In modern life people are very busy, they usually work long hours and struggle to find balance between work and private life. For this reason they tend to purchase different automated systems so they can devote more time to their family and friends. Due to lack of time, however, quite often the regular service of these systems is skipped and the benefits of preventative maintenance are overlooked. Some of the benefits of regular maintenance include increased efficiency, cost saving and an extended life of the system.

Despite what you may see in advertisements or what some distributors and manufacturers claim, salt water chlorine generators are not completely maintenance free systems. Your salt water chlorinator requires some regular inspections and service, same as your filtration system and other pool equipment. One of the things, which need to be inspected, is a level of calcium build-up occurring on the electrodes of your cell. Depending on your water balance and what type of salt water chlorinator you have, this build-up can range from 1-2 mm in a year to 1 cm in 2-4 weeks.

Over recent years Salt Water Chlorination (SWC) has gained favour as a safe, reliable and economic method of disinfection. It is well suited to the treatment of swimming pools. While the capital cost may be a consideration, the significantly lower operating cost and high level of safety means salt water chlorinator is appropriate in many instances.

Traditionally the preferred method of disinfection of swimming pools was chlorine in liquid or tablet form. Although this method is very effective, the risk of transporting and handling such a dangerous chemical has meant many chlorine-dosing systems were phased out in favour of alternate systems such as Salt Water Chlorinators. Saltwater chlorination is a process of sanitising water, using chlorine that is produced in the pool water from ordinary salt.

Calcium Saturation Index is the measure of your water's ability to be saturated by dissolved minerals, particularly calcium carbonate. When the CSI level is too high there will be excessive scale production, if it's too low - the water will start acting in a corrosive manner. Either of these states will greatly reduce the life and effectiveness of your electrolytic cell. If water is corrosive, it may also damage the finish of your pool, as it will leech calcium from it until the saturation point is reached. This does not apply to fiberglass pools or pools with vynil liner (aboveground pools).

Many people in charge of swimming pools with high bathing load complain about not being able to reduce the level of combined chlorine (CC) below 50% of free chlorine (FC) level, i.e. 0.5-1ppm CC for 1-2 ppm FC. Values above these can create problems with lowering CC level, even if shock treatment (super chlorination) is applied. One thing to keep in mind is that there are two different types of chloramines, and their treatment requires two different approaches.

When hypochlorite or chlorine gas is added to the water, it forms hypochlorous acid (HOCl), which acts as a disinfectant (kills bacteria, algae etc) as well as oxidiser (removes organic and inorganic impurities). This is the desired effect. The side effect, which is impossible to avoid, is reaction of hypochlorous acid with nitrogen-containing contaminants, introduced to the pool by bathers (sweat, traces of soap) and surrounding environment (tree leaves). The products of this reaction form a group called "combined chlorine" or "chloramines". For the purposes of this article we will split combined chlorine in 2 groups: organic and inorganic chloramines