There Is No Free Lunch


I received an e-mail this week. I thought I would share it and my response with you. I changed his name for reasons of privacy.

You seem extremely knowledgeable and have extensive experience with pools. I’m building a pool here in Austin (bad soils – I’m nuts!) and I’d like to talk to you for 5 minutes if you could please make the time. I’ve narrowed my selection to two bids. One with Salt Water and one with Ozone (Delzone) and chlorine. I’d like to discuss your experience with salt water and get some feedback on Sand Versus Cartridge filters. I have a lot of trees in my yard and I’ll be hammered with leaves and debris. I love the idea of cartridge but everyone says I need DE or sand. Thoughts…

FYI: I’ve owned a pool before, I hate DE, I love the salt water concept but I keep hearing the horror stories, the salt water guy has installed 30+ salt water pools and swears that by selecting the right materials (no limestone) and properly sealing those materials I should be fine (His customers love him – hard to argue) and I have no idea which filter I should choose. I think I love Jandy but I’m not sure. I’ve owned a Polaris but this Hayward Phantom looks interesting. Is it any good? Trying to decide the Jandy PDA is worth the expense…

Sorry to ramble but I’ve spent the past 6 hours researching pool stuff and I’m about to have a brain freeze. I found it interesting that your blog had more data than any of the previous 50+ sites I visited before I reached yours. NICE! At the end of the day, NO ONE knows more about stuff than the people who service and maintain that stuff.

Lastly I’d like to get some feedback on what you think about the expansive soils in Dallas. I’m building in the same crappy Del Rio clay that you guys suffer in North and Central Dallas. Do you have any advice? Pray…

Would you be open to a quick phone call?

Thanks in advance for ANY and ALL help!!!!!!!! Your website alone is a great service!!!!

John from Austin!

John,

Thanks for the Kudos. I like you already. Your e-mail touched on so many of my favorite subjects, I couldn’t wait to sit down and write back to you.

First and foremost, I’d like to point out that a guy who’s installed “30+” salt pools isn’t a guy who’s installed A LOT of salt pools. Granted, one is too many, but with the average custom builder building anywhere from 30 to 150 pools a year and still being able to work out of his home – if he prefers – and given that salt’s been selling like hotcakes for the last five or so years, then this guy’s only selling about six salt pools a year, or he’s only been building pools for a couple of years. Neither situation is a rousing endorsement for salt. Either he’s not really seeing enough salt pools (six a year) for his phone to be ringing off the hook with disgruntled customers complaining about their pool deterioration issues in the harsh salt environment, or if it’s the latter and he’s only been out there on his own for a few years, then it hasn’t been long enough for his customers to be calling with the salt related complaints that start about midway through year two. You see, he’s avoiding the use of limestone and he probably learned not to sell diving boards with his salt pools, so the complaints typical of the first six months to a year aren’t happening to him. You need to factor in, too, that those customers he’s introduced you to who “just love him” may not represent 100% of his customer base. I know of builders who pay people to call their customers, pretending to be a prospective client, to hear what kind of referrals his customers give. The Good Ones go on the Referral List. The Not So Good Ones never see the light of day. It is, after all, Sales & Marketing.

But the point about the salt is that it will eventually damage all stone and concrete. Sooner or later. It’s just science. Higher chloride levels in the water result in supersaturation of the stone or cementious material and eventually the re-crystallization of the salt inside the stone will cause accelerated deterioration. People who argue that that’s not true are just Fast Buck Artists who want to ignore science so they can screw you out of the money you’re going to spend on their salt system. You can get into the loop of sealing and resealing your stone and concrete to try to prevent this from occurring, but why spend that money?

You also have all the metals to think about. Every metal in your pool that touches the electrolyte that you’ve turned your pool water into will deteriorate faster than it would if the salt weren’t present. Once again, it’s just science. To argue otherwise is just to argue for the sake of making a sale. Your heater, the metal parts of your auto cleaner – which should be a Polaris, by the way. The only thing intriguing about the Phantom is that there are still people who buy it - are all going to deteriorate on a much faster track than if your water had much, much lower choride levels (i.e., no salt). Period. It’s not a topic that needs further discussion. It Is Simply The Way Things Are.

You see, what you have to do is take a step back from the whole situation and take another perspective. And here is that perspective that’s vitally important that you see. About five or so years ago, the Manufacturer Reps came to the builders and told them, “I’ve got a New Gadget for your Sales Wheel. It’s going to put anywhere from $500 to an extra $1,000 in your pocket – that’s net, mind you, on the $1,500 to $2,000 Salt System sale – on every pool you build. And that’s going to boost your annual sales with us and you’re going to get even more money back at the end of the year because you spent an extra $1,000 with us on each pool you built. You’re going to love it.”

And they did, until the complaints started rolling in. So, now, they’re backing away from salt because they’re tired of paying for all that stone and concrete work. But they got used to that extra spot on the Sales Wheel, and without Salt, it’s empty. So, up jumps Ozone to fill the void. Why? Because the builders got used to the extra $1,000 a pool. If a guy’s doing a hundred pools a year, that’s a lot of profit to just walk away from.

So now, everybody’s selling Ozone. One little problem. In the Friday, September 28th issue of the Los Angeles Times, Section B, page B1, there was this little headline that read, “State bans home Ozone air purifiers”. The first paragraph of the article says, “The California Air Resources Board on Thursday banned popular in-home ozone air-purifiers, saying studies have found that they can worsen conditions such as asthma that marketers claim they help to prevent.”

