I have a plaster pool, 10yrs old, want a soft water system installed. The pool would be fed automatically with soft water unless some major plumbing work was done so that it was't. Will this harm my pool? Anything I need to do special if I decide to have it fed by the soft water?
Soft Water & Pool Question
- Thread starter sixgun95
- Start date
Welcome to the forum. :lol: Assuming you have an adequate soft water source, (a household water softener probably won't work) there is generally no harm in having softened water in a pool (up to a point).....usually only benefits.
- Dec 13, 2009
- 116
- Pool Size
- 32000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
We use our softened water to top off periodically during the summer months when mother nature isn't cooperating with rain. We are on a well system, so we try to minimize water use as much as possible, though. Our softener system (Hague brand) not only softens water, but removes most of the iron which is present in these parts. Since our softener serves our whole house, we use potassium salt, rather than plain old sodium. It's a bit more expensive per bag, but it works as well and allows us to safely use the softened water for house plants and other purposes. During the summer, our water usage does increase, which means we spend more on salt and have more frequent regeneration cycles for the softener. Luckily, we have the softener discharge routed to septic (safe to do with potassium), which means that water is ultimately not wasted.
We've had no problems through two seasons of use in our salt-water pool.
We've had no problems through two seasons of use in our salt-water pool.
There shouldn't be any problem. You do need to keep an eye on the CH level when using softened water. Since you live in AZ, where CH levels are usually quite high, it is unlikely to come up, but if the CH level gets too low you will need to add some calcium manually.
duraleigh said:
it will be a whole house soft water system. I have an option here, run the hard water line to the backyard and tap into the auto refill. Guess I should also have the plumber install a spigot for refills.
Just dont see how I can do this if everything is soft water minus the auto refill, the pool will never fill up if I ever need to drain it and I am told here in AZ every 3-4 years thats a must.
What would you guys do?
For a plaster pool doesn't water need ch at least in the 300's? I just had the experience of getting a negative csi when my ch was lowered to 290 by the addition of rain water. I realize the ta & ph play a role in this.
I would like to change my less than adequate response.
If your pool is already full and has a high calcium content, then the softened refill line would be of great benefit to reduce the calcium level and you whole house softener would almost surely handle that load.
If your pool needs refilling, now or ever, the softener could NEVER keep up and you would have to run straight water through it without recharging it. I don't know if that has any effect on the long-term performance of the softener or not.
Anyway, the whole idea is to control calcium and keep it around 250-400. The softener may very well help you do that.
Filling the pool with water direct from the tap (no softener) and then using softened water for topping off when replacing evaporation is a good way to go. Depending on just how high your tap water CH levels are, you might even want to fill the pool with a mixture of direct and softened water.
Not sure who you are going with but I used to install Rainsoft systems. We always had to put a bypass in just incase something happened to the system. I also would try and place a spigot on both sides of the system. You could always ask to have this done. Hope this helps.
Similar threads
