Drought in California, on our own well, so any water savings is good. I have an Iron Filter that removes iron and backwashes every 12 days. I capture that, let the iron sediment settle out, and use the clear water to go into the pool (the normal pool fill water is from before the Iron filter so we do get iron in the pool water that way). Seems OK, iron now at 0.1 ppm. BUT my question is from the softener discharge. It is after the iron filter, also runs every 12 days and I want to capture that and use it to top off the pool too. I tasted the discharge and it seem very slightly salty. I will have it tested at the local pool shop, but I wonder the wisdom of TFP on the idea of using this for some top off water. Pool is 5000 gallons, this would be about 50 Gallons ever 2 weeks. Can I add a little softener discharge to the pool water?
Can I use Softener Discharge to add to my pool
- Thread starter jpd
- Start date
-
- Tags
- soften discharge
- May 3, 2014
- 62,702
- Pool Size
- 6000
- Surface
- Fiberglass
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
Welcome to the forum!
You will be adding calcium to the water. Most of us in the west have water softeners for our pool fill water to keep the calcium out.
You might be fine with a non-SWCG above ground as long as you drain most of it over the winter and fill with rain water. But do at your own risk.
I suggest you read ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry.
You will be adding calcium to the water. Most of us in the west have water softeners for our pool fill water to keep the calcium out.
You might be fine with a non-SWCG above ground as long as you drain most of it over the winter and fill with rain water. But do at your own risk.
I suggest you read ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry.
Ah, I get you. More calcium because the softener removes calcium and substitutes sodium. I was thinking that the discharge would have a lot of sodium. My CH is 150, my TA is 110. Since it's vinyl I never bothered to do anything with CH. But I can monitor the CH and quit it it gets too high. How high is too high for Vinyl/ I from searching the range is appoximate 0-550 for vinyl, so a goal of less than 200? Is there any issue with the sodium?
- May 3, 2014
- 62,702
- Pool Size
- 6000
- Surface
- Fiberglass
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
Should be no issue with sodium. CH can probably go higher than 200 without issues.
Surprised you have a water softener if you do not have calcium issues.
Surprised you have a water softener if you do not have calcium issues.
The softener came with the house. I think we are running about 8 grains of hardness which is on the low-end of "hard water" but enough to cause spotting in the shower and on dishes. But if the pool doesn't mind a bit more I think I can use it. Now at least I have a guess at what to look for. I just did a quick test. Softened water is between 25 and 50 CH; Discharge water is CH=750. Which makes some sense considering if we remove 100 pp from well (leaving 50), then over 12 days, say 100 Gallons a day household use, and 100 gallons of discharge water works out to about CH=1200 in the discharge water so reasonable order of magnitude (maybe we use less than 100 Gallons, or well water is less than CH=150). Now if I add CH=750 at 100 gallons to 5000 gallon pool with CH=150, I figure it ends up at CH=161. So I could do this maybe 10 times before I had any issue. If I figured it out right.
- May 23, 2015
- 25,706
- Pool Size
- 16000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
There are usually several discharges from the water softener cycle after regeneration and one of those is going to be the fully concentrated brine followed by a backwash & rinse. You probably only tasted the rinse water, not the brine. You really don’t want to use that discharge water. It’s full of salt, calcium, magnesium and all sorts of junk. For 50 gallons every 2 weeks it’s not worth it.
