perspective this is how you know your builder is installing per code and you are safe. From an installer perspective, this is how we insure we are doing it correctly and assuring our client the same.

Inspections- By having inspections you are partially transferring liability from yourself to the building department. This is why building inspectors may seem like they are just being too ‘darn picky’. A good department and inspector is going to insist that he or she knows what is required and know what they are looking at. This is not always easy. Most inspectors do a lot more than just inspect fiberglass swimming pools. In fact most don’t do a whole lot of pools of any kind. They are typically electric inspectors that also do swimming pool inspections. To complicate matters each type of pool follows different guidelines and codes for a lot of items. By them approving and signing off on an inspection they are literally putting their name on the work and are responsible for insuring its safety / code compliance. As a homeowner you should absolutely insist on permits and inspections for this reason.

Getting Along – This can be the tricky part. Clearly a good builder and building department have a common goal: Code compliance and safety. Unfortunately there can be a lot of grey in there. From interpretation of the code to applicability to a project, it is important to understand what the inspector wants to see. If he is not sure (which is often the case for us) provide him the code and explain what was done and why. We have found that including photocopies of the code book with highlighted sections included with the permit packet is golden. This makes it easy for the inspector to know exactly what and why we did what we did. Don’t get me wrong we often have inspector ask us to do extra stuff that is not code or applicable to a project. My policy is this: Let the inspector win within reason. As long as what he is asking for is not dangerous and does not causes a safety concern…just do it. Often we have inspectors ask us to bond our equipotential grids in four points. It’s not required on a fiberglass pool but frankly it’s easier to just add $40 in clamps and move on. On the other hand we have had many inspectors ask us to connect bonding wire to grounding lugs in service panels. Not safe…We will argue that one. National Electric Code 2008/2011 680.26 is loose on how to terminate the bonding wire. It states that it is not required to connect to ground, when in reality it should not because it can actually ENERGIZE the water with electricity. The take home here is pick your battles.

As a builder, the building department and inspectors can make or break jobs. Code is code but the heartburn in getting your inspections and approvals in a timely manner and with the least amount of heartburn can come down to the relationship you have with the department and inspectors. We have gone, and will continue to go, out of our way to make the inspectors life as easy as possible. We have also worked with building departments on their continuing education programs. The note below is one we received from Delaware County, one of the largest and fastest growing departments in the nation. If you are a builder consider reaching out to your local building department and offer to come in and talk about a subject. You may be surprised at what you learn in preparing for it and how well the new relationships pay off in the field when it’s time for your next inspection.

Equipotential bonding is not a new idea to construction. However, it is relatively new to pool construction. Many pool builders who have been building pools for decades gripped about having to do bonding (some still do) because they don’t fully understand what it’s doing. My goal in this post is to bring to light some of the myths and harder to understand sections of NEC 680.26. Ever since becoming code (as opposed to just FPN) in 1999 as section 680.22, later changed to section 680.26 in 2002, this section has been re-worded and clarified drastically in every NEC release. With most states having adopted NEC 2008, and many having adopted NEC 2011 already, I will be covering both in this article. To see where your state stands, you can visit this page provided by mikeholt.com (http://www.mikeholt.com/necadoptionlist.php).

The first step to understanding the code (read: correctly interpreting the code) is to understand the goal. First of all, keep in mind here that we are bonding, and not grounding things. It is not the job of the bonding grid/wire to prevent accidental energization, this is done by the grounding conductors and is covered by different sections of the NEC. The bonding wire does not need to be connected to any remote panelboard or electrode (groundrod). The job of the bonding grid is to equilize the voltage between the water to the voltage of the surrounding area and equipment. In doing so it prevents the chance of loose electrical current using a person as a conduit to get from one part of the pool area to another, ergo preventing someone from getting shocked.

Now that we are clear on the grand plan, we can start talking about the details. Like, what all the NEC says needs to be bonded.

• Section (B)(1): Conductive Pool Shells: The way most inspectors are going to read this section is anything except vinyl liner and fiberglass is conductive. There are two ways to bond a conductive shell. By bonding to your rebar cage in four spots, spaced equally around the pool. Or, by using a copper conductor grid, which is extraordinarily expensive material-wise and labor-wise. To state the obvious, if your rebar is coated in epoxy (or similar), you must use the copper grid because the coating prevents continuity between itself and the surrounding.
• Section (B)(2): Perimeter Surfaces:
  

  Per NEC 2008

  

  Per NEC 2011

  Here’s where things have been wishy-washy, and re-written over the years. The NEC is concerned with the first three feet of horizontal surface. And, similar to the shell, you can use a rebar grid to bond to. For conductive shells, attached at a minimum of four points. For non-conductive shells, only one point is required. When we get to the copper conductor is when we reach our first difference between 2008 and 2011. NEC 2008 says a single 8 AWG bare solid conductor can follow 18-24 inches away from the perimeter of the inner pool wall. NEC 2011 says you need a 3 foot wide grid (1’x1’ spacing) of copper to follow the perimeter. In both versions, the conductor has to be embedded into the decking (inside concrete) or 4-6 inches below subgrade.

• Section (B)(3): Metallic Components: This section is referring to the metallic components of the pool structure itself. i.e. metal back bracing used in vinyl pools
• Section (B)(4): Underwater Lighting (2011: Underwater Metal Forming Shells): I believe the change in the name of this section is an attempt at clarification of the section. What they’re looking for here is that any piece of equipment that pool water travels through, or could touch, and is metallic itself or has metallic mounts gets bonded. i.e. underwater speakers, luminaires, wet niches
• Section (B)(5): Metal Fittings: Refers to any metallic accessories that are around the pool. Ladders and handrails can be bonded to the grid via the anchor that is in the decking.
• Section (B)(6): Electrical Equipment: If it’s electrical, and pool water runs through it, it needs bonded. This includes pumps, heaters, heat pumps, SWCGs, etc. The only exception to this is a double insulated pump motor. However, you have to leave a bonding wire available so that if the motor ever needs replaced it can be bonded. So, you might as well bond it anyway.
• Section (B)(7): Metal Wiring Methods and Equipment (2011: Fixed Metal Parts): The 2011 title of this section is more representative of what is covered here. Basically anything that it made of metal that is within 5 foot of the water line needs bonded (i.e. fencing). Unless, it is separated from the pool by a permanent barrier or greater than 12 foot vertically from maximum water level.
• Section (C): Pool Water:
  

  Bond Safe 680

  The pool’s water must be bonded somehow. Typical methods include a metal wet niche of the light, or ladder. If the pool does not incorporate either of these then an alternative method will need to be done. The easiest is the use of a product called ‘Bond Safe 680’. Mount it in the skimmer, below the lip that the basket sits on.