You’re probably here because your salt chlorine generator told you that the salt levels in your pool were too high or too low. Luckily, adding salt or replacing water in your pool is a pretty simple process. I’ll walk you through:
- What the right salt levels are for your swimming pool
- How to calculate the volume of water in your pool
- How to calculate how much salt you need to add to your pool or how much water to replace
- Additional tips for salt water pool maintenance
Ready? Let’s get started.
What’s the Right Level of Salt For Your Pool?
The optimal range for salt in your pool is 2,700-3,400 ppm (parts per million), with 3,200 ppm being ideal.
What’s parts per million mean? It’s just a scientific unit of measurement, but don’t worry, you don’t need to know the ins and outs of ppm. The only thing you need to do is test your pool water to get a reading of the current salt ppm levels.
How Do You Test Your Salt Levels?
It’s pretty simple. Your salt chlorine generator should give you a reading for how much salt is currently in your pool. However, if you don’t have that reading, you can use a salt testing kit to get an accurate measurement. Once you’ve done that, you’ll know if you’re above or below the ideal salt range that I mentioned above. If you’re above it, you’ll need to replace your current pool water with new water. If you’re below it, you add more salt.
Calculating Pool Volume
Before you can know how much salt to add or water to replace, you have to know how much water is currently in your pool. Use our pool volume calculator below, and then we’ll move on to dialing in the right salt levels.
Okay, all set? Let’s move on to the salt calculations.
Calculating How Much Salt to Add
Use the calculator below to figure out how much salt to add or water to replace in your pool. All you need to do is plug in your pool volume (which you calculated above) and your current salt levels (which you tested for) and hit “calculate.” I already plugged in the ideal salt level of 3,200 ppm, but if you feel strongly that you want it to be lower or higher, you can adjust it as needed.
And it’s as simple as that!
Salt Water Pool Maintenance
Here is more of our research to help you confidently maintain your salt water pool.
- Saltwater pool maintenance guide. We go through the basics of keeping your pool in pristine condition.
- Pool salt options. Don’t know what kind of pool salt to buy? Read this guide.
- Salt chlorine generators guide. Everything you need to know about this critical piece of equipment for your pool.
- How to test salt level in your pool. A quick article on the different options for testing salt levels.
- How to tell if your salt cell needs replacing. Learn how to determine when to replace this important piece of equipment.
- Saltwater swimming pool basics. Are you considering building one? Start here.
- How to convert a pool to saltwater. If you’re thinking about flipping a traditional chlorine pool to a saltwater pool, here’s how to do it.
- How to lower salt levels in your pool. If you added too much salt, here’s what happens and the next steps you should take.
- Opening a saltwater pool. There are a few different steps you need to take to open your pool for the season.
Questions? Shoot me a message, and I’ll be glad to help.