Now, when I read that, it occurred to me how many times I’ve had my breath taken away when I popped the lid off a portable spa that was on and filtering and had an ozone generator – usually a UV ozonator. I had always attributed it to the chlorine or bromine. But California’s action here in dealing a blow to the Air Purifier industry makes me wonder if Ozonators for pools and especially for spas isn’t going to be next. I bring this up to point out that if you’re building a pool/spa combo, you’re going to be sitting in your spa with the ozonator running at max output, breathing the ozone (O3) that bubbles to the surface of the water. Don’t get me wrong; ozone is a great sanitizer. It is also an air pollutant. With the in-home air purifiers that California is banning, there “are reports of ozone being generated in someone’s living room… at levels equivalent to having a stage one smog alert right in your own house” (from the LA Times article) How is the ozone that bubbles up and is concentrated at the surface of your spa any different?

Google ozone and asthma and see how many and what quality of hits you get.

Like this:

http://www.epa.gov/03healthtraining/effects.html

Or this: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/asthma/AN00443

Now, those links represent the EPA and the Mayo Clinic, who both say that ozone exacerbates asthma, but I’m sure your pool builder will tell you “don’t worry, I’m sure they’re wrong”. That’s what they said about salt.

The bottom line is they were just looking for something to plug into the sales wheel where salt used to be, and ozone was standing there looking harmless and without any of the damaging structural side effects of salt, and so they’ve started selling it. They would no more take five minutes to Google any potential health risks associated with ozone exposure than they would fly to the moon.

So, once you’ve ungadgetized their bids, what you have left is running your pool on chlorine. Which will be just fine. We’ve been doing it for centuries. And granted, even chlorine comes with baggage. Google trihalomethanes and read up on their now proven link to cancer.

Like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trihalomethane

Read the definition and then click on “3 Water Pollutants” in the Contents box.

Moving On… You should love DE. It’s the best filter media. But if you’re not willing to give DE another shot, then go with the cartridge filter. Get a big one, over 500 square feet. You’ll be cleaning it less often. And the cartridges are probably down around 20 microns, although they claim that they’ll filter down to 10 microns. For comparison, a DE is as low as 5 microns when properly coated. A sand filter is a waste of money. A properly laid sand bed is about a 30 to 50 micron filter. Algae particles can be a lot smaller than that and blow right through a sand filter.

Another problem with sand; to keep up with summer water temps and debris here in Texas, you pretty much have to run a sand filter 24 hours a day. Cartridges and DE, about half that much time or even less. That's at least a 50% energy savings on running that filter pump, which if it's a single speed, high horsepower pump to filter the water AND run those spa jets, is probably costing you about $120.00 a month with DE or cartridge filters. Double that for sand. Every month. Forever. If you bring this up with your builder, he'll take that opportunity to sell you on the new variable speed pumps that are out. They're brand new. The only thing I know after twenty-five years in the Pool Biz is; Never Be The Guinea Pig. You buy it, you own it, whether it works out or not.

All of the current crop of cartridge filters have their drawbacks. Jandy is famous for cracked manifolds and flaky, special order – read expensive - air relief assemblies. Lots of Haywards blow through the little equalization screen attached to the manifold and blow debris back into the pool. And you need to wear long sleeves when dealing with a Pentair tank after the first couple of years. It seems to decompose a bit and flake off fiberglass – or whatever it is – all over you. And their drain plugs tend to crack and weep, too.

I don’t know a lot about the Jandy PDA’s. I like wireless better than wired, but I don’t see the installation savings in not having to wire all the way from the equipment pad to the house and to the spa side being passed on to the homeowner. They just tend to charge more for the wireless systems, which honestly cost more, but they make even more with the reduced installation costs.

As far as the soil… Just try to keep the ground around your pool irrigated so that it doesn’t have a chance to dry out and contract away from the structure. Water more often during droughts and less often when it rains, and choose a builder who guarantees his structure against leaking for as long as you own the pool. That’s pretty standard stuff.

As far as the Horns, most of my friends are Horns fans, so I’m happy to see them happy when the Horns win. But me, I'm an NFL guy. A Raider Fan lost in Cowboy Country. It's a vile habit I picked up when I lived Out West, harder to kick than black tar heroin, but RIGHT NOW and until the end of the day Sunday, the Raiders are in first place in their Division, which is so NOT what all the experts predicted just a few short weeks ago, now is it? If you remember, it was supposed to be the Chargers. Objectively speaking, the Chargers had a good team and they had Marty Schottenheimer, who has very few shortcomings and was getting them closer and closer. But they fired him and hired Norv Turner, who is 59 and 85 as a head coach. He's had four winning seasons in his 9 going on 10 years of coaching, and 3 of those 4 were nothing more than one or two games above .500 ball. His worst seasons have been split equally among the Redskins and the Raiders, posting records like 3 & 13 and 4 & 12. And the guy the Chargers fired, Marty, was 14 & 2 last year with a 200 & 126 lifetime coaching record. Hell, even Art Shell has a better record than Norv Turner (56 & 52).God-That-Was-Such-A-Stupid-Move-I-Cant-Believe-It...

But what’s that got to do with pools, huh? Last but not least, if after all my heartfelt advise to STAY AWAY FROM SALT, you choose it anyway, make sure you bank every penny you’re supposedly saving on chlorine, because three years of running your pump like you’re going to run it to keep up with all those leaves and debris, you’re going to be popping for a new Salt Cell, which can cost as much as $600.

