I hear we have hard water here and noticed a lot of floating calcium flakes in the spa. It is getting worse and found this large chunk in the basket that seems like it broke off from inside one of the pvc pipes. Any ideas?
Major calcium buildup
- Thread starter cgharring
- Start date
- May 23, 2015
- 24,382
- Pool Size
- 16000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
First things first before we speculate on where that chunk came from - please post test results of your water chemistry.
I see you are a new member, so welcome. If you haven’t read TFPs Pool School, please do so. One of the primary principles taught here is self-management of your pool’s water chemistry and the only way that can be done reliably and accurately is for you to own your own high quality test kit and test your water yourself. Please see Pool School for what is recommended.
As for that chunk, I highly doubt it’s from your pipes. Scale doesn’t really form on pipes like that. Your water may be hard, but it’s not that hard and, if it were, you’d see stuff like that in your household plumbing. There are any number of things that chunk could have been caused from including plaster getting into a suction line during a build or replaster, granular chemicals being added to the skimmer, etc, etc. But, in order to rule it out, you need to postvtest results.
Welcome
I see you are a new member, so welcome. If you haven’t read TFPs Pool School, please do so. One of the primary principles taught here is self-management of your pool’s water chemistry and the only way that can be done reliably and accurately is for you to own your own high quality test kit and test your water yourself. Please see Pool School for what is recommended.
As for that chunk, I highly doubt it’s from your pipes. Scale doesn’t really form on pipes like that. Your water may be hard, but it’s not that hard and, if it were, you’d see stuff like that in your household plumbing. There are any number of things that chunk could have been caused from including plaster getting into a suction line during a build or replaster, granular chemicals being added to the skimmer, etc, etc. But, in order to rule it out, you need to postvtest results.
Welcome
Sometimes plaster gets in the main drain when the pool is plastered. The plaster can sit for years with nothing happening.
Sometimes a chunk will break loose and go into the pump basket.
When was the plaster done?
Sometimes a chunk will break loose and go into the pump basket.
When was the plaster done?
- Sep 23, 2015
- 1,563
- Pool Size
- 20000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Astral Viron V25
https://water.usgs.gov/owq/alkus.pdf
Just to put the map above from the alkalinity link into perspective the units used to measure alkalinity for US surface water are given as micro equivalents per litre (ueq/L) where 20ueq/L = 1mg/L = 1ppm. So the range as given on the map is from <2.5ppm(CaCO3) to >20ppm(CaCO3) with a large portion falling between the two extremes.
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I think you may be right. I think it might be plaster. Pool was done 18 months ago. I didn't know this was possible and assume it was calcium build up. This makes more sense.
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