Riverside Twin Fountains Pool

Imagine swimming in water that hasn’t been changed since the early 2000s. For the new owner of the Twin Fountains Pool, this wasn’t a hypothetical, it was reality. We were called in to assess a pool holding water that hadn't been drained or purified in 20 years.

While the pool appeared functional at first glance, the water chemistry told a different story. It was a perfect case study in what we call the "Dead Sea Effect."

Results at a Glance:

The Twin Fountains project is a testament to the power of advanced Reverse Osmosis filtration over simple draining.

• Water Quality: Pure enough to drink.
• Efficiency: Drastically reduced chemical demand to maintain balance.
• Restoration: Leveraging chemistry to dissolve old scale automatically.
• Savings: Thousands of dollars saved in water costs, chemical usage, and prevented equipment repairs.

The Science: The Silent Accumulation of TDS

To understand why "old" water is dangerous, you have to remember that water is the universal solvent. Over time, it becomes laden with minerals and dissolved solids. In the water industry, we track this as Total Dissolved Solids (TDS).

A swimming pool operates much like the Dead Sea: water constantly enters via rain, hoses, and runoff, bringing minerals with it. However, only pure water leaves through evaporation. The minerals, salts, and cyanuric acid stay behind, concentrating year after year.

At the Twin Fountains Pool, this concentration had reached critical mass, manifesting in visible symptoms:

• A distinct salty taste.
• "Crusty," dry-feeling skin and hair after swimming.
• Excessive scale buildup on the waterline and spa spillway.
• Severe plaster discoloration.

The Hidden Danger: Equipment & Structural Damage

While the cosmetic issues were obvious to the homeowner, our assessment revealed the more insidious threats posed by high TDS. When water becomes saturated with solids, it begins to attack the pool's infrastructure.

1. Mechanical Failure: High TDS buildup was compromising pump seals, a precursor to motor bearing failure. We also noted risks to the salt cell (which scales excessively in high-TDS environments) and the heater core, where scale buildup can destroy efficiency and lead to sooting.
2. The "Wedging" Effect: Highly saturated water had penetrated tiny cracks in the tile waterfalls. As this water dried and deposited minerals, it created a microscopic wedge, slowly expanding the cracks. Over time, this cycle creates enough pressure to debond tiles completely.

The Solution: 24-Hour Restoration

Rather than a traditional drain-and-fill, which wastes water and risks structural damage to the shell, we deployed our advanced Reverse Osmosis (RO) purification unit.

The results were transformative. In a single 24-hour period, we renewed the entire vessel to drinking-quality water standards.

• Conservation: We saved 69% of the original 20-year-old water volume.
• Stability: Our equipment monitored wastewater outflow versus makeup water inflow, ensuring the pool level never fluctuated.
• Turnaround: We finished with startup chemicals, making the pool ready for swimming the very same day.

Strategic Chemistry: The LSI Advantage

Purifying the water was only step one. To ensure long-term protection, we educated the homeowner on the Langelier Saturation Index (LSI).

LSI represents the interaction of six separate water parameters that dictate the behavior of calcium. Water is either scale-forming (depositing calcium) or aggressive ("hungry" for calcium).

Armed with a fresh slate of purified water, we tailored the chemistry to be slightly aggressive. By carefully manipulating the LSI, we turned the pool water into a cleaning agent. The new water chemistry will now actively work to dissolve the existing scale on the waterline and tile, effectively reversing 20 years of buildup.