Thankfully, our pool came with an auto fill. Unfortunately, our tap water has CH of 90 and we get a lot of evaporation here in the Phoenix area. I had an RV water softener that I wasn't using so I modified my existing auto fill plumbing by adding a tee and connecting my RV water softener.
This worked fine during the spring when it wasn't so hot but we're getting much more evaporation now with the heat and I was needing to re-gen the water softener every couple of weeks. Even with that my CH climbed from around 350 to 410. Too much work and not effective enough for this retired guy so I contacted a plumber to see about connecting a pipe from the water softener in my garage to the auto fill. The work involved connecting to an existing faucet at the water softener (tee into that) then run pipe along the back wall of the garage then through the outside wall. From there it's a straight shot along the foundation on the side of the house to the auto fill. My wife and I guessed how much the plumber would charge. I could do this work myself with PVC pipe in a couple hours but I wanted copper for a more permanent solution. I figured the plumber would charge 500 bucks maybe? Nope, he wanted $1,900! Nineteen hundred bucks to connect 50' of copper pipe???? Seriously? He said it would take him TWO full days! I've never worked with copper pipe but I'm pretty sure I could plumb this with copper pipe in two days myself and that includes spending a couple hours on YT learning how to do it and going to Home Depot to get the parts and tools.
As I floated in my pool after my bike ride contemplating this, I decided to get REALLY serious about hacking my existing auto fill hack and just use a garden hose to connect my water softener to the auto fill. I went all out and splurged on a Bionic Steel hose and a couple of elbows. 50 bucks all in. It's not pretty but it's on the side of the house that nobody sees and I can remove it in 5 minutes if I want and revert back to the original autofill with hard city water.
I don't fully trust the hose so right now I just turn the faucet on at the water softener when the pool water gets a little low and shut it off once the pool is topped off. Safer that way and I still have softened water going in the pool.
We don't plan on living here for more than another 3 years or so otherwise I would have done it right and spent the $$$$.
Here's the latest hack. I had the hose all tucked up out of the way along the side of the house but when I pressurized it, it sagged down in places. I'll fix that later.
This worked fine during the spring when it wasn't so hot but we're getting much more evaporation now with the heat and I was needing to re-gen the water softener every couple of weeks. Even with that my CH climbed from around 350 to 410. Too much work and not effective enough for this retired guy so I contacted a plumber to see about connecting a pipe from the water softener in my garage to the auto fill. The work involved connecting to an existing faucet at the water softener (tee into that) then run pipe along the back wall of the garage then through the outside wall. From there it's a straight shot along the foundation on the side of the house to the auto fill. My wife and I guessed how much the plumber would charge. I could do this work myself with PVC pipe in a couple hours but I wanted copper for a more permanent solution. I figured the plumber would charge 500 bucks maybe? Nope, he wanted $1,900! Nineteen hundred bucks to connect 50' of copper pipe???? Seriously? He said it would take him TWO full days! I've never worked with copper pipe but I'm pretty sure I could plumb this with copper pipe in two days myself and that includes spending a couple hours on YT learning how to do it and going to Home Depot to get the parts and tools.
As I floated in my pool after my bike ride contemplating this, I decided to get REALLY serious about hacking my existing auto fill hack and just use a garden hose to connect my water softener to the auto fill. I went all out and splurged on a Bionic Steel hose and a couple of elbows. 50 bucks all in. It's not pretty but it's on the side of the house that nobody sees and I can remove it in 5 minutes if I want and revert back to the original autofill with hard city water.
I don't fully trust the hose so right now I just turn the faucet on at the water softener when the pool water gets a little low and shut it off once the pool is topped off. Safer that way and I still have softened water going in the pool.
We don't plan on living here for more than another 3 years or so otherwise I would have done it right and spent the $$$$.
Here's the latest hack. I had the hose all tucked up out of the way along the side of the house but when I pressurized it, it sagged down in places. I'll fix that later.
