I switched a few years back on a pool about the same size, roughly 16k gallons, and overall I’m glad I did it. The biggest difference day to day is just how steady the chlorine level stays. With my old setup I was adding liquid chlorine every few days depending on weather and bather load. With the salt system the chlorine gets produced slowly while the pump runs, so the pool tends to stay more stable week to week.
That said, it’s not completely hands off like some people make it sound. Salt systems tend to push pH upward over time because of the electrolysis happening inside the cell. On my pool I usually see pH creep from around 7.5 into the high 7s if I ignore it for a couple weeks. Keeping alkalinity in a reasonable range helped slow that down a lot.
Another thing worth paying attention to is circulation and filtration. The cell depends on steady flow. When my cartridge filter pressure climbs about 4 or 5 psi above the clean baseline, chlorine production becomes a little less efficient even though the system still says it’s generating. Cleaning the filter usually brings everything right back to normal.
The water feel is definitely nicer though. It’s not actually “salt water” like the ocean, but swimmers usually notice the difference in how it feels on skin and eyes.
For a 15k gallon pool it’s a pretty common upgrade size-wise. The main things I’d check before converting are whether your pump runtime is long enough to support a generator and whether your heater and metal fixtures are in good shape. Once the system is dialed in, maintenance becomes more about watching pH and flow instead of constantly adding sanitizer.
Out of curiosity, what pump and filter setup are you running now? That can make a difference in how smooth the conversion ends up being.
