Ok to put rain water into pool?

[Crimson]

Got some big barrels my wife uses to collect rain water for watering plants and such - But she doesn't use nearly as much as they hold. Is it OK to put some of the water into the pool to keep it full? I heard it may drop the pH and such but are there any other downsides? Obviously it rains into the pool so it can't be THAT bad..

 

[dmanb2b]

I would say go for it....just be sure to rebalance your water chemistry after the added water has been recirculated for 30 mins

 

[PaulR]

Just for grins I tested my rainwater last winter. pH was low (read as 6.8, hard to say what it was really), TA and CH were zero.
--paulr

 

[gtm]

Like paulr I also couldn't resist using my kit on rainwater and found the pH to be off scale low. Did some reading and found that ""pristine" rainwater is like 5.6; lower in polluted areas. But my experience says it doesn't matter.

Over the past two weeks I've gotten about 4 inches rise in the pool due to rain, which is about 7% of my total volume. The pH and TA haven't changed measurably.

I'm sure one of the chem experts could explain it properly, but I think the key point is that the pool is a buffered system, so the pH change is much smaller than simple dilution would suggest.

 

[JasonLion]

The TA level of rainwater is extremely low. Because of that the pool water, which has a much higher TA level, influences the final PH far more than the rain water does.

 

[AnnaK]

You might have some algae in rain water that's been sitting in a barrel but heck, we know how to deal with algae, right? I'd use it and then rebalance the water.