How much calcium chloride is added to a pool? How can we ensure that it is handled securely and correctly to prevent unforeseen consequences? It’s not as easy as it sounds to add calcium—you can’t just toss it into the water.
Calcium chloride emits a lot of heat and does not dissolve in the same way as dry acid, sodium bicarbonate, or a non-chlorine shock. However, calcium chloride should be pre-dissolved in a bucket before being added to the pool, just like with any other dry chemical. Let me clarify.
What Is Calcium Chloride and How Does It Work?
Calcium levels in pool water can be increased with the use of the chemical calcium chloride. As its name suggests, calcium is a component of its chemical structure.
You’ll notice that grout, concrete, and any other calcium-containing surfaces the water hits start to disintegrate if there is insufficient calcium in your pool and you do not add calcium chloride. This occurs as a result of the water removing calcium from any available sources.
Because it literally feeds your water the calcium it lacks, calcium chloride is essential.
Because it keeps the water in balance, calcium chloride is also essential for the health of swimming pools. Your pool will be perfect for swimming if it has a healthy calcium content, a good pH, total alkalinity, and total dissolved solids.
To be fair, calcium hypochlorite (often known as cal-hypo) is another option for adding calcium to pool if calcium chloride isn’t an option for you.
Cal-hypo is less successful than calcium chloride, though, because it’s simple to add too much calcium, turning your pool’s soft water difficulties into problems with hard water.
Calcium Chloride for Pools
Pool water is influenced by the surroundings, including swimmers, airborne dust particles, and leaves swirling down. All of this has an impact on the water’s quality, necessitating ongoing filtering and cleaning.
The water should also have an appropriate equilibrium of acidity, alkalinity, and calcium hardness. Calcium hardness is maintained by calcium chloride in pools.
Hard Water and Soft Water
Calcium and magnesium are oversaturated in hard water. As this extra calcium settles, it leaves rough patches on the pool surfaces. It has the appearance of crystalline, whitish scale and feels abrasive. Because it is under-saturated, soft water contains little calcium carbonate.
In this situation, the water turns corrosive in an effort to get calcium. It corrodes pipes and fixtures and pits pool surfaces.
Also Read: Is Concrete Waterproof? You’re Concerned about Pool Waterproofing
The Importance of Calcium Hardness
Because it assists in balancing the chemical composition of your water, calcium is essential to the health of your swimming pool. Because of this, if you keep the right amount of calcium in your pool, you won’t have to buy as many things to control other chemical changes in the water, which will save you money.
Why Use Calcium Chloride in Pool?
Because it contains a lot of calcium, calcium chloride is the chemical of choice for increasing the calcium level in your pool water.
This means that employing calcium chloride will provide you complete control over the amount of calcium in the swimming pool, provided there are no other goods in the water that could raise calcium levels.
As a result of adding calcium hypochlorite (cal-hypo) to the water, you will also add calcium to pool. However, this chemical is primarily used as a sanitizer (unstabilized chlorine), which is frequently employed as a shock treatment.
The drawback of using cal-hypo as a daily chlorine solution is that it over-calcifies water. Also, after shocking, the calcium stays in the water while the chlorine burns off, making the problem worse each time.
Ideal Calcium Hardness Levels
Even though it can be hard, keeping the calcium hardness level in your pool water in balance is good for the ecosystem around your pool.
A calcium hardness level of between 200 and 400 parts per million is what you want to aim for.
Anything beyond 400 ppm puts the pool and equipment in danger of being harmed by hard water. Anything below 200 ppm can lower the pool’s alkalinity, cause things to corrode, irritate swimmers’ skin and eyes, and lower the pool’s overall pH.
Also Read: What Is the Ideal Salt Level for Pool? Should Add or Not?
How to Add Calcium Chloride to Pool?
The first thing you should do is get calcium hardness test strips or a testing kit if you suspect that your pool has a calcium problem but haven’t tested it yet.
Just do what the manufacturer tells you to do, and you will see the benefits right away.
