Calcium hardness staining along the tile of a swimming pool
If you own a swimming pool and live in an area with calcium in your tap water this blog post is going to be extremely informative for you. In the Southwest United States and into the areas of Texas, Oklahoma and beyond we deal with high calcium hardness coming out of our tap water. People will refer to their water as being “hard” when the calcium content is high, when magnesium and other hardness minerals are high and when total dissolved solids (TDS) levels are high. These levels will vary in quantities (referred to as parts per million) depending on who you talk to but it doesn’t take long for these numbers to increase. Every time water is introduced to the swimming pool these levels will increase and how they affect your swimming pool will be discussed.
As water evaporates in your swimming pool (up to an inch a day during the summer) the hardness minerals remain in solution and gradually increase over time. As these levels increase, the calcium and other hardness minerals will scale on the tile, the liner, the spillways, the water features and filtration equipment of the swimming pool. It is truly an eye sore to look at not to mention the damage it does to your swimming pool. Please also keep in the mind that high levels of calcium hardness in your swimming pool can make it more challenging to handle in regards to proper chlorine levels etc. At this point, if you take a water sample into a store or test it yourself at home most people will recommend a drain and refill. Here are some of the pros and cons of a typical drain and refill:
Pros –
- Relatively inexpensive
- The water will be better than what you have now
Cons –
- The water is still moderately hard from the tap
- Exposure of the liner
- 2-3 day process
- Lost swim time
Whereas, if you consider recycling your swimming pool water instead we guarantee a much better end product. At Weber Pools, we offer a mobile filtration system that comes to you. The mobile trailer is equipped with Reverse Osmosis (RO) filtration that returns drinking quality water into the swimming pool. The process is completely self-contained which means we run on our own power and we guarantee you better water than tap. The following are some of the pros and cons of the mobile filtration service:
Pros –
- Water conservation – we conserve up to 85% of the existing water
- No downtime – you can swim in the pool while the process is being performed
- Drinking quality water in your swimming pool
- The liner is never exposed
- Soft water
- Removal of waterborne diseases
Cons –
- It is slightly more expensive than a drain a refill
Ultimately, this is a service that we provide in the Dallas area along with San Antonio and into Oklahoma. Our water is hard and you will deal with this problem every couple of years. We would like to have the opportunity to help you out by providing you with a better product than a drain and refill and help you to conserve water along the way. If you’re interested in learning more as to how this service can help you, contact us today!