Swimming Pool Water for Irrigation?

[tonyinfrance]

The garden I'm working in has a concrete above-ground reservoir which is now used as a swimming pool with the usual chlorine treatments etc..  The owner will empty the pool (about 10 cubic metres) for the winter - can this water be used to irrigate established trees or might the water be unsuitable?

Thanks for your comments.

[tonyinfrance]

Any thoughts about the effects - if any - of chlorinated water on trees?  They are 4 year old conifers forming a long boundary and they could use the water (still hot and sunny in Vaucluse) but we would not like to risk damaging them.

Cheers

Tony

[Albert the InfoGipsy]

How would the owner empty his pool? Down the town drains or just soaking into the soil anyway?

My gut feeling is that, as chlorine is added to prevent (among other things) algal growth it will not be good for plant life. Using it on very dry soil, hence with no dilution, would probably be a bad idea. However, I did a quick google for 'watering trees chlorine' and found

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/gagarden/msg0622141031048.html

http://www.ehow.com/way_5729155_chlorine-water-hurt-plants-trees_.html

 

[Baz]

To get a safe answer you need to give your current chlorine reading as the strength of the chlorine in your pool is the important factor.

Baz

[tonyinfrance]

Albert, Baz

Thanks for the advice: having said it was hot and sunny yesterday in Vaucluse (we had 27 degrees then) today we had a damned good rain storm so the pool might well get a day or two free from chlorination since no-one will be swimming for a while.  We'll check the levels and see how we look next week.

Thanks again.......

[tonyinfrance]

Albert - we are on mains drains here so one thought was to use the pool water as a serious flush for the drains system.  We have about 8000sm of ground so draining onto an unused part of the garden would not be a problem  Today the owner came up with yet another idea: he has a fosse septique which has been unused for many years and he's thinking about using it as an irrigation reservoir.  We have access to effectively unlimited canal water so it could be filled very quickly and he was thinking of using the pool water to flush out the tank a couple of times.

So many options!

[DavyH]

I emptied a small intex pool this summer - the ph after a few days of not using it was the same as the tap water so I filled my three water butts before releasing the rest over the garden. Checking the ph is the way to go.

[Jonzjob]

The PH has not a lot to do with the chlor level. It is a measure of the acidity/alkalinity of the water. When you want to empty the pool all you need to do is to check the level of the chlor. When you are using it normally it should be about 2 ppm-ish. If it is left and no chlor is added it will drop as it deteriorates naturally. After several days it will have dropped very low.

When ever I do a backwash on our pool the water goes onto the base of one of our leylandies and it has not suffered at all in the 5 years plus that it's been watered this way. Now, if it was as salt pool that would be a different matter...

Davy, unless you use the water in your butts straight away there won't be any chlor in it by the time it is used, but the PH will probably stay the same.

[dave21478]

My large oval intex pool came to the end of its life a few weeks back. I had not treated it for a week or so previously, so the water should have been "safe" for plants.

I emptied it the fast way (Stanley knife) and the flood soaked into the lawn with no ill effects at all.