Recycling Swimming Pool Water

As a residential and commercial swimming pool owner if you live in an area with high levels of Calcium Hardness and Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) chances are you’ve probably heard before that changing out your pool water from time to time is a good idea. In the Orange County area, we do deal with hard water which left in a swimming pool for a long time can cause scaling on your water tile line, interior finish and filtration equipment. When this happens, typically when Calcium Hardness levels reach 600pmm and higher and TDS reaches 3,000ppm and higher most pool professionals will recommend a water change. When this happens you can either drain your swimming pool or choose to recycle your pool water using Reverse Osmosis (RO) mobile filtration.

With that said, we want to familiarize you with what to expect if you choose to recycle your swimming pool water.

1. We will first park our trailer as close to the swimming pool as possible and do a complete water analysis when we arrive. This allows us to take these values back to the trailer to set the proper shutoff level (TDS) to assure you of having calcium of 200 ppm or lower once completed.

2. The trailer is designed to process 40,000 gallons of water per day and will retain on average-85% of the water already in your pool. In the case of extremely hard water (due to not draining your water for many years, for example) the water waste will be greater. We utilize a small garden hose to carry the waste water (we call it a brine stream) away and prefer to put it in a sewer clean out where the city can process it. Please note: if you are on a septic system you will need to let us know so that we do not put this brine stream in your septic system!

3. To make up the water that we send away to sewer, we will hook up a garden hose to your Hose Bib and back to our trailer, so that we can maintain the water elevation in the pool. We bring back about 6 gallons per minute, and you may hear the sound of water running in your home during the process. While it may sound like a lot of water, remember that you’re retaining a large portion of the water already in your pool and that this small amount of makeup water is much less than you would need in the case of a drain and refill.

4. There are two larger hoses (1 1/2” diameter) that are also utilized during the purification process. One brings your pool water to our trailer and the other returns the purified water back to your pool. This makes a total of 4 hoses that will be used during the filtration process and they will all be strung neatly from the trailer to the pool.

5. We are fully self-contained and bring our own power with us in the shape of a diesel generator mounted inside the trailer. The trailer is double walled and the generator enclosure is sound attenuated to minimize noise, but there is still some noise associated with it. A decibel meter reads about 70dB from ten feet away so the hum of the generator should not disturb anyone; we have heard AC units and pool pumps that are louder! We do want you to understand that there is some “white noise” associated with the process, however.  

6. Our goal is to make our visit to your property a pleasant one with minimal disturbance to your day. We will be neat in our set up and respectful of your property with our hoses and our path of travel to and from your pool area. 

Pool Water Recycling is truly an alternative to a drain a refill. Our goal is to provide you with the best water for you and your family to swim in. We specialize in working with both residential and commercial properties. If you should have any questions on how the process works, contact us today!