Because no matter what They say, There Is No Free Lunch.

Good Luck With Your Pool.

Stray Currents Are Dissolving
Your Salt Swimming Pool

I finally see how the manufacturers get away with selling you something that does so much damage to your pool while their sales continue to increase and no one comes along and shuts them down.

It’s because it’s hard work finding out about this stuff. And that’s what they’re counting on. They’re depending on the fact that none of us in the business who work on the user end of these Trojan Horses will have time to do more than bitch to each other about what their product is doing to all the pools, and that you pool owners, since you’re only looking at one pool, won’t have anything to compare it to and won’t ever draw the conclusion that if you get shocked when you reach for the ladder or hand rail and after extensive and expensive troubleshooting an electrician tells you that it’s because your bonding lugs have dissolved off your bonding wire, that it’s all because of your salt system.

I’m a perfect example of that. I looked at these problems and wondered what was going on for a long, long time before I wrote my first blog piece last September. And I wrote it and posted it in pure frustration that, as badly as the pools were dissolving right before my very eyes, nobody seemed like they were even thinking about not selling salt systems to new pool owners. I’d show up at a brand new pool and see about 120 feet of beautiful limestone coping, several hundred square feet of white Mexican travertine pavers, six or eight brass pencil jets or fan sprayers, maybe even one of those really slick high end, brass sheer descents, and a Goldline or Zodiac salt system to go along with it all. I would be standing there looking at what I knew was going to look like the surface of the moon - with copper stains - in a little over a year, and I’d want to cry.

Knowing what I know, how was I supposed to congratulate the new owners on their beautiful new pool and then just keep my mouth shut and take their money for cleaning their pool each week, and then play dumb when they came to me a year later asking me for answers?

As you can see, I didn’t keep my mouth shut. Not only did I start telling my customers what I knew and what I suspected, but I posted a blog piece. One single blog piece. Then, a fella named Baboosa wrote and said, "Nice ! You did that so well and never even touched on the part about galvanic corrosion and how salt systems help sell heat exchangers."

And off I went looking at galvanic corrosion. Which led to looking at sacrificial zinc anodes. Which led back to a harder look at why the limestone and sand stone were being destroyed. Which eventually led to exploding chorinators. Which led... well, the point I’m trying to make here is that every topic, except the first one I posted, has been written as a result of getting an e-mail or a phone call or having a face to face conversation with people in our industry who are just as concerned about all of this as I am. One by one, they said, "Hey, Pool Guy, take a look at enter disastrous side effect here ".

Now get a load of this. Most of them could make more money if they would just keep their mouth’s shut and sell salt systems. None of them are manufacturers of competing products - like ozonators or tab feeders or anything else. They are, almost exclusively, service, repair, and construction folks, and salt pool owners.

Not to say that salt’s competition hasn’t tried to influence me. If you’re a regular reader, I’m sure you remember Jeff Jones’ ill advised e-mails. Then, two weeks ago, Tim Dickson, Director of Business Development for Chemilizer Products thought that maybe I could introduce him to all these pool builders I talk to who have become disillusioned with salt, because he’s just positive that his product is the answer to their prayers. And just this week, Chris Brennan, East Coast Sales Manager for UltraPure ozone generators offered to give me a free unit for "your test and evaluation at no cost".

But getting back to what I started out to talk about. I only get one morning a week to do this blog. My wife likes to sleep in on Sunday mornings - which I’m sure to some of you makes us Godless Heathens, or Seventh Day Adventists. Take a wild ass guess which - so I take that one morning of the week to put down on plasma what has been percolating in my head all week. The process starts with one of you telling me something and then me having that on my mind - like a dog with a bone - as I go from pool to pool all week long. Then I regurgitate it here.

As far as I know, this blog, and two articles in Pool & Spa News, are the sum total of opposition to the idea that salt should rule the pool world. Yet nearly all of us who have worked with salt and aren’t blinded by greed and avarice think it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to our industry.

And, sadly, that’s why salt sales are still on the upswing. Even when there are builders out there who write me e-mails like this:

"Pool Guy,

I read your material with great interest and wish to encourage you to keep up the fight. I run a reasonably large pool company... that has been building pools... for 30 years. We started using salt systems about 15 years ago when they were in their infancy (we tend to be front runners on pool issues). We started with units like the Lectronator and other arcane units. During [a] 15 year period... almost every [in-ground vinyl liner] pool we built (about 200 a year) had a salt system on it.
My indoctrination was in the form of countless service calls for staining, [electrical] shocking, and a host of other "unrelated" issues. I spent a year tracking complaints, making voltage checks, resistance checks, breaking down different units into its components and so forth. What I found was exactly what I expected given the construction of this system in the form of a battery. What I could not understand was the industry manufacturers with their (what I understand now to be scripted) answers to my problems. As you say, it ranged from "grounding issues", improper materials, low grade stainless, and on and on. Especially frustrating was that we all knew how long we had been in business and that the only common denominator [to all these problems] was the salt system. By the time I had amassed my data, based on the soil type and condition of an install, I was able to tell the manufacturer of the last generator we were using what the stray voltage amount would be and how long before the stains and corrosion would appear. Like I said, we tried [5 different major manufacturer’s salt systems]. In the end, we decided that there was insufficient profit in pursuing what was clearly a damaging component.

