well or city water

[BillyG]

Hi all, first time pool owner here. I have city water plumbed to the house, and I have well water plumbed to the exterior spigots. That being said, when bring the water level of the pool back up to the correct level in the spring, is it ok to use the well, or should i run a hose into the house somewhere to top off the pool? Obviously the well is cheaper (free! sort of.... minus the pump electricity and wear and tear) and the easier option since that is the exterior spigots. Will this give me headaches later on? Thanks for any insight

 

[triptyx]

Have you determined if there are any metals (iron, copper, etc) in your well or city water?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

You should have both sources of water tested for iron and other trace metals. You should also test both sources to see pH, TA and CH levels. If metals are not present in either, then I would choose the water with the lowest combined TA/CH levels (that is, CH+TA and pick whichever is smallest). If metals are present in your well water (which in upstate NY is highly likely), then I would not add water form the well. Iron is typically the biggest problem and, if you add enough iron, your water will turn tea brown from oxidation by chlorine. It can be filtered out over time, but it's a pain to do so.

 

[BillyG]

Doing a little looking, people seem to think testing for metals is better left to the pool stores instead of purchasing a test for those metals yourself as they can be expensive. Has that been the consensus on here as well? Thanks again

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Doing a little looking, people seem to think testing for metals is better left to the pool stores instead of purchasing a test for those metals yourself as they can be expensive. Has that been the consensus on here as well? Thanks again

The downside risk to that is that pool stores often do such a lousy job at testing that you can't often be confident in their results.

Being on a well, does your municipality offer any kind of free or paid testing service? Some do that to ensure that people within a water district are getting safe water...you could also pay for an independent lab test such as a place like National Testing Laboratories or another testing lab close to you. At least with those paid labs, you're more likely to get high quality results.

 

[rwood5093]

Our county tested our water, though it cost $75 and took 2 months. I think I've seen iron test kits for about $75 too. Ours showed 2.1, and normal is something like .2ppm.

We filled our pool from the well and had the pea soup/tea colored water from the oxidized iron (we were at slam level because hubby thought it was algae). Once we understood the problem, we filtered out the iron over 2 days (for our 5k gallons) and the water has been great ever since. We spent less than $20 and made a giant filter, piece of cake. Luckily we don't have to top off, or we would have to repeat each time. Mother nature takes care of it for us. We are happy we were able to do it this way instead of using sequesterants/chemicals and so forth.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[JoyfulNoise]

What about the tap water from the city, any iron? Many municipal water suppliers just simply use local treated well water. If the municipal water is low iron, then I'd use that....