Calcium Chloride Pellets

[BrianMc]

I'm refilling my spa again and I always use soft water because it's easier to correct than the water straight from the well. The problem is I'm going through a bunch of Calcium Hardness Increaser from my dealer. I have a product in the garage called "Excel Snow and Ice Melt" that is labeled as "pure calcium chloride." Would this be an acceptable alternative for increasing the hardness of the spa water?

[waterbear]

I'm refilling my spa again and I always use soft water because it's easier to correct than the water straight from the well. The problem is I'm going through a bunch of Calcium Hardness Increaser from my dealer. I have a product in the garage called "Excel Snow and Ice Melt" that is labeled as "pure calcium chloride." Would this be an acceptable alternative for increasing the hardness of the spa water?

Some calcium chloride contains bromide as a contaminant (Dowflake, Peladow and other brands of Oxychem) because of a different manufacturing process then previously used. The Dow brands were sold to Oxychem but this occured before the sale and Oxychem still provides the same info that originally appeared on the Dow website.

http://www.oxy.com/Our_Businesses/chemicals/Documents/CalciumChloride/173-01748%20Pool%20and%20Spa%20Water%20Treatment%20Applications.pdf

Tetra brand is much purer and is still recommended for pool and spa use on their website. TetraFlake, Express, and 94 are all suitable for pool/spa use.

However, if you are talking about a bromine spa then the extra bromide in the calcium will only contribute to the bromide reserve in the water and, IMHO, is not an issue. It is more of an issue, although a minor one, with a chlorine spa.

As far as your "Excel Snow ands Ice Melt", much depends on the purity of the product and who manufactured it (as opposed to who packaged it.) Often deicing products have a much higher impurity level than products designed for multiple uses such as the ones names above.

Hope this helps.

[BrianMc]

Thanks much!