Over the years, we have dealt with all manner of product that has one or more detrimental effects on a pool. But not until these salt systems had we encountered a unit that deals a blow to the entire pool. I think the biggest single factor was the propensity to negatively effect the grounding system around the pool. The stray current in the system created an environment where the grounding lugs would corrode off and leave large portions of the pool disconnected and very prone to shocking our customers. Whether it was hand rails or coping sections, it made the whole pool experience less inviting.

It is nice to see that the rest of the industry is finally learning what we already know--salt systems are evil. What is going to suck for everyone is when customers discover that these are known problems--it might be a tobacco settlement fight scenario with everyone wanting to be made whole."

So, you can start to see how this blog really isn’t written by me. I mean, if I was on my own here, the only experience I’d have to call on are the pools I see. And I would never hear about stuff like this. Neither would you, for that matter. That’s why things like this blog and the few truly open pool forums out there are so important. This is a perfect example. Here’s a guy who did a yoeman’s job to support a new technology for fifteen years, at great expense to his company. All along the way, he documented his problems and tried over and over again, with five different salt systems, to integrate them into the pool environments he was building. To no avail.

And here’s why: Ohm’s Law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_and_parallel_circuits

If you never took a course in basic electricity, then reading about parallel circuits at Wikipedia won’t really help you understand what’s going on. But if you think of it as a plumbing situation, it’ll be easier to see. Electrons, like water, follow the path of least resistance. If you have a big pipe and you’re pushing water through it, then you’ll have 100% of the water come out the other end of that pipe. If you plumb a bunch of tiny pipes, even as tiny as a strand of hair, onto your big pipe then some of that water is going to follow the path of least resistance and flow down those little pipes, too. Granted, almost all of the water is still going to come out at the end of the big pipe, but some will be lost down those little pipes.

Now, think about your salt cell. What we’re doing is literally jumping current flow from one cell plate to the other using salty water as our conductor. You see, the salt not only makes the chlorine, but it makes the water more conductive - turns it into an electrolyte - so that this whole thing can happen. Think of that gap between the plates as our big pipe. Most of the current flows harmlessly from one plate to the other. Now, think of the distance from those cell plates and your heater heat exchanger as one of the little tiny pipes. Some of the current is going to flow there.

It Has To. It’s Ohm’s Law. It’s The Way Things Work. It’s Science.

And this is also where our old friend Galvanic Corrosion comes into play.

http://thepoolbiz.blogspot.com/2006/10/why-salt-sucks-so-do-i-have-your.html

Depending on how anodic or cathodic on the Galvanic Index the metal is, that will determine how big it’s tiny pipe is. Like Tim Mott at Pool Plaza said about the salt system blowing through the guy’s stainless steel filter in one month.

http://thepoolbiz.blogspot.com/2007/02/comments-lost-in-shuffle-i-have-posted.html

The filter tanks are stainless, way up the list from titanium on the Galvanic Index, and the filter tanks aren’t grounded. They bear the whole brunt of the Stray Current and Galvanic Mismatch Attack. The light rings are next, because they’re stainless, too. But they’re grounded and so they last longer. The heaters are next up because copper is closer to titanium and so presents less of a difference of potential. But it still makes a tiny pipe and draws a little current. If the heater is properly grounded, then most of the current is shunted to that bare copper bonding wire, and it flows down that wire to the, oops, brass bonding lug, another Galvanic Mismatch, where the induced current flow causes Galvanic Corrosion to accelerate in proportion to the amount of the Stray Current. Eventually, you disintegrate the lug or the wire. Then, nothing is bonded to earth ground. Now we kick the damage done by Stray Currents into high gear. The metals can’t shunt the current flow to their bare copper bonding wire, because it’s not grounded any more, and the metals bear the full brunt of the attack like the ungrounded stainless steel filter tank did, and they start to disintegrate.

You can go right down the list of the metals that have to be in your pool and pretty much predict which metal will fail first and last. That’s why the heater manufacturers are changing from copper to cupro nickel headers because, once again, it’s closer to titanium on the Galvanic Index. Mostly these days the only reason they use metals at all is because they haven’t figured out how to build a plastic heat exchanger that won’t melt. And they don’t know how to conduct electricity through plastic, either.

But, hey, how much current are we talking about? I mean, the current flow between the plates must be pretty small to begin with. Right? Well, Goldline, which is the only one I could find who publishes the current flow for their cell, puts it at 4.5 to 7.8 amps, using 22 to 25 Volts DC.

According to this guy;

http://www.mikeholt.com/documents/powerquality/Shock_Stray.pdf

"The majority of people can feel 0.003 to 0.004 amperes". This is a research paper about the electrical shock hazards due to Stray Currents. So 7.8 amps, the max current flow between a salt cell’s plates, is 2,600 times more than the 0.003 amps, or 3 milliamps, that you can feel. And if I remember my US Navy Basic Electricity and Electronics Ratings Course, 10 milliamps is enough to cause paralysis and 100 milliamps is enough to kill you. That’s one tenth of one amp, and we have 7.8 of them.

Now, I’m not saying that people are dying by the bushel basket in salt swimming pools. I’m saying that there are, by the immutable laws of physics, Stray Currents that go hand in hand with a salt system on your swimming pool. And I’m saying that over time, those Stray Currents will cause deterioration of the grounding and bonding of the other equipment that supports your pool and will cause damage to the bonding connections which keep your pool safe to swim in even though it’s operated with electricity for everything from your pump to your heater to your lights.

