Ace Salt water system? VS ozone?

[alaska]

So between the pulse and the vanguard I'm still leaning toward the Vanguard.  Anybody own a Vanguard?  Are you happy with it?

Also thoughts on Ace system vs the ozone?  At first I thought I wanted the Ace, then lots of negative reviews.  Wife likes the idea of salt water, but she doesn't maintain it.  Advice needed as salt water is an additional $1600.

[chem geek]

If you want a saltwater chlorine generator and don't want the ACE system, you can get a separate add-on such as the ControlOMatic Technichlor for around $220, but this isn't built-in.

[Sam]

I would skip the ace system personally.  It doesn't reduce the amount of effort it takes to maintain your spa, possibly even creates more.  You need to regularly clean the electrode.  Also, it appears that most people are needing to replace the electrode every year or two at around $800 a piece.  Plus, you may need to add their vanishing act pillows to balance the water for the system to work properly.  Those pillows are expensive as well. 

And just so you know, a saltwater spa is still a chlorine spa.  Salt is Sodium Chloride.  The electrode turns the chloride ion (chlorine) into active chlorine.  So basically, instead of adding chlorine manually, you are adding salt and the generator turns it into chlorine.  For the price of the system and electrode replacements, you could spend much less on chlorine which is easy to do and inexpensive.  It's not difficult to add a tsp or 2 of chlorine after each soak.  Even with the salt system, you still need to balance your water and clean your filters.  Unfortunately, a lot of Hot Spring sales guys are giving the impression that this system eliminates chlorine and most maintenance.  It really doesn't.

Honestly if done properly, chlorine is cheap, easy, and you won't have any odor.  Chlorine has a bad rep, unjustifiably imo.  If you really want to get away from, look into the spa frog system.  It is bromine based and as easy as replacing a cartridge every month or so.

Hot tubs are not nearly as hard to maintain as people think.

Good luck!

[Stubb]

We have a Vanguard with the ACE Salt System.  Bought our tub in June 2015.  Love the tub! We bought the hard top and we love it too!  Our salt cell died last week.  Called the service dept and they replaced it no charge.  But had it been out of warranty, it would have been $1100+.  Service rep told us if it goes bad after the warranty, the company would switch us to ozone no charge.  If the salt cell keeps working like it was working, we couldn't be happier!  Very low maint.

[trichert]

I would skip the ace system personally.  It doesn't reduce the amount of effort it takes to maintain your spa, possibly even creates more.  You need to regularly clean the electrode.  Also, it appears that most people are needing to replace the electrode every year or two at around $800 a piece.  Plus, you may need to add their vanishing act pillows to balance the water for the system to work properly.  Those pillows are expensive as well. 

And just so you know, a saltwater spa is still a chlorine spa.  Salt is Sodium Chloride.  The electrode turns the chloride ion (chlorine) into active chlorine.  So basically, instead of adding chlorine manually, you are adding salt and the generator turns it into chlorine.  For the price of the system and electrode replacements, you could spend much less on chlorine which is easy to do and inexpensive.  It's not difficult to add a tsp or 2 of chlorine after each soak.  Even with the salt system, you still need to balance your water and clean your filters.  Unfortunately, a lot of Hot Spring sales guys are giving the impression that this system eliminates chlorine and most maintenance.  It really doesn't.

Honestly if done properly, chlorine is cheap, easy, and you won't have any odor.  Chlorine has a bad rep, unjustifiably imo.  If you really want to get away from, look into the spa frog system.  It is bromine based and as easy as replacing a cartridge every month or so.

Hot tubs are not nearly as hard to maintain as people think.

Good luck!

FYI .. ACE creates more cleaners then just chlorine, this is why it works so well.  While chlorine is still your only real sanitizer there are several oxidizers created from the process that are more effective then just chlorine by itself.