High TDS well water and having a pool

[SpringBreak]

Hello. We're in the beginning stages of thinking about a pool in Arizona. We recently relocated here. We're on a well. And that well has crazy high TDS (1500 mg/l). Sodium is 542 ml/l and Chloride 810 mg/l. Alkalinity (CaCO3) is 163 mg/l. So far we've installed salt-operated softeners that reduce the PH, arsenic, and hardness. We plan to install an under-sink RO for drinking water. All the above results were obtained from water testing after the installation of the softeners. We would like to put in a pool but are concerned about how our well water will impact its chemistry. We would initially fill the pool with trucked in water, but would be topping it off with the hose. Given the well's salinity, would a salt water pump make more sense?
Thank you.

 

[mknauss]

Welcome to the forum!
Your alkalinity is pretty normal for regular city water in your area. What is the calcium hardness? TDS is pretty meaningless to pool water chemistry.
I suggest you read ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry.

 

[Jimrahbe]

SB,

I personally believe that a saltwater pool is the best type of pool to have no matter what quality water you have. They are by far the easiest type of pool to maintain.

Many people on this forum, and in Arizona, have saltwater pools, and they love them.. Marty is one..

While you are here, you should read our Pool School, and check out how our Trouble Free Pool care process can make owning a pool fun and not a chore..

Pool School

www.troublefreepool.com

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[SpringBreak]

Thank you for the welcome and reply. With the installed softeners, the hardness is 15; untreated, it was 35. I suppose I wanted to check whether it's OK to use brackish water in a pool. With sodium levels of 542, our water is undrinkable. With so much salt in the water, would it be better to build a SWG pool, or stick with chlorine? Or does it not matter?

 

[SpringBreak]

Thanks! I can see there is a wealth of information on here. As a newbie, it's a bit overwhelming. But, I'm excited to learn. I'll start plowing through the pool school docs this evening.

 

[Nikilyn]

Just curious, what part of Phoenix are you in that has well water?

 

[SpringBreak]

Just curious, what part of Phoenix are you in that has well water?

I'm not in Phoenix. The house is outside of town, south of the Gila River.

 

[SpringBreak]

I suppose my question is less about TDS in general and more about salinity. Since my well already has high salinity to the point that it's not potable for drinking purposes, can it be used in a chlorine pool?

 

[mknauss]

Can you use the softened water for make up water? With evaporation, you will be adding essentially a full pool's volume due to evaporation about every year. So to keep the salinity in range for a SWCG, you would need to add low or no salinity water to make up for evaporation. I assume the hardness you quoted is grains. So it is 15 grains after the softener?

 

[SpringBreak]

Yes, I can use the softened water. But the softener doesn't do anything to reduce the sodium/chloride. After softening, the sodium is 542 ml/l and Chloride 810 mg/l. So the 1500 TDS of my (softened) well-water is comprised of 1350 mg/l of sodium chloride/salt. I was told the only way to remove the salt was with RO. The hardness of the softened water is 15 mg/l.

In my ignorance, I thought I could add less salt to a SWCG pool to compensate for the high salinity of the replacement fill water.

So can I make a chlorine pool work with my water situation?

We just moved to AZ from Wyoming and I had to use the promise of a pool to sell my kids on the idea.

 

[mknauss]

The salt level will build up in the pool water due to evaporation and then be too high for the SWCG after about a year I suspect. If your well can manage it, you would need to drain and refill the pool about every year to make this work, I believe.

 

[SpringBreak]

Thank you for the info. I wouldn't feel comfortable refilling from the well on a yearly basis.
Would a chlorine pool work with the salinity of our well water?