Using RV Water Softener to Reduce Calcium?

[hollywoodfrodo]

I'm wondering if anyone has tried this or what the thoughts might be. Our tap water has a moderate amount of calcium, but since I live in Sunny SoCal and we get only a little rain water in the year, but do get evaporation and refill, over time our Calcium level gets high. After the bit of rain we got this winter it dropped down a tiny bit, but still on the very top end of Calcium Hardness at about 600. I'm wondering if anyone has used one of these water sofetners or what the pros thoughts are about using one to remove calcium from the water: https://www.amazon.com/Essential-RV-Water-Softener-Traveling/dp/B08XY7MZN1 OR https://www.amazon.com/Go-OTG4-VM-DBLSOFT-Portable-Standard-Softener/dp/B085Q2LBJV OR similar.

It seems like it would be a fairly inexpensive way to do it. And since my pump has a standard water hose attachment, we were thinking we could attach this directly to the pump and just have it circulate water from the pool through the filter and back into the pool to help remove calcium.

Am I crazy? Would this work? Is there a possibility of it also removing things that need to stay in the water? Obviously it would only be to get the CH level down to a decent level.

And if there are reasons why this wouldn't work to just filter the existing pool water - thoughts on emptying some of the pool water but then running the tap water through something like this to refill the pool?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Water softener resins would be destroyed by the presence of chlorine in the water. They wouldn't work for long. Plus, your pool water already has substantial amounts of sodium in it from being an SWG pool. So the resin wouldn't really function properly - the driving force would be for sodium ions to exchange INTO the resin since the concentration of sodium in the pool water is about 4 to 5 times higher than the concentration of calcium.

You can use those RV softeners to fill your pool water from a outdoor spigot, many TFP'ers have done that. But you can't use them to "filter" your pool water. Just doesn't work the way you think it does.

If you want to lower CH without having to drain and refill, then use an RO service to filter your pool water. I believe there are a few in your area that provide that service.

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

thoughts on emptying some of the pool water but then running the tap water through something like this to refill the pool?

Here is a thread on RV softeners.

RV water softener for auto-fill line

Any do's/don'ts for plumbing rv water softener in water fill line? I want it easy to remove as I think they all require manual regeneration.

www.troublefreepool.com

My fill water has a CH of 125 before the softener and less than 10 ppm after. It has essentially frozen my CH level. I use the "Park Model," a 28,000 grain unit. I used it to replace nearly half my pool's volume, but it took several manual regens to get through that much water. The manufacturer's website has much more info and tutorials.

 

[hollywoodfrodo]

Thanks for the replies. That does make sense about it not working to filter existing pool water. My 2nd option was to remove water and use it when refilling from the garden hose so I'll probably go that route. I did that last year without the RV Water Softener but would rather use one of those so I don't have to empty/refill as much.

Thanks again! Always appreciate the help around here!