Hello, I just bought a new above ground vinyl liner pool. (Circular, 18' diameter, about 7600 gallons.)
A thought just occurred to me that I should have researched before buying this pool, but too late now, I guess. My last pool was an in-ground pool, and my water supply was City of Austin, which has decent water. Over the years dissolved solids got kind of high, and Leslie's Pool Supply told me soon I might consider draining part of the water and replacing. Thankfully it never got to the point where I had to do that. I've since sold that house and pool.
Well, now I live just outside the city limits, and I get my water from a municipality called Brushy Creek M.U.D., and their water has more hardness than City of Austin water, and now I have a brand-new above ground pool. Does harder water mean I could develop a "total dissolved solids" problem sooner than if I had City of Austin water? I would hate to deal with the expense of replacing my pool water periodically.
I looked up my municipality's website, and they say "The latest laboratory report indicated that the hardness of the District's water is 180 milligrams per liter or approximately 10.51 grains". How hard a reading do you people think that is? Does this water sound okay for maintaining a swimming pool?
Now, I should also mention this: We are in stage 2 drought conditions, so I wasn't allowed to fill my pool with district water, so I wound up paying a bulk water supply company $345 to truck in my water and fill my pool. They used City of Austin water to do this, so maybe that's good: I got nonhard water to fill my pool. But over time I think as water evaporates, I'll be replacing it with district water. (I'm allowed to use my district's water for maintenance, just not filling a pool from scratch.)
Another thought I have is that I do have a water softener, so a thought is that I use my softened water to replace evaporated / splashed water, but I don't know an easy way to do that, because my outdoor faucets are unsoftened - only my indoor faucets have access to softened water. Is this something worth looking into (i.e. somehow harvesting my softened water)?
A thought just occurred to me that I should have researched before buying this pool, but too late now, I guess. My last pool was an in-ground pool, and my water supply was City of Austin, which has decent water. Over the years dissolved solids got kind of high, and Leslie's Pool Supply told me soon I might consider draining part of the water and replacing. Thankfully it never got to the point where I had to do that. I've since sold that house and pool.
Well, now I live just outside the city limits, and I get my water from a municipality called Brushy Creek M.U.D., and their water has more hardness than City of Austin water, and now I have a brand-new above ground pool. Does harder water mean I could develop a "total dissolved solids" problem sooner than if I had City of Austin water? I would hate to deal with the expense of replacing my pool water periodically.
I looked up my municipality's website, and they say "The latest laboratory report indicated that the hardness of the District's water is 180 milligrams per liter or approximately 10.51 grains". How hard a reading do you people think that is? Does this water sound okay for maintaining a swimming pool?
Now, I should also mention this: We are in stage 2 drought conditions, so I wasn't allowed to fill my pool with district water, so I wound up paying a bulk water supply company $345 to truck in my water and fill my pool. They used City of Austin water to do this, so maybe that's good: I got nonhard water to fill my pool. But over time I think as water evaporates, I'll be replacing it with district water. (I'm allowed to use my district's water for maintenance, just not filling a pool from scratch.)
Another thought I have is that I do have a water softener, so a thought is that I use my softened water to replace evaporated / splashed water, but I don't know an easy way to do that, because my outdoor faucets are unsoftened - only my indoor faucets have access to softened water. Is this something worth looking into (i.e. somehow harvesting my softened water)?