Draining pool... anything I should check?

[The Chairman]

Hi everyone. Due to the mineral content of my pool I have to drain and refill soon. Is there any maintenance checklist that I should perform on it while I have it empty?

Thanks.

Ryan

[Bruce]

You should check the water table before you empty it.

[The Chairman]

[e-mail] (Bruce) wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Good call. Do you know the way to do this? I am in Southern California, and the pool is plaster / concrete. Thanks!

[Lost-In-Translation]

You should be ok as long as this is just a refill. It's when you plan to have it empty for several days that you can run into problems with the pool popping. Your local utility/water company can give you all the scoop you need on the current conditions of the water table in your area.

BTW, isn't there some kind of chemical treatment you can do that will reduce the mineral content? Seems draining and re-filling would be much more expensive.

In any event, while you have the pool drained you may want to consider doing a chemical tile cleaning, and then re-seal the tiles. Fill any cracks in the mortar or missing grout first. If your tile is older, and has water stains on it, while the pool is empty you can use Lime Away on it and it will clean the tiles up well.

Good Luck!

[Tom]

Lost-In-Translation wrote:>BTW, isn't there some kind of chemical treatment you can do that will reduce

There's nothing, short of draining, you can do to reduce the TDS of pool water. Tom Someday, it'll all be over....

[Stormin Mormon]

I'm guessing your local pool supply house can answer this.

When my parents did the pool drain, Dad had me take a picture of him standing in the bottom of the pool. Kinda funny, actually.

[SQLit]

Good time to acid wash the plaster, and bead blast the tile. If you have tile. Acid wash should be done every couple of years. Acid wash is not hard but it is a bit dicey. Walking around spraying muritic acid on the walls and pumping it out some where is best left to people who do it. Unless of course your willing to go out and buy all of the stuff to do it. Personally here in Az I pay the 200 bucks. (17k gallon pool)

Bead blasting was once known as sand blasting. I have a bead blaster that I bought from harbor freight and I use #10 glass beads, I already own a air compressor so it pretty easy. The glass beads will take off all of the crud and clean the grout lines around the tile.

Ya draining is way cheaper than trying to filter the minerals out. Commercial pools use a mixture of soft and regular water. Personally never have tried it.

[Bruce]

It depends on the water table and I know nothing about So Cal. Here in Houston, they do NOT drain without opening the well point plug and when they drained mine for replaster and tile, they even jumped in as soon as the shallow end was exposed and jackhammered a hole through the bottom. It DID have water under it.

[JerryMouse]

It pays to be prepared.

After draining, if the pool starts to come out of the ground, your local fire department can fill the sucker in about ten minutes (you'll have to pay for the water). They may even fill your pool as a courtesy after your renovations. Again, you'll have to pay for the water.

My local fire department used to perform this service but was eventually prohibited by twits who thought it was indecent to save the property of the "rich" (those with a pool). These same people, however, thought it was okay to put out the fire on a shack or a dumpster worth a fraction of the value of a swimming pool.

City water departments have meters and hose you can connect to a fireplug. These are usually made available to construction sites to provide a lot of water (such as for on-site concrete mixing). Compared to filling a pool with a garden hose, they are well worth the trouble.

[Lost-In-Translation]

Wonderful Idea. When I re-filled my pool, I had treated water trucked in from a neighboring burb because our public water supply is so bad. It only cost 115.00 then we topped off the pool using the water supply after running it through a big filter provided by the pool finishers.

I rather like the idea of checking into the fire department. With those big hoses and a hydrant, I'll bet they could fill a big pool in short order.

[Rudy]

Around here, they wont let you drain your pool into the sewer system. They dont want the chemicals going into the sewer treatment plant. Also, you cant drain into some storm drains cause they go into a nearby pond or lake which is fish habitat. Either way there is a BIG fine (per GALLON dumped) for messing with water if you get caught. I'm NOT saying this is the case where YOU live but be forewarned.

Remember when water was OK everywhere cause it was 'clean' ?

R

[Bruce]

I'm not sure about your laws but if you simply let the pool water sit without adding any chlorine, it will be plain old harmless water in about 3 hot sunny days.

[Richard J Kinch]

Not if you use cyanurates. They never go away, even after the chlorine is depleted.

[Jonny R]

Those days are gone... I agree that all these new environmental regulations sound a bit excessive at times but maybe 30-50 years from now we'll look back and think to ourselves "Man, we really had no clue what we were doing to our environment back then".

[Rein]

hey , I am in AZ too. How good does the bead blaster work ? I need my tile cleaned up a bit. What happens to the beads that go in the pool ? I drain every other year, probably should every year since I have cartridge filters and not much water gets pumped out. This is why the TDS rises pretty quickly.

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[Rein]

Isn't it too warm this time of year to drain it ? Better check with your local pool store. They al;ways tell me to drain in winter when it's not so hot. Bad for the plaster and/or pebble tec if it dries out too much I've heard.

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