The recommended calcium concentration for pool water is 200 to 400 parts per million, as I described before (ppm).
Keep in mind that calcium chloride is used to treat swimming pools with low calcium levels. You’ll need to shock your pool and may also need to add water or muriatic acid if you find that your pool has a high calcium concentration.
The steps listed below can help you get your pool back in shape if you have a low calcium issue.
Step 1: Prepare Your Pool
It’s important that you prepare your pool before adding the calcium chloride, although I can see the temptation.
Test your water’s pH, total alkalinity, and chlorine content to achieve this. These ranges should be occupied by each of these numbers:
pH: 7.4 – 7.6
Alkalinity overall: 80 to 120 ppm
PPM: 1-3 parts per million of chlorine
Testing for these three things shouldn’t be difficult if you have a digital tester. To be sure the test uses them, double-check before purchasing test strips.
Rest assured if you find any of these goods to be outside the advised range. When the appropriate goods are used to balance them out, they are simple to correct.
Once the water in your pool is in the right balance, you can start to fix the problem of low calcium.
Step 2: Calculate the Amount of Calcium Chloride Required.
To figure out how much calcium chloride to add to your water, you must know the following:
Calcium hardness at present (in ppm)
How much water is in your pool in gallons?
As a general rule, you should add two ounces of calcium chloride per 1,000 gallons of water for every ten parts per million (ppm) of calcium your pool water needs to have more of.
Oh, my! What a mouthful! Let me simplify things for you.
Let’s imagine you have a 20,000-gallon pool and you need to raise your calcium levels by 30 ppm.
Therefore, you must divide 30 ppm by ten ppm, which results in 3 ppm. The answer is six when you multiply three by two ounces (for 1,000 gallons of water). That is the quantity for one thousand gallons of water.
You need to multiply six by 20 because you have 20,000 gallons of water, which gives you 60 ounces of calcium chloride that you should add to your pool’s water.
Step 3: Prepare Your Equipment
The most challenging aspect of the computations for calcium chloride is now behind you. To secure your safety during the application process, the next step is crucial.
Calcium chloride is not a particularly dangerous substance on its own. But when you mix it with water, it gets pretty hot and, if you’re not careful, might burn you.
You must, therefore, dress appropriately if you want to keep yourself safe. Goggles that fit properly, long sleeves, long pants, and gloves with chemical resistance are all recommended.
According to a study on soft tissue necrosis, calcium carbonate rarely results in skin problems. But when calcium chloride and water mix, heat is made that can cause burns and leave calcium deposits on the skin.
Step 4: Prepare the Mixture
The calcium chloride shouldn’t be dumped straight into your pool. Instead, take a five-gallon bucket and fill it up to roughly 75% of the way with pool water. Pour the correct volume of calcium carbonate—in ounces—into the bucket using your calculations.
Because of the calcium carbonate’s strong chemical reaction, make sure to pour slowly. Additionally, remember never to wet calcium carbonate with water. For your own safety, always put pool water in the bucket before the chemical.
Step 5: Add the Calcium Carbonate to Your Pool
Turn on your pool pump, go around your pool, and slowly pour the calcium carbonate solution into the water.
During this time, there are a few things to bear in mind. First off, avoid letting this combination splash up over the sides of the pool because it can ruin the finish. Second, after adding the substance, brush the sides of the pot to let the solution circulate within the water.
Retest your water after a full cycle has passed. You can use your pool again if the calcium hardness level is between 200 and 400 ppm.
Also read: What to Do if There’s Too Much Chlorine in The Pool?
What to Avoid?
Avoid simply pouring calcium chloride into your pool. Dissolution takes time. Never pour calcium into a gutter or skimmer directly. That is a terrible notion that could seriously harm your pool’s machinery and filter.
Since calcium is an alkali earth metal, it dissolves more slowly than certain other pool additives. If you add calcium to pool correctly, you shouldn’t experience any issues.
Conclusion
That’s pretty much it for calcium chloride, a chemical that works well to raise the calcium level in your swimming pool. Any inquiries? Please tell me.
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