If you put too much baking soda in your pool, your alkalinity will rise. That means you’ll need to take steps to lower your alkalinity. You can either add more water (which will require more chemicals because they’ll be diluted), wait for the alkalinity to lower naturally, or use a chemical like muriatic acid to lower it. 

No, you shouldn’t be able to taste the salt at all since saltwater pools only contain about 10% of the salt you’d find in ocean water. Saltwater pools do create some chlorine, though, so you should still try not to drink the water.

Small backyards are not a reason to write off fun upgrades like an above ground pool. You can find both soft and hard-sided above ground pools as small as 8 feet in diameter as well as 9-by-18-feet rectangles or 10-by-16-feet ovals. You will need at least 2 to 3 feet around the outside of your pool for additional support and for placing pool equipment, but a professional pool installer can help you find a model that's right for your tiny outdoor space.

At noon, when the sun is at its highest point, sunlight can naturally increase the temperature of a pool by 0.7 degrees each hour, but this can depend on other external factors. For example, evaporation caused by the sun will cause a pool to lose up to 5 degrees for every 1/2 inch of water evaporated. Using a water heater will produce more reliable results.