flooded pool

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brywisco

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Jun 9, 2008
21
Oshkosh/WI
We got about 3.5" of rain yesterday in Wisconsin and my neighbor's lawn flooded so much it overflowed the patio slab and ran into my inground pool. Now what? My nice clean pool water is now a muddy mess. The water is brown and the suspended dirt is not settling to the bottom like I hoped it would so I could vac most of the mud out.
Is it even worth it to attempt to run my sand filter and filter it out or should I just drain it and refill (ugh!).

Any help is most appreciated (especially by my kids)!
 
I'm so sorry! Someone with more experience with this will be along shortly to advise. They will want to know your pool equipment and the size, etc.

Do you have a test kit for testing your pool water?

Where in Wisconsin?
 
Welcome to TFP!

It all depends on how much dirt actually got in. If you have several inches of mud on the bottom then you might want to drain, but far more likely you have just a thin layer of dirt that will be fairly easy to filter and vacuum out.

Make sure you maintain your chlorine level. All of those contaminates will consume some extra chlorine. Vacuum up as much as you can and let the filter do it's job. Keep an eye on the filter pressure and backwash as needed.

With a little work your pool should be back to normal in less than a week.
 
Thanks for the quick responses!
This is a 17K gallon inground plaster pool with a sand filter.
I was reluctant to just run the pump/filter and then end up draining it anyway. I don't think there is too much actual mud to deal with, just very dirty water. The water was runoff from the street and the lawn etc.
I will try shocking it well tonight while running the filter and backwashing frequently.
 
The filter should take care of the muddy mess. You may need to think about the future, in regard to drainage from your neighbor's yard. Such as a berm or french drain system, etc. so that you can minimize this occurance.
 
Thanks again for all the rapid and helpful replies.
It is frustrating to just get going on the short summer swim season only to have this setback. At least my basement is dry which was a problem for many around here in this heavy rain.
I am looking at options to block this from happening again.

I also ran home at lunch and fired up the pump/filter and dumped 2.5 gallons of bleach in. I hope to see improvement by the time I get home tonight.
 

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I had an inch of clay wash into my pool the first year. I had just finished back filling a retaining wall when a storm came up. It washed all my fill into the pool. I vac'd to waste filled over and over again. I could not do more than one8 foot X vac head wide pass before the PSI went way high.

Fill to the highest point you can and then vac to waste as far as you can. I also replaced all the sand in the filter when it was clear to get any clay that may have been left behind.
 
Well the pump has been running constantly now for 20 hrs and the water just looks slightly better. It still looks like a muddy pond. I have backflushed a couple of times though the pressure was only somewhat elevated each time. I have shocked it with bleach. I have not vacuumed yet because I can't see the bottom.
Questions:
1) Should I vacuum to waste or just wait till the water clears a bit?
2) Would flocculant help speed the process? Is there a floc made for this suspended dirt?
3) Should I consider running my Aquabot Turbo Jet cleaner with the fine filter bag, or would this be a bad idea (hard on the robot)?

Thanks!!
 
I have a feeling I got a lot less stuff in my pool then you did. I would simply just have patience. And I would also wait to backwash until the filter pressure is much higher and the flow is visibly reduced. Reason is is because a slightly dirty filter filters better. In my case, I cleaned up the whole mess without backwashing once. But I didn't have a tremendous amount of actual soil in the pool. It just LOOKED bad. Can't give you any advice on the robot, but I don't have one. My first thought is to use the robot only for what it is for - maintenance cleaning and scrubbing of walls and bottom for normal debris. Your regular pool filter is more up to the job of cleaning the muck.
 
I had a similar issue to start the season. I attempted to fill my 30k pool (which was half empty) with a garden hose (I have well water). The well pump started sucking up dirt and when I woke up the next morning, my pool was a solid brown color. I was able to filter it all out with my DE filter.

For the first few days, I was bumping the filter once an hour (when I was awake). It took 2 DE backwashes before I could see the bottom. Then I vacuumed the settled dirt up, which required a filter dump after about every 4 passes with the vac head.

Two more DE backwashes and it was back to clean and clear. A huge PITA, but doable.
 
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