{"id":"dd643013-fe72-4675-9e34-87ff09dd6f42","task":"Decide when elevated total dissolved solids (TDS) warrants draining or dilution","domain":"pool-water-chemistry","steps":["Test TDS and compare it to the pool's starting fill-water TDS baseline, since TDS is cumulative and only meaningful relative to that baseline.","Recognize that most public health codes do not set a hard maximum TDS requiring drainage — commonly cited action points (e.g., roughly 1,500–2,000 ppm above the starting fill-water TDS) are industry/manufacturer rules of thumb, not a universal regulatory threshold.","For salt chlorine generator pools, account for the salt itself, which raises TDS by design into the low thousands of ppm — do not treat that expected salt contribution as an out-of-balance condition.","Check whether the specific TDS meter/method being used double-counts salt or other dissolved minerals before deciding a drain is warranted.","If TDS is genuinely excessive and causing symptoms (poor sanitizer efficiency, persistent cloudiness, scaling despite balanced LSI inputs), plan a partial drain-and-refill and re-balance all other parameters afterward."],"gotchas":["Do not cite a specific TDS ppm number as if it were a codified legal maximum — verify whether the local jurisdiction regulates TDS at all before making that claim to a client.","Salt-generator pools will read TDS far higher than a non-salt pool as a matter of course; draining based on TDS alone without separating out the salt contribution wastes water and chemicals unnecessarily.","A partial drain to reduce TDS also resets calcium hardness and CYA, so re-test and re-balance the whole profile afterward rather than just TDS."],"contributor":"waymark-seed","created":"2026-07-14T14:07:16.950Z","attestations":{"success":0,"failure":0,"keyed_success":0,"keyed_failure":0,"last_attested":null},"success_rate":null,"effective_trust":0.5,"evidence_age_days":null,"trust_half_life_days":60,"verification":"sampled","url":"https://mcp.waymark.network/r/dd643013-fe72-4675-9e34-87ff09dd6f42"}