The definition of Stray Currents is electrical current through a path other than the intended path, these unintended paths being those little pipes branching off of the big pipe. According one website:

"Stray current corrosion results from (direct) current flow through paths other than the intended circuit. For example, by any extraneous current in the earth. This type of corrosion is sometimes also called "electrolysis" , because of its mechanism.... Generally, stray current corrosion is caused by uncontrolled electrical currents (DC is most harmful) from extraneous sources through unintended paths... These are mostly the result of bad earth return on electrical equipment, giving rise to leakage of currents through metal structures and other preferentially conductive paths... If current passes in and out the metal structure, an electrolysis cell is set up (hence the name: ‘electrolysis’ sometimes used for stray current corrosion). As a result, the area where the positive current exits the metal structure is forced to react as an anodic site. This causes the local oxidation (corrosion reaction) of the metal piece, which may lead to a rapid consumption of the metal and, eventually, to a complete penetration of a metal wall (e.g., from a pipeline, etc.)."

When you read this, it makes you realize that installing a salt system on a swimming pool and then pouring salt into the water is the only way that you can make this type of corrosion attack a swimming pool. Salt Cells use DC current, and like the paragraph above says, "DC is most harmful".

Of course, if you ask a salt system manufacturer about Stray Currents, they’re going to tell you that they don’t exist. Because in the Land of Sales & Marketing, the Laws of Physics are suspended until your check clears.

But if that’s true, then why is the Pool Tool Company, an outfit that’s been making special tools for us Pool Guys for more than 35 years, doing a land office business in sacrificial zinc anodes? To quote their page, the in-line zinc anode is:

"A Must For Salt Water Pools

[Stops]

Plaster Discoloration
Metal Erosion
Heater Damage
Black Stains Around the Pool Light

The in-line zinc anode is attached to the bonding wire thereby protecting all metal parts against the effects of electrolysis. The see-through housing allows the anodeto be easily replaced when depleted."

They sell two other sacrificial zinc anode products, both designed for use only with salt pools. See for yourself:

http://www.pooltool.com/index.php


Yet salt system sales continue to rise. Because there’s hundreds of Them working long days every day to tell you why you Just Gotta Have Salt! While there’s only a few of us who manage to get a few hours a week to try to tell you that you’re better off drilling extra holes in your head than you are blowing twelve hundred bucks on a salt system.

But if the builder who sent me that e-mail is right and enough independent research gets done to prove that the manufacturers had to know about these problems, then the fit really will hit the shan. He also sent me some of his comparison voltage readings between nearly identical pools, one with fresh water and one with salt, and next week I’ll post those along with some readings I’m going to take on my pools.

This is all I have time for this week and I know it’s beyond plenty to read and digest. The fact that it's too much is, after all, what they’re counting on.

Maybe somebody else could start another salt blog and lend me a hand baling all this salty water. I’d really appreciate it.

A Long Post, But Worth the Read










A few weeks ago, I opened an e-mail to find this:

Poolguy,

I have read you blog and it is very interesting to say the least. I have been in the pool industry since 1976 and have been through the Lectronator, Uniclor, Kreepy Kleer and all the other type of salt units. I have probably remove [sic] over 250 salt units in all my service years in consumers backyards. In the earlier years of salt units we saw the same issues with corrosion of hand rails, diving board stands/jigs and even hard scapes like cool deck and cantilever decks. The difference between than and now is the majority of pools are done with stone coping (which have iron in them) and stone everywhere else around the pool instead of the iron spot brick or precast coping that was so prevalent in the 70s and 80s.

Consumers are driving the current market trend unlike that of the 70's and 80's where salt was driven by the manufacturer. Del Ozone manufacturers a salt and ozone system but unlike numerous other manufacturers we have been upfront from the start and explained that SALT IS CORROSIVE! The best thing a homeowner or consumer can do is get their water hose and wash of all area of traffic that have residual salt on them, such as the caps of spas, entry areas and loveseats. As we know the corrosion issue isn't with what's in the pool body but the product that is left behind after the water evaporate which is 100% corrosive salt.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey W Jones
Del Ozone
The Complete Ozone Company
National Sales Director
Residential Pool Division
1-(800)-676-1335 Ext.291
Fax:972-529-2245
Cell:214-415-2510
jjones@delozone.com

Now, I know this guy. I’ve seen him and talked to him at trade shows and association meetings back when he was reping Letro Legends. I never bought his Letro’s, but that’s just because I’d rather see my daughter in a... uh... never mind. Suffice it to say, my dislike of Letros has nothing to do with Jeff. He was always straight up when he talked about his product. And like all salesmen, he was convinced that his product was the absolute best product of it’s kind on planet earth and you had to be stupid not to buy it. But that’s how he’s supposed to act. That’s why they call it Sales & Marketing and not Truth & Full Disclosure.

The first thing I did after I read this e-mail - after I picked myself up off the floor, that is - was to shoot back an e-mail to him, just to find out if it was really from Jeff Jones and not someone spoofing me. So, I went to Del Ozone’s website and looked up his e-mail address there, and copied and pasted that e-mail address into the Send To part of my e-mail to him, instead of just hitting Respond and sending it back to who know’s who? And this is what I wrote:

Mr. Jones,

Your e-mail is a breath of fresh air. So far, you're the only salt system manufacturer's representative that has allowed any opinion other than "salt is great" to cross their lips. Thank you for being candid. I'm writing for two reasons:

1. May I publish your e-mail in my blog? I'm not going to pitch your product. I'm not going to say that you make a better salt chlorinator. I'm going to say that there is at least one company who owns up to the fact that the system they sell uses a known corrosive; salt, just as your e-mail states. I'll do my best to withhold my usual sarcasm and doomsday tone and just present your e-mail as it is written.

