Saltwater Pool on the Cheap
Our daughter is, we think, part-fish, so with public pools closing or otherwise a source of concern in the pandemic, we decided to buy an above-ground pool from Wal-mart.
We’ve actually had one of these before, and you should know that out of the box they’re a complete pain. Between weak pumps and crappy filter cartridges, the water goes green quick. Maintenance and cleaning is intense and, in the long-term, pretty expensive between the chemical dances and constant cartridge switching: “Sorry, kids, we can’t swim for a day because the water is literally poison right now.”
So if a pandemic meant I was going to do a pool again, I was determined to upgrade it to something that would work better: saltwater chlorination and a better pump with sand filtration.
And because times are what they are, I was going to do this as cheaply as I could, starting with a $225 pool from Wal-mart.
Adding in the additional filter and salt and sand and taxes, the total cost to floating around was a day of my labor and about $631:
Summer Waves Elite 14-foot pool … $228Intex 26679EG Krystal Clear 2150 GPH Pump & Saltwater Sand Filter Saltwater System … $308Intex 1.25″ to 1.5″ Type B Hose Adapters for Pumps & Saltwater System; Set of 2 … $10Clorox Pool Salt $15×3 … $45H2H Sand $10×4 … $40Zip-ties … $.01
(See below for further bells and whistles, including a pool shelf I made.)
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Over 90 days of quarantined summer, that figures to about $7/day … though much of that cost was in a fancy pump/filtration system that can be used year after year. (And with the better filtration I suspect the same can be said of the pool itself, too.) In addition, there should be a lot less money spent over time on throw-away filter cartridges, electricity running the pump (new one runs like an hour a day instead of 24 hours a day), and time fighting the pool instead of enjoying it.
Before I get into the details, I want to say that I very much realize that there are far too many folks for whom $631 could pay a month’s rent in a time when that may be difficult. In light of all that’s happening, this post may seem self-involved and frivolous. At the same time, I built a great saltwater pool for a lot less money than you’d expect, and if it helps others manage to make this crappy summer more bearable for some kids, I wanted to share how I did it.
The biggest problem is that the cheapest pool I could find (Summer Waves) does not use the same hose sizing as the ideal pump/filtration system I could find (Intex).
True, Intex makes their own pools, and if you can afford one you’ll be saved the hassle of splicing the two systems. That would be nice. At the time I bought my $228 pool that comes with a skimmer, though, the Intex equivalent was running over $1000 for the pool alone (plus more to add a skimmer and all the other business) … so my notion was that if I could use the cheaper pool I’d come out way ahead.
Which I did.
I’m not going to go through all the stuff that’s in the directions, like how you need to level the yard and how to build the friggin’ pool. Obviously, having good help is essential there:
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Anyway, all that is pretty straight-forward. Splicing the systems isn’t, though. So…
The key piece you need is the hose adapter listed above. Intex makes a few different kinds of these, but you need the one with the rubber sleeve.
Here’s the money shot:
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To the left are the Intex hoses that came with their pump. To the right is the skimmer filter box that comes with the Summer Breeze pool. And between them is the Intex adapter. As you can see from a second one that I’m holding, I made modifications. 
