Vinyl liner and calcium scaling

[Rangeball]

Due to a long drawn out illness that resulted in the loss of my mother in law, I wasn't able to give my IG vinyl liner pool all the loving care it deserved this summer. I now have what I'm pretty certain is calcium scaling on the liner, it feels very rough and actually skinned a couple of my toes, like sandpaper would. PH has been higher than I like for the majority of the season, and our fill water is high alkalinity (and hard), but it couldn't be helped, I was needed elsewhere.

I just had a thought. Low end of PH for vinyl liner is 7.0. I'll be closing the pool soon. What if I lower the PH to 7.0 right before I close and hold it there all winter? That would be about 6 months for the lower PH to work on the scale.

Crazy? Worth a shot? What would you do?

 

[Bama Rambler]

That may work. What is your CH?

 

[Rangeball]

I honestly don't know right now. Will be doing a full set of tests soon. You think that long at that PH will cause any permanent liner damage?

 

[Bama Rambler]

I'd probably take it to 7.2 just to have a little wiggle room. As the water gets colder it will have a tendency to rise so you should be fine.

 

[Patrick_B]

I would think a vinyl liner could handle 6.8 pretty easy. If someone more knowledgable about vinyl knows differently, please speak up. If it were me I would find out the absolute lowest safe minimum and hold it there. I would also make sure I bypassed the heater just to be safe. Others may have better suggestions, but this would be my goal.

Very sorry to hear about your Mother In Law passing and I wish you and your family the best.

 

[duraleigh]

I agree with brushpup that 6.8 on the liner would be fine. The issue would be that most pool pH tests don't go below that so you have no real "cushion" to keep from going down to 6.6 or so which is likely too low for that period of time.

If your diligent 7.0 may help but I don't know if it would be that much better than 7.2....probably, but I don't know.

 

[Patrick_B]

I think it would benefit, and I would definitely try it.

 

[Rangeball]

Thanks all. No heater so only thing the water will be touching is the liner.

Once I hit the ph mark and cover it, it should hold pretty steady right, even if my ALK is elevated, since there will be no aeration to speak of?

 

[Rangeball]

I agree with brushpup that 6.8 on the liner would be fine. The issue would be that most pool pH tests don't go below that so you have no real "cushion" to keep from going down to 6.6 or so which is likely too low for that period of time.

If your diligent 7.0 may help but I don't know if it would be that much better than 7.2....probably, but I don't know.

Had another thought. Due to a health problem with our dog I have obtained some PH test paper from our vet that changes color through a range of 6-8. This would tell me if I'm too low below 6.8, right? It seems to be pretty accurate for what I've used it for so far.