Water softener and SWG

[coog61]

Per my link (http://www.troublefreepool.com/what-causes-hardness-to-increase-t19192.html) I drained ~40% of the water with 425 CH. Test results today show CH of 350. Fill water is 130 CH.

The pool is 9 mths old and I'm not looking forward to draining (10 hrs) annually. There was some discussion of piping in a whole house water softener to the water line to the pool and regulating (via a valve) the amount of soft water to the auto-fill. Has anyone actually done this?

Other than the issue of soft water having a CH of 0, are there other issues with putting this into the pool. The PS guy said some softener salts could have metals.

Thanks.

 

[cheddar85]

I use a water softener too, and I've never had an issue with softener salts containing metals. Besides, the brine solution used to recharge the softener is flushed out during the regeneration cycle. Water softeners do not just remove CH, they also remove dissolved metals from the fill water. So, I don't really see there being a problem with doing that, if that's the route you choose to go.

The only issue I see with doing this, is eventually you will have to start raising your CH. Of course, that's a lot easier than lowering it.

**I'm not saying that's the way you should go, just giving my 2 cents on the metal issue.**

 

[JasonLion]

I have heard of many people who top off evaporation using water from a water softener. The main thing to keep in mind is that residential water softeners are not designed for the quantities of water required by a swimming pool. When you reguarly use the water softener to top off the pool you will need to recharge the water softener much more frequently.

 

[cheddar85]

Depending on the softener, you would probably only have to recharge every 3-4 days. Of course, that also depends on how much water the auto-fill is adding per day. My softener is almost 35 years old and can handle right at 1000 gal. before a recharge is needed. That's on the lowest setting for salt usage. Newer models are more efficient and generally use less salt. Mine uses ~4lbs per recharge and takes around 2 hours for a recharge cycle.

Culligan made some excellent softeners back then!