2. I want to verify that the e-mail is from you. I would hate to publish it and then get a fiery response from Del Ozone that your e-mail account had been hijacked and I had been duped. Forgive me for being skeptical. I just don't get many e-mails from salt system manufacturer's rep's admitting that anything I say is right.

I have an observation. The few builders I have talked to who have given up on salt are looking for something to plug into that gap on their options list, and more than one of them is plugging in ozone. Looks like a right place, right time sort of thing for you. Good luck.

The Pool Guy

I didn’t have to wait long for an answer. I posted my e-mail at 9:50 am and had a response by 11:00 am the same day. And here it is:

Poolguy,

I don't mind you publishing my e-mail but I do sell salt because of the consumer demand. It needs to be stated that there is a way to avoid the corrosion issue. I have had salt on my pool in Dallas, Texas for the past two years and my pool doesn't have any signs of these issues. The pool is surrounded by Oklahoma flagstone but I have taken the steps to prevent corrosion. Consumers drive this market because they love the way the water feels, their hair is softer and less irritation on the eyes and skin.

Salt is great product when we inform the consumers to maintain their pools just like we do our cars. Precautions must be taken with salt just like they have to be taken with muratic acid and chlorine. I have seen a car with corrosion on it because the consumer stored the acid in the garage next to the car. We don't stop selling acid because the homeowner wasn't informed that this could have happened. We must take precautions with salt and the best way is dilution. Homeowners must be informed to wash off all areas of their coping, decks, water features and traffic areas. Just like the water in the pool isn't corrosive, these "problem areas" should be diluted to avoid any types of erosion.

There has been a major lack of education toward the consumers with some industry professionals actually telling people that you don't have to shock a pool with a salt system and the pool is maintenance free. That's when homeowners shut their blinds and the pool became "out of sight, out of mind". That is where this "salt problem" popped up. Mainly a lack of education for the consumer and a lack of knowledge from some of the industry people. This could have been avoid [sic] by just looking through the window of the past 30 years and we could have seen that this isn't a new phenomenon. We have substantially more units in circulation now than we did in the 70s and 80s, that's why we see more issues but the issues were still there if a little research would have been done.

Del Ozone has and will continue to be up front and honest about the issues of salt and ozone. The pool industry can not afford to have another black eye but salt systems can be a viable alternative to chlorine erosion feeders. When we sell a salt system, education must be added to the sale.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey W Jones
Del Ozone
The Complete Ozone Company
National Sales Director
Residential Pool Division
1-(800)-676-1335 Ext.291
Fax:972-529-2245
Cell:214-415-2510
jjones@delozone.com

I’m sitting there, reading this second e-mail and I’m trying really hard to buy into it. I’m trying really hard to take this guy at face value and believe that this is just an honest effort at - could it be? - Full Disclosure.

So, I wander over to the Del Ozone website to see how Del Ozone is taking the lead in informing consumers about the corrosive effects of salt, because “unlike numerous other manufacturers we [Del Ozone] have been upfront from the start and explained that SALT IS CORROSIVE!”

I looked and looked and looked. It’s not there. That information that salt is corrosive isn’t there.

Then, I downloaded their Owner’s Manual for their combo salt and ozone system and read it from cover to cover. The information is not there. There’s not a single word or idea about these maintenance actions that Jeff’s referring to - like hosing down all your hardscape each time after you take a swim - reflected anywhere in any Del Ozone literature that I could find on their website. Not anywhere.

So, this must be a silent campaign to inform the consumer that pssst...salt is corrosive.

I am so sorry, Jeff. I tried not to be snarky about this. But look on the bright side. You Sales & Marketing guys always say, “There’s no such thing as bad advertising”. Let’s see how well that theory holds up. Okay?

So, I wrote back:

Mr. Jones,

Thank you. I will publish both of your e-mails together. I've got two pieces in the works, so it may be a week or two before they get in the blog. I agree with much of what you're saying, that there has been a huge disconnect between the sale of, and the education for, salt systems. But let's be frank. That goes back to each of the manufacturers. Everybody at that level of investment had the data. And they had a responsibility to share that data with the builders. It was written in Australia for the last twenty years or more. But it didn't make it across the pond. All that the builders were told was that "Salt's great! Sell lots! There is no down side!"

That may not sound fair, but it is the truth.

You have made some excellent points about how to minimize the impact of salt on a pool and the surrounding environment. Not one word of that kind of advice has ever made it into anyone's Owner's Manual.

Over the years, I've done a lot of start ups, and I've done hundreds of Pool Schools, and the thing that I've seen over and over again is that people really do want and read the Owner's Manuals. They skip over the installation instructions, because it's already installed, but they read the operations and maintenance sections. That's where that information needs to be. It also ought to be addressed, as part of full disclosure, at the point of sale. And let's be honest. It never is.

That is exactly why the tone of my blog is so contentious. I am the counterweight to that lack of education. I am the natural consequence to the kind of marketing that's been done for salt systems so far. We used to be just the cranky old men at the back of the room at the monthly trade group meetings, or the guy who would loud-talk you a bit when he passed your booth at the trade show.

The internet has changed all that. It has given us a voice to tell the consumer what we see out there at their pools after the sale.

