Scale Build-Up in Your Swimming Pool? Here's What You Should Know
Scaling is a common issue every swimming pool owner has to deal with from time to time. Scale is mineral deposits, mainly calcium, that leave unsightly white to white-grey stains, films, or crystals around the waterline or the pool walls. Scaling happens in all pool surfaces, including plastic, tile, concrete, or rocks. While a recent scale formation is easy to clean by scrubbing with hands, older and stubborn deposits require significant efforts and assistance from a professional pool tile cleaning company.
Scale build-up is dangerous for a swimming pool. When ignored, it leaves the pool unhygienic for swimming, negatively impacts its appearance, clogs the pipes, and damages the pool surface and equipment.
Causes of scale build-up
Two primary factors that cause scaling in pools are:
Efflorescence
If the swimming pool has stone or rock retaining walls, moisture seeps through them and brings along mineral scales leading to unappealing brownish-white crystalline deposits on the pool surface.
Imbalanced water chemistry
The most common cause of scaling in swimming pools is improper pH balance and alkalinity. If the pool chemicals are not within the acceptable range, deposits can form on the pool surface and plumbing. Higher pH levels, high alkalinity, calcium hardness over 400 ppm, rapid evaporation, and persistent temperature fluctuations can lead to calcium deposits. Excess calcium turns the pool water cloudy, leaves white-grey stains, and makes the skin dry and itchy. To slow down or prevent scale formation, maintaining proper pH balance and alkalinity is vital.
Calcium accumulation
Calcium scaling on the pool surface is of two types: calcium carbonate and calcium silicate. Both are a result of pH imbalance. Calcium carbonate leads to white flaky scales, which form quickly but are easy to remove. Calcium silicate is white-grey and tougher to take off. It takes more time to develop, and by the time it is visible on the pool surface, it most likely has entered the pipes and the filtration system.
To know which type of calcium scaling is there in the pool, take a scaling sample and add a few drops of muriatic acid. If there is a foaming or fizzing reaction, the deposit is calcium carbonate, and if not, it is calcium silicate. For swimming pools with calcium silicate scaling, pool owners should hire a pool tile cleaning company to eliminate the deposits from the surface and filtration system.
How to remove calcium scaling
To clean tile and concrete pools, wet the surface and use a pumice stone for gently scrubbing the deposits. Acid washing the swimming pool is also an effective way to remove calcium scaling. Stain remover and eraser widely available with pool suppliers help take off deposits from most pool types.
Calcium silicate deposits are notorious, and pumice stone is the only way to get rid of them from hard surfaces. Contact a professional to know which additives are best to dissolve these deposits from vinyl or fiberglass pools.
How to prevent calcium scaling
Imbalanced calcium and pH levels cause calcium scaling. To prevent it from occurring in the future:
Test and maintain proper pH balance
Consider installing a pool cover to reduce evaporation
Reverse osmosis water treatment
Scale build-up in a swimming pool looks unattractive. Following a routine pool cleaning and maintenance schedule can keep your pool clean and scale-free to a great extent.
Pool Tile Cleaning Vegas offers pool tile cleaning, calcium removal, acid washing, pool draining, and media blasting services, in Las Vegas and Henderson. Call us at (702)605-6936.
