High Calcium Hardness Levels and Salt Pools

When it comes to your swimming pool many will choose to use chlorine or salt for sanitation purposes. Salt is extremely popular because it’s easier on the skin and your eyes if you enjoy opening them under the water but having a salt chlorinator in an area with high Calcium Hardness can be challenging. With that said, if you want to keep your salt cell working great there are a variety of steps that you are going to need to take to make that happen. One thing to keep in mind with salt pools is there are a few factors that prevent them from working. The following are those factors:

• High Calcium Hardness levels in the water
• Unbalanced pH; specifically a high pH which is common with salt pools.
• Lack of or too much Cyanuric Acid (CYA)
• Not enough or too much salt

When salt chlorinators came into the world they were touted as little to no maintenance but that is anything but the case. That is why it is extremely important to keep your Calcium Hardness levels low because too much will scale the electrode plates and prevent them from working. Lack of CYA or too much will prevent the salt from doing its job effectively, and unbalanced water chemistry always causes problems as well.

Simply put if you want to own a salt chlorinator in an area with high levels of calcium in your water you’re going to need to change out the water every two years and we recommend The Puripool Process. A lowered Calcium Hardness level will prevent scaling on the salt cell. This is a major factor in preventing them from working as most require hardness to be between 200 – 400 parts per million (ppm) and in many areas of the country this isn’t possible. Adding enough CYA to keep it between 50 – 80 ppm will help as well as adding additional salt for what the system requires. Please keep in mind that most salt systems have specific requirements when it comes to water chemistry and you must maintain those to keep it working. By using our Reverse Osmosis (RO) mobile filtration trailer it is possible to give you the great quality of water that salt systems need to function. This is a service we recommend on salt pools every 1-2 years to keep them working great and to prevent scaling on your filtration equipment, tile, and interior finish as well. If you should have any questions about how our system works and how it can help you, contact us today!