Draining my pool?

[mynameismud]

Hi, first post here. I've been lurking for a while. I'm new to pool ownership, having just bought a house with the pool listed below in my sig. I've been digesting all the info here and I think I've got a pretty good handle on the water chemistry thing....except for my calcium hardness. I did several tests and it's showing in the mid-800 range. Our water is pretty hard to begin with (tap is about 250) but it seems I need to drain and refill. According to the pool calculator I need to drain about 70 percent of the water.

I'm trying to figure out if my pool's plumbing has a connection to the sewer in order to drain it. There are a whole mess of valves and shutoffs back there, but none of them are labeled so I don't know what I've got going on. Is there something I should look for in the plumbing that would indicate if there's a connection to the sewer from the pool plumbing? If not I guess I'll have to drain it manually with a sump pump, but that seems like a bit of a pain.

I can post pics of my plumbing setup if that would help.

 

[pwrstrk]

Welcome to TFP !
I can't comment on your plumbing question, but I'll comment on the drain refill. If you have a high water table do partial drains and fills so not to risk "floating" the pool.
Post some pics of your plumbing if you can to help others help you.
Enjoy the forum.

 

[Richard320]

Welcome!

Pictures help a lot. If you have a multiport valve (looks like this) then you just set it to waste and hook up a backwash hose... unless it's hard plumbed to a sewer connection somewhere. Otherwise, you'll probably want to rent a submersible. Or buy one, although an affordable one is going to take days to empty the pool. Again, a picture will help a lot.

I have similar Calcium levels and fill water. Realistically, draining half would buy you lots of breathing room - you can forget the "ideal" levels that other parts of the country use when you live around here. Floating your pool is probably not a concern in Santa Clarita. I have a hose bib on my return line, or sometimes I use a cheap submersible pump, and use pool water on the lawn and then refill with tap. But not constantly, because I get lazy. However, each time I do that I replace about 4% of the water. I also have a downspout aimed at the pool so when we do get rain, I get as much of it as I can in the pool.

You're at the upper limit of what's actually manageable for CH. It will require maintaining low TA and low pH to prevent scale formation. I keep TA 50-60 and pH below 7.5, always targeting 7.2 when I add acid. I'm just waiting for some rain so I can soften up my pool water.

 

[mynameismud]

Welcome!

Pictures help a lot. If you have a multiport valve (looks like this) then you just set it to waste and hook up a backwash hose... unless it's hard plumbed to a sewer connection somewhere. Otherwise, you'll probably want to rent a submersible. Or buy one, although an affordable one is going to take days to empty the pool. Again, a picture will help a lot.

I have similar Calcium levels and fill water. Realistically, draining half would buy you lots of breathing room - you can forget the "ideal" levels that other parts of the country use when you live around here. Floating your pool is probably not a concern in Santa Clarita. I have a hose bib on my return line, or sometimes I use a cheap submersible pump, and use pool water on the lawn and then refill with tap. But not constantly, because I get lazy. However, each time I do that I replace about 4% of the water. I also have a downspout aimed at the pool so when we do get rain, I get as much of it as I can in the pool.

You're at the upper limit of what's actually manageable for CH. It will require maintaining low TA and low pH to prevent scale formation. I keep TA 50-60 and pH below 7.5, always targeting 7.2 when I add acid. I'm just waiting for some rain so I can soften up my pool water.

Thanks Richard. I don't have a multiport valve, just the one with two positions, filter or backwash. I'll take some pics tomorrow and hopefully someone can tell me what the heck all those valves are for. :-D

 

[mynameismud]

OK as promised here are the pics of my plumbing system

And it's all for this...one of the main reasons we bought the house!

So, can anyone tell me what all those valves do? And more importantly, is anyone able to tell if any of them connect to the sewer?

Thanks!

 

[Richard320]

Wow, what a mess!

The backflush valve isn't plumbed to a sewer that I can see. The discharge is out the bottom, and it seems to go nowhere.

This is also a puzzler. You have an automated 3 way valve splitting flow between two pipes, yet one has the gate valve closed.