My point being, guys like me aren't going away. We will just multiply. And the unfortunate thing for any industry that is criticized by a blog or a forum, even if they make a big push to address the issues, those blog entries and forum rants sit out there in cyberspace forever, waiting for the next Google search to turn them up along with the manufacturer's website. I believe it will make a big difference in the coming years in the care given to product bugs and shortcomings before product launch.

I'll publish your information in my blog. But how about beefing it up and posting it on Del Ozone's website and including it in your Owner's Manuals? The information is going to get out there and it just makes sense that you would want it to get out there couched in more temperate language than it is in places like my blog and the pool forums. Or, you could just post a link to my blog... Just kidding.

One last thing. You say you have Oklahoma flagstone. I have lots of pools on service with salt and Oklahoma, and most of those pools are very dusty, as the salt water penetrates the stone, evaporates, leaves the salt behind, the salt crystallizes and tends to turn the top layer of the Oklahoma to a fine dust. I went to a pool a few weeks ago, maintained for a couple of years by the homeowner, with lots and lots Oklahoma and the whole back of the pool was a rock waterfall (probably a $120,000 pool) and their pool was so thick with that dust that you couldn't see the pebbles in their pebbletec in large areas. Of course, they never suction vacuum, just relying on the Polaris to clean the pool. Do you see any dust in your pool? Have you sealed your stone? If so, what sealer do you recommend?

The Pool Guy

I haven’t heard from him since. Perhaps he’s still looking up that info on the stone sealer for me. Or perhaps he’s wishing he had never thrown his hat in this ring.

Because now he’s on record. He said it. Salt is corrosive. It damages hardscape and metal. The Pool Guy’s not seeing things. Jeff Jones, representing Del Ozone, admits that he’s seen all these problems, too. Further, he admits that his product, just like everybody else’s salt system, causes these problems.

And I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m throwing the guy under the bus for being honest. He sent his first e-mail to me on 1/13/07. That was fifteen days ago. Are you telling me that in 15 days an entire corporation couldn’t add a single page to their website about how to prevent damage from salt evaporation? I’m hear to tell you, it ain’t that hard. I add a page every weekend, in my spare time.

And, too, I feel a bit like Lewis Black must have felt when he was asked by the President’s staff to be the comedian/host for the White House Press Club dinner. Lewis had been none too kind to the President over the last six years, and so asked, “What’s wrong with your boss? Hasn’t he seen my act?”

What really got me was when Jeff said, “when we sell a salt system, education must be added to the sale”.

That is such an empty statement.

Let me explain why. I’m a pool guy. I have accounts at the local distributors. I can go down there right now, today, and buy one of Jeff’s salt/ozone systems. The distributor, who sells every manufacturer’s stuff, will set it on the loading dock without a single solitary word of explanation or education. Then, I take it to your house, open the box, read the installation instructions and install your salt/ozone system. Then I hand you the Owner’s Manual, the warranty card, pick up my check and we’re done.

There’s no Del Ozone University that I have to attend before I’m authorized to install their stuff. Anybody in the pool business can buy and sell their stuff. And even in states with more licensing than the Great State of Texas, I’m betting there’s not a single question on the contractor’s exams prompting the installers to make sure they tell the folks about the corrosive nature of salt on metals and hardscape.

So, where is all this education supposed to come from? From the installer to the pool owner? Where’s the installer’s training material so he knows what to teach them? It’s not in the box that the salt/ozone system came in. From the company? It’s not on their website or on any of their printed brochures. What should we use? Osmosis?

Jeff will probably respond with some yadayada about how the info is being passed on via their factory training seminars. Great. Then let’s only let people who have attended those seminars sell and install Del Ozone equipment. No? You say that would narrow the market? Exactly.

These days, probably more than half the visitors to this blog are pool owners. The rest, pool industry folks. So I have a question for you pool owners. Did anyone tell you at the point of sale that you would need to hose down your high traffic areas and all your water features and waterfalls on a regular basis and that if you didn’t your hardscpae would disintegrate? Second question: If they had told you that, would you still have bought your salt system?

Of course they didn’t, and of course you wouldn’t have bought it if they had. So, it’s easy to say, “we must educate the consumer”. But not too much. Because then they won’t buy.

But when it rains it pours around here. A month ago you couldn’t get a salt rep to say anything except “Salt’s great!” Now, they’re falling out of the trees. It turns out Jeff’s not the only salt system manufacturer’s rep who admits there’s issues with the salt systems they sell.

Sean Assam of AutoPilot recently posted a rant to a pool forum where he just got all up in everybody’s stuff about salt getting the blame for everything, culminating with;

Staining from salt, sure I would admit to that occuring (sic) with certain salts.

Corrosion from salt, sure I would admit to high chlorine or over salting a pool causing a certain level of corrosion damage.

Electrolysis? yeah, if the pool isn't bonded properly, installed correctly, or there's an electrical grid issue, there may be stray voltage introduced into the pool due to a salt system.

Sorry for being long in my response. I think I'll take this up in the China Shop.

Sean AssamCommercial Product Sales Manager
Aqua Cal Inc. / AutoPilot Systems Inc.
www.autopilot.com
www.aquacal.com

If you want to read the whole rant, you can find it here:

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=6383&page=2

The title of the thread is, “Do salt chlorine generators damage limestone/masonry?” and, by the way, the short answer is “yes”.

