You may think a salt water pool is your only choice when you decide on an addition of a swimming pool to your home. In fact, a salt water pool is not your only choice. A natural pool alternative is more environmentally friendly and friendlier to your skin. A salt water pool can dry your skin and irritate your eyes.

A salt water pool needs chlorine to remove bacteria, algae, and viruses that will find their way to your pool water. Chlorine is dangerous to handle and the fumes from chlorine can cause harm to your lungs. Chlorine can bring serious breathing problems to those who experience asthma or allergies.

A salt water pool also has the disadvantages of staining your pool walls and adding calcium deposit build-ups to your walls and pool system. Chlorine and salt are corrosive chemicals that can actually cause damage to your pool equipment. If a salt water pool can cause your pool equipment to corrode, what does it do to your skin? It is especially worrisome when young children spend a great amount of time each day in the pool.

If you have decorative rock or other decorative features around a salt water pool, the chemical compounds used to treat your water will have the effect of "breaking-up" your decorative landscaping. The rock will begin to chip away from corrosion. As well, if you have vegetation close to a salt water pool, any backwash or water splashing out of the pool will kill your greenery. Even artificial greenery can be damaged and stained from the water splashing out from a salt water pool.

As well as decorative items becoming stained and faded, so will your bathing suits and bathing gear that you take in the pool with you. When you emerge from a salt water pool, your skin needs to be rinsed off immediately to try to combat the effects of the chemicals contained in the water on your skin.

A salt water pool system is affected by the number of people in the pool at one time, the weather temperature, and whether the sun is shining on your pool or if it is raining. Depending on these factors, a salt water pool system needs to be watched and adjusted for any of these variable conditions. A natural pool that is cleaned by an ionic water purification system using copper ions and natural oxygen is not affected by these variables. It remains in a natural constant state of cleanliness and clearness simply by design of the cleaning mechanisms.

Along with the inner workings of the pool equipment, a salt water pool can damage and substantially shorten the lives of an automatic pool cover or a vinyl pool cover. Solar covers can be damaged as well. A salt water pool is just not the best way to go, especially these days when you have other no-chemical and no-chlorine swimming pool alternatives. No-chemical and no-chlorine cleaning systems also use less power to run that a salt water pool system.