Water Softener and Salt Chlorine Generators

[Dennyhle]

I have a salt pool and recently installed a water softener for my house. I didn't realize til after the softener was installed that my pool fill line is coming from the house and not the landscape irrigation. My city has very hard water where calcium is at about 400. When I bought the house a couple years the calcium levels were through the roof so I had fresh water imported into my pool.

My question is if it's ok that my pool fill line is softened water. Will this mess with the chlorine generator or the pool chemistry? My pool calcium is at about 500ppm right now. I understand that 100% soft water is bad for a pool because it needs calcium in it but my understanding is calcium will rise with evaporation if I replace it with hard water, whereas if I'm replacing evaporative losses with soft water my calcium levels should stay similar.

If I ever have to drain and fill the pool should I make sure I use a mix of my hard and soft water?

 

[mknauss]

You have a great set up. No issue with anything. Continue to use the softened water for make up water.

Assuming your pool is plaster (please complete your signature), you do need to maintain a minimum of 250 ppm CH.

 

[PoolStored]

My question is if it's ok that my pool fill line is softeners water.

Yes, many here have installed softeners FOR their pool.

Will this mess with the chlorine generator or the pool chemistry?

No.

If I ever have to drain and fill the pool should I make sure I use a mix of my hard and soft water?

You likely will not be able to fill the pool with water from a softener, the demand is too high for the output of the system. Can work great for autofil.

When you refill, just make sure you balance the pool.

And, I was Marty'd...

 

[mgtfp]

Your setup is great. All the calcium that your water needs, is already in it.

Keep in mind that when water evaporates it leaves the calcium behind. So, when replacing evaporation losses with hard fill water you actually keep adding calcium, and CH creeps up over time.

In your setup, you are basically replacing evaporated - soft - water with other soft water. Great.

Depending on how much rain you get over winter, and how often you have to drain some water to make room for more rain, and how often you backwash - both of these flush out calcium with the water being removed - CH may slowly creep down. At CH 500 you have plenty of buffer for that. Should CH eventually get too low, you just bump it up with calcium chloride. This is much better than having to regularly drain the pool to get rid of calcium being added with fill water