If the pool isn’t bonded properly? Do you know what that is? There’s a single bare copper wire that’s supposed to run, unbroken, all the way around the pool, be tied to the pool shell via the rebar, run to all the pool and spa lights and then run over and tie to all the pool equipment. A single unbroken bare copper wire. So, make sure you dig that thing up and verify that your whole pool is bonded properly before you install that salt system. The manufacturer just said so. Said that if you didn’t you’d suffer the ravages of electrolysis.

And electrical grid issues? Does anybody even know what he’s talking about?

It’s amazing how many problems these guys are willing to admit to when you get them out of the trade show booth, isn’t it?

Now, in fairness, I ought to go look at AutoPilot’s website, like I did Del Ozone’s, so I can say unequivocally that staining, corrosion and stray currents from the electrolysis process aren’t addressed in any AutoPilot material. But I’m just going to make a wild assumption here and say they’re probably not.

What do you think?

The main issues here that they’ve admitted to - quite a while after the sale, I might add - are as follows:

1. Corrosion does occur with salt systems. Both Del Ozone and AutoPilot have made statements quoted here that clearly support that corrosion due to salt is not a “theory that needs investigation”, but a fact, a problem that is part and parcel of using salt.

2. There are unpredictable and damaging “stray currents” associated with the electrolysis process.

3. Salt water damages Oklahoma flagstone. Like Jeff said, his “pool is surrounded by Oklahoma flagstone but” he has “taken the steps to prevent corrosion.” Ergo, he knows that if he doesn’t take preventative steps, damage to the stone will occur. My opinion is he’s just slowing the damage by washing the stone down. The salty water that penetrates during the hours that the pool is being used isn’t completely flushed out from deep inside stone by surface washing with a garden hose. But that’s an argument for another day. Suffice it to say, he admits that it occurs.

4. Del Ozone now says, via their National Sales Director, that homeowners “must be informed to wash off all areas of their coping, decks, water features and traffic areas.” They admit that this is MUST HAVE information for salt system pool owners, yet except for that statement in these two e-mail, there’s no other evidence that they are disseminating that information to the public or even to the companies that install their system. Reality Check: Jeff Jones just spent this weekend at the Texas Pool & Spa Show. Did anyone who attended that show and looked at Del Ozone’s new ozone/salt system hear Jeff or his salesmen cautioning anyone about how important it is to be “up front and honest” about the potential ravages of salt systems? Did they hand out any information about how to properly care for hardscape and metals?

5. Del Ozone, via their National Sales Director, says that there “has been a major lack of education toward the consumers with some industry professionals actually telling people that you don't have to shock a pool with a salt system and the pool is maintenance free.” yet, there isn’t a single word spent in either the brochure or Owner’s Manual for their ozone/salt system to dispel this myth or in any way talks about the need to shock the pool. It’s just not there. The tone of that remark is that the folks at the point of sale, guys like me, are the ones responsible for that kind of misinformation.

Allow me to retort:

“No need to buy, transport and store expensive chlorine compounds” - Pentair Intellichlor chlorine generator marketing information.

http://www-1.pentairwater.com/jwcs/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=149651&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=17251

“AquaPure™ and PureLink™ are self-contained, compact sanitizing systems that fulfill all of your pool's sanitizing needs” - Jandy chlorine generator marketing information.

http://www.jandy.com/html/products/chlorinegenerators/

“You only need to check the pH and total alkalinity periodically” - Zodiac Clearwater chlorine generator marketing information.

http://www.clearwater-usa.com/

“No more mixing, measuring or messing with harsh chemicals. No more hassles buying, storing, measuring chlorine” - Hayward Goldline Aqua Rite chlorine generator marketing information

http://www.goldlinecontrols.com/Products/Default.aspx

“No more hassles storing or handling packaged chlorine” - Ecomatic chlorine generator marketing information.

http://www.balboainstruments.com/page218.html

“No More Buying Chlorine” - AutoPilot chlorine generator marketing information.

http://www.autopilot.com/total-control-system/autopilot-total-control-system.html

So, maybe that’s where salt pool owner’s got the idea that they didn’t have to shock their pools any more. From the manufacturers.

And, finally, I want to report a story I heard from the just completed Texas Pool & Spa Show. The Jandy rep was pitching one of his new really splashy kind of water features to a crowd of pool men at his show booth. One of the pool guys asked, "what about using something like that with a salt pool?", and without batting an eye, the rep said, "It's okay because all of the water's going to fall back into the pool".

This pool guy had obviously seen deck damage due to salt water splash-out, subsequent evaporation and residue concentration (salt attack), but all the rep was interested in was not saying anything that might narrow his market for this new splashy thingy to only non-salt pools.

The photo at the top of this blog entry is of limestone coping above a standard sheer descent water feature on a salt pool. Can you see the significant deterioration just from the slight amount of aeration that occurs as that ribbon of water falls out of that sheer descent? See how the damage is localized to those first few inches at the edge of the stone, and as you go further back, away from the source of the aeration, we're back to smooth stone again? Well, this new splashy thingy of Jandy’s causes ten times that much aeration. But like I said, that’s why they call it Sales & Marketing, and not Truth & Full Disclosure.

Say it Loud, Say it Proud; These Sales Reps Are Not Your Friends.

I think, though, that the old adage, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” holds true. Be honest. How many of you had ever even heard of Del Ozone or AutoPilot before you read this blog? I’m nothing but an unwitting pawn in their word-of-mouth marketing campaign.

So, to all you Salt Reps out there. Keep them cards and letters coming. I’ll post them all. With comments, of course.

Res Ipsa Loquitur.