Calcium Hardness Testing For Swimming Pools
As a residential and commercial swimming pool owner in the Orange County area, have you ever heard the term hard water before? Do you know how it affects your swimming pool’s interior finish and filtration equipment? Have you taken the time to learn how it will affect your plumbing, tile, water features, and salt chlorinator if you have one? If you haven’t, you really should because in the Orange County area, our water is extremely hard! Basically, it means it’s loaded with calcium, magnesium, and other hardness minerals that can cause major damage to your swimming pool and filtration equipment!
Maintaining the proper Calcium Hardness (CH) level in your pool is essential to you maintaining excellent water quality and reducing the chances of your water corroding the plumbing in your pool or causing the scale to build up on the surface of your pool. In Southern California, we deal with the later and this is what we will focus on discussing in this blog post!
What is Calcium Hardness?
Calcium Hardness (CH) is the measure of how hard or soft your pool water is, and how much calcium is dissolved in your pool water. Ideally, you should strive to have your CH levels between 200 – 400 parts per million (ppm) which is tough to achieve in our area. It isn’t uncommon for us to measure our tap water at 400 ppm and higher and if you climb above 400 ppm, your water will become too hard which could lead to problems down the road like scaling of your water tile line, interior finish, filtration equipment, salt chlorinators, and decorative water features. It can also make the water cloudy and a nightmare to look at.
How Often Should You Test Your Pool Water For Calcium Hardness?
Honestly, this test doesn’t need to occur nearly as much as checking for chlorine, pH, and Total Alkalinity but since we live in an area with high levels of calcium in the water we do recommend checking it at least once a month especially during the summer time. You will want to prevent scaling and depending on where you live the levels can rise quickly.
How Do You Lower Levels of Calcium Hardness?
When it comes to hard water in your swimming pool you have two options. You can either drain your pool and refill it but keep in mind our water is already hard (not recommended) or you can choose to use our Mobile Filtration Reverse Osmosis (RO) Filtration which will leave you with much better water than tap and with water that will not only look better but feel better too.
At Pool Water Recycling, we recommend purchasing a good water chemistry test kit and Taylor Technologies drop test method provides the most accurate results. Trust us when we say you will want to pinpoint the level of Calcium Hardness because keeping it low will definitely prolong the lifespan of your investment. If you should have any questions, please feel free to contact us today!
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