How common are salt water pools?
Salt water pools were developed in Australia in the 1960s and currently account for about 80 percent of all pools there. They were first introduced in the United States in the 1980s and became very popular in the mid-1990s as the technology improved. In 2007, salt water pools accounted for nearly three-quarters of new pool installations, up from about 15 percent in 2002. There are about 1.3 million salt water pools in the U.S. today. (Sources: P.K. Data; Pool & Spa News 3/30/08) How do salt water pools work? Both salt water pools and traditional chlorine pools use chlorine to sanitize the water. The difference is that salt water pools use a chlorine generator to produce natural chlorine from salt by separating salt molecules into their component parts: chloride and sodium. After salt is converted to chlorine to sanitize and oxidize the water within the generator, chlorine converts back to salt when it re-enters the pool, and the process continues over and over again, conserving the sal
