It’s been a crazy few years…at school, work, and generally all around. We’re experiencing unprecedented world events, weather, food shortages, and global supply chain issues unlike any we’ve seen in many decades. The craziness has extended to pools. While those pale in comparison to war, famine, and pandemics, they sure do quite a job upsetting folk’s lives.  Some of the craziest happenings in the pool industry come from chlorine supply, demand, and pricing. Besides the normal pandemic-related issues with raw materials, labor, and distribution issues, chlorine volatility has been increased by major plants burning down, others suffering large breakdowns, with the replacement components being delayed for many months by, you guessed it, supply chain issues.

But there are more issues. Consumer demand for products made from chlorine are at their highest levels in decades. These include pvc pipe, most plastics, muriatic acid, iPhones, you name it. Pricing for liquid bleach, which has been almost exactly the same for 25 years has doubled in some areas. Pulsar (tablet) chlorine has gone up too, but has been more stable. 

What have customers done? They’ve researched ways to make their own chlorine, and to get off the hamster wheel once and for all. What are the choices?

ChlorKing Saline: Customers can add salt to their pools, install a wall-mounted device, and create nearly 100% of their annual chlorine forever. Sure, there is maintenance, and the saline cells must be replaced every 3-4 years (when properly cared for), but you’re making chlorine at $0.35-$0.40 cents per pound instead of $2.00-4.00 per pound. This alternative has been around for almost 20-years and is reliable and durable, making it a customer favorite.  

NeXGEN Saline: You can literally roll a skid-mounted device into your equipment room, hook up to your piping, add salt in a tank (like your water softener at home), and make chlorine for some or all the pools connected to that equipment room for years to come. You are literally making chlorine out of recycled pool water. While it uses the same technology as the Saline alternative above, the salt goes into the tank, not into the pool. This also is a self funding alternative. 

Non-Chlorine Alternatives: CES has nearly 40-years experience with Ozone purification, Ultraviolet purification, and non chlorine chemicals. While these are very attractive and will provide years of reliable service, they can be a bit more labor and maintenance intensive than the saline alternatives, and require a chlorine “backup” anyway… as national and local health codes will ALWAYS require a chlorine residual in the pool water, for safety’s sake. 

Is it time to “roll your own”? Who knows. But it sure might be time to learn about your alternatives, and see if any of them might make sense for your operations. Many folks implement these upgrades with little to no money up front, and the monthly costs are quite a bit less than the traditional monthly costs of chlorine. 

Contact your CES rep for more information, a free site assessment, and to find out if now might be the right time to jump off the hamster wheel.