Fill new pool with softened water or unsoftened water?

[Brett S]

I have purchased a new Intex 32x16x52 pool and with any luck I’ll be filling it within the next week or two. I have a water softener that feeds my whole house, including the outside spigot, but I also have the option to bypass the water softener for the pool fill.

Is there any benefit to using softened water to fill the pool? The pool has a vinyl liner and will hold about 14,000 gallons. I tested the unsoftened water with my K2006 test kit and determined that the CH is 160ppm.

I could also do a mix of softened and unsoftened water, for example 10,000 gallons of unsoftened water and 4000 gallons of softened water would give me a CH of around 114ppm in the pool.

Thanks much

 

[mknauss]

With that low of CH on your unsoftened water outlet, I would suggest using that. I assume it is not an iron filtration unit, correct?

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Being that its a vinyl pool, no calcium is actually needed. Being that you're also in FL, frequent rains allow for easy exchange of water over time to lower calcium if it starts to get on the high side.

I personally would save the softener from that excess wear-and-tear and use regular tap water. 160ppm of Calcium is not scary high.

Maddie

 

[gonfishin]

Is there any benefit to using softened water to fill the pool? The pool has a vinyl liner and will hold about 14,000 gallons. I tested the unsoftened water with my K2006 test kit and determined that the CH is 160ppm.

Did you also test pH and TA? Your water is soft compared to mine . I measured my water CH 350, TA 250 last year. I know I wouldn't want to live without my water softener. But when we need to fill the pool, we use unsoftened water if we don't have enough rain water saved up. I also used melted snow for most of the initial fill in the spring. By doing this, my CH never exceeded 250 last year.

 

[Brett S]

I didn’t measure pH or TA initially because I figured the water softener wouldn’t make a difference there and it is what it is. But I went ahead and measured it now just so I could see what I’ll be dealing with. In any case, it doesn’t seem too bad. The pH is 7.4 and TA was maybe a little high at 180ppm.

 

[Arizonarob]

Don’t waste your time filling the pool with softened water. Depending on type, a regen cycle on a softener can happen between 250-750 gallons. The wear-n-tear and wasted water is not worth it. (Never mind the salt you’ll be buying) Just bypass the softener and fill. After that you can maintain the fill water with it being softened.