Very hard water here……. Salt or chlorine?

[debynic]

Such a hard decision. I live in west Texas and we have very hard water. All pool services say chlorine. All my neighbors say salt. So confused which one to choose….help!

 

[ajw22]

Listen to your neighbors - salt. And a salt pool is a chlorine pool. Just the source of the chlorine is from salt instead of tablets or liquid chlorine.

Pool Services are not objective in their recommendations. I assume by chlorine they mean Trichlor tablets and not liquid chlorine.

I suggest you review...

Pool Care Basics Archives

Your one-stop shop for all things TFP to include: ABCs of Water Chemistry, Recommended Chemicals/Levels, Test Kits, Troubleshooting, and much more!

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[Jimrahbe]

Deb,

Not sure what your hard water has to do with it? Many of our AZ, NV, members have hard water, and they all use SWCGs.

Just want to confirm that you understand that saltwater pool is a chlorine pool. The only difference is how the chlorine is added. In a standard chlorine pool, you have to add Liquid Chlorine or Chlorine tablets, while a saltwater pool just makes its own chlorine using a Saltwater Chlorine Generator or SWCG.

I have three saltwater pools in the DFW area and would rather fill them in with dirt vs. making them standard chlorine pools.

Why would all your neighbors steer you wrong?

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[mknauss]

I would assume you have a whole house water softener -- plumb it to replace the water in the pool lost to evaporation.

 

[setsailsoon]

Deb,

Welcome to TFP! Like all the others here I much prefer salt... makes the water feel softer, and makes it's own chlorine from the salt that's added. Nowhere near as salty as the ocean so you don't notice it when you get out. We started with a traditional chlorine pool and my wife could only stay in 30 minutes before her skin felt irritated. So I tried salt. Now she says it feels like she just left the spa and she won't let me ever build a pool unless it's a salt pool.

Hope this helps with your decision and however you go TFP will be here to help!

Chris

PS We are on well water here and have pretty hard water too!

 

[Mdragger88]

Here’s a few more great links to peruse to help you get a better understanding of the differences in chlorination & what we teach here.

How to Chlorinate Your Pool

Before chlorinating your pool, you should know these simple tips. Learn the best way to add chlorine to your pool.

www.troublefreepool.com

Salt Water Chlorine Generators

Salt Water Generators are designed to produce small amounts of chlorine continuously. This is perfect for day to day use and reduces work for the homeowner.

www.troublefreepool.com

Calcium Hardness - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

I am sure by now you can see the theme is that most folks with a properly managed salt water pool with properly sized equipment wouldn’t ever want to go back to a manually chlorinated one. The main con is the up front expense since you’re buying several years worth of chlorine all at once. As mentioned above the high ch fill water can & should be dealt with/monitored in any pool.
High csi can cause scaling whether you chlorinate with a swg or not.

 

[PoolStored]

Ok, you made me bite on this one.

Hardness of the water doesn't matter for how you chlorinate...two separate animals.

Animal "A": hard water just means that it has a high level of Calcium. Austin’s water has 184 Parts Per Million of hardness, San Antonio water hardness is 357 PPM and Midland’s water is an extremely hard 500 PPM. Can you be more specific as to where you are located? To continue, as your water evaporates, and you replace with more water that is high in calcium, the levels of calcium (CH) in the pool will rise. It will rise faster with 500ppm Fill water than 185ppm.

There are really only two ways to deal with CH levels that are too high (>~800-100ppm)...1) Exchange water that has a high level of calcium that has been created over a period of time (say you get to 1000ppm), with lower levels of calcium water, even at 500ppm, such as your source level. 2) Convert your source water to a water softener as @mknauss indicated. Water softeners remove CH from your filll water.

Animal "B": Chlorination. It doesn't matter if you use Liquid Chlorine or a Salt Water Chlorine Generator (SWG or SWCG). You can also use Cal-Hypo, but that adds Calcium, which is already a problem, or Pucks, which add CYA. When you increase CYA, you need to keep higher levels of Free Chlorine (FC) in the pools to sanitize. Most that use pucks end up here because they add so much CYA that they cannot keep enough FC in their pools to sanitize and end up with algae (a little reading Link -->FC/CYA Levels

So we are back to either using Liquid Chlorine (LC) or SWCG to keep FC at a high enough level to sanitize the pool. I've done both. LC requires buying and lugging LC (Bleach), testing daily and adding LC daily to the pool. SWCG requires testing daily (or every couple days) and adjusting your SWCG output weekly/bi-weekly or so, depending on the season.

Net, net, I've been in your shoes. Get a SWCG and enjoy the pool!

 

[debynic]

Deb,

Not sure what your hard water has to do with it? Many of our AZ, NV, members have hard water, and they all use SWCGs.

Just want to confirm that you understand that saltwater pool is a chlorine pool. The only difference is how the chlorine is added. In a standard chlorine pool, you have to add Liquid Chlorine or Chlorine tablets, while a saltwater pool just makes its own chlorine using a Saltwater Chlorine Generator or SWCG.

I have three saltwater pools in the DFW area and would rather fill them in with dirt vs. making them standard chlorine pools.

Why would all your neighbors steer you wrong?

Thanks,

Jim R.

Yes I understand that you make your own chlorine with swg. Another reason I am leaning toward swg is a possible shortage of chlorine. If the railways had shut down chlorine was the #1 listed as hard to get. Thanks for your input.