Hard Water and Its Effect On Swimming Pools

As a residential and commercial swimming pool owner in the Dallas area, there are many things that you need to think about to keep your pool looking good all the time. Not only do we deal with changes in climate but we also must think about our hard water, storms, and ways to protect your investment. That is why we decided to write this blog post and give you a variety of different ways to keep your pool looking great all the time.

First and foremost, no matter what time of the year, you need to keep it clean. This means brushing, skimming, emptying out the pump and skimmer basket and most importantly balancing your water chemistry. Whether you are swimming or not you must keep it clean all the time. Next, we want to talk about a subject that most pool owners aren’t aware of and that is calcium and other hardness minerals in our tap water. This is referred to as Calcium Hardness levels in your swimming pool and if you don’t monitor them they can be extremely damaging to your pool.

Indications of Hard Water in Your Pool

Are you tired of dealing with hard water in your pool? This is a nuisance to deal with in your home and can cost thousands of dollars to replace water features, faucets and removing it from the tile and interior finish of your swimming pool. Unfortunately, when people buy these things they don’t think of the hard water that we deal with in Dallas. Calcium can start to scale when the water is above 250 parts per million (ppm). In Dallas, the water coming out of our tap averages 300 ppm.

How Does Hard Water Affect Your Swimming Pool?

If you think dealing with hard water in your house is an issue, it’s a completely different situation in your swimming pool. In Dallas, our summers are long and hot. Water evaporates rapidly but the calcium, magnesium, and other hardness minerals remain in solution and gradually build up in concentration. Over time, the Calcium Hardness levels in your swimming pool continue to rise and cause the following problems:

  • Scaling of the water tile line
  • Scaling on the interior finish of the swimming pool
  • Scaling in the plumbing
  • Destroys and scales all pool equipment
  • Scaling on decorative fountains and water features
  • Prevents salt systems from working correctly
  • Increases chemical usage

In the swimming pool industry, it’s recommended that the Calcium Hardness levels in your swimming pool be between 200 – 400 ppm. In some areas of Dallas, you will be above 400 ppm as soon as you fill up your swimming pool. When this happens you can either drain your swimming pool or recycle the water. When it comes to draining and refilling a swimming pool, it can be a painstaking task. It can take 2 – 3 days to do, you can potentially crack the foundation of the swimming pool and you end up filling the pool with our moderately hard water again. Instead, Weber Pools offers the “Puripool Process” which lowers calcium and other hardness minerals without draining the swimming pool. We use Reverse Osmosis filtration in our mobile trailers which allows us to come to your house or commercial property and recycle your swimming pool water without draining the pool. We will leave you with much better water than what comes out of the tap, you never have to worry about exposing the interior finish of the swimming pool, and you can even swim in the pool during filtration. To learn more, please contact us today!