There is a poster on the wall where I work made by AquaCheck. On this poster it describes three points of pool water chemistry in everyday terms. It talks about the difference between pH and Alkalinity, Free Chlorine and Chloramines, and Hardness.
The first two seem fine, but the part about Hardness doesn't make any sense to me, and I can't find anything to support their claims. It says; "Check the water hardness to prevent damage to your pool or hot tub. When the hardness level is too high, ugly scale deposits can develop. If the hardness is too low, pipes and fixtures will become damaged and corroded."
So the claim is that soft water will corrode metal parts, like the copper heat exchanger in your pool heater.
Is there any science to back this up? To me it seems that if soft water will corrode copper pipes, it wouldn't be a good idea to install a water softener into residential plumbing that is usually copper pipes. I don't hear about too many catastrophic pipe failures due to soft water, so what is really going on.
For that matter, what is happening when hard water corrodes metal fixtures in residential plumbing? Is it an ion replacement, kind of like how salt eats up concrete?
I'd like to dispel the myth if there is no truth to it, and hopefully save customers a lot of money wasted on Calcium Chloride for pools that really don't need it. (I'm talking about pools with vinyl liners here).
The first two seem fine, but the part about Hardness doesn't make any sense to me, and I can't find anything to support their claims. It says; "Check the water hardness to prevent damage to your pool or hot tub. When the hardness level is too high, ugly scale deposits can develop. If the hardness is too low, pipes and fixtures will become damaged and corroded."
So the claim is that soft water will corrode metal parts, like the copper heat exchanger in your pool heater.
Is there any science to back this up? To me it seems that if soft water will corrode copper pipes, it wouldn't be a good idea to install a water softener into residential plumbing that is usually copper pipes. I don't hear about too many catastrophic pipe failures due to soft water, so what is really going on.
For that matter, what is happening when hard water corrodes metal fixtures in residential plumbing? Is it an ion replacement, kind of like how salt eats up concrete?
I'd like to dispel the myth if there is no truth to it, and hopefully save customers a lot of money wasted on Calcium Chloride for pools that really don't need it. (I'm talking about pools with vinyl liners here).