Problems with tap water?

[WATERWORT]

I have recently been combatting a surge in my TA levels that brings up an interesting question. (or series of them, maybe...) For the first half of the season I had everything in balance and then my pool suddenly developed a leak. While dealing with that I had to add new water several times and I noticed that my TA levels jumped approximately 40 points when replacing 6 inches of water. Since it had been stable prior to that it seemed logical that my tap water caused this so I checked it and got a reading of 375. I haven't bothered to figure out whether that is high enough to cause the jump I noticed, but it seems probable anyway.

Fortunately I have a cartridge filter so I don't have to backwash.... it takes a lot of P.o.P. to work the pH up and then knock it down again from just one 40 point jump! My question though, what does "normal" tap water show for a TA level and if mine is abnormally high, what side effects would that have towards long term plumbing and drinking concerns?

I know that is not really a pool question, but people here know more about this stuff than anywhere else!

Oh, also, my tap water has a CH level of 200 which explains the corresponding high levels in the pool...

 

[JohnT]

Yours is high. Mine is around 480ppm, so I try to avoid adding water whenever possible. The best defense IMO is a mesh winter cover so you can collect rainwater all winter to constantly lower TA, and frequent use of a solar cover in the summer to reduce evaporation and the resultant need to add your high TA water.

Anecdotally, I have had problems with ulcers for several years in spite of regular medical care and attempts at treatment. Even though we use a reverse osmosis system for our drinking water, the pH of the water is very high. I had noticed that during my frequent extended trips for work it didn't seem to matter how I ate, I had very little stomach pain. At home, I would be up during the night at least once a week from the pain even though I was on a much blander diet.

After trying to sort out what I was doing differently at home, I started drinking bottled water and saw a marked improvement. Something in the water has caused me problems, but whether that is the alkalinity or not, I don't know. Jalapenos and onions are back on the menu though

 

[WATERWORT]

That is fascinating... Fortunately I do have a mesh cover and we opened this spring to a water level right at the mid marker on the skimmer... Yours seems to be substantially worse than ours - our pH is 7.2 which makes for an interesting time adjusting things back. You actually have it "easier" with the high pH and the high TA because you can just add acid even though it might require a lot of it. I have to raise my pH first and that gets tedious on a regular basis.

Does anyone else have experience with this? Does the pH being normal negate issues with mine? (Beyond the challenge of balancing my pool, of course.)