Experiencing my winter worst case scenario!

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Ryno98

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Dec 27, 2013
92
East Texas
Here in North East Texas, we have finally gotten some of the winter weather the rest of the country has been experiencing. It's fun playing in the snow! However, now the power is out so no freeze protection for the pool... I have a generator for the house, but not enough juice to run the pool. Normally, I don't worry too much about the cold temps here because they are short lived. This time, though, we have been at or below 32 for over 48 hours, my pool water temp is 39, and it is supposed to get down to 25 tonight (and 23 tomorrow night!!).

My plan is to break suction on all of my pumps (luckily they are above the pool level) and let the water drain into the pool. I am most worried about the heater, and frankly not sure how (or if) I need to drain it, or if the water will just drain downhill on its own after I break suction at the pump level. The filter will drain mostly back into the pool and then I can just open the drain plug at the bottom to finish it off. I will also cover the equipment with some old sheets/comforters.

If anyone has better ideas, please help!! We are currently 32.7 F and snowing (about 5 inches so far) and it will cool down this evening.
 
My heater has drain plugs on the inlet and outlet manifolds, so open those too if you have them. Mine are also Union fittings to the heater so if yours are, you could also open those and blow out the HX with a shop vac. Just thinking out loud on what I would do with mine, as we have been close to this scenario out here this winter as well.

Also, don't forget the pump suction, as there may be a 1/4" plug drain on it as well.
 
I've augmented my plan by partially redirecting the exhaust from my generator toward my heater. Luckily they are only about 6 feet apart. May not help a ton, but so far seems to be keeping the area around the heater approx. 3-4 degrees above ambient temp. I'm giving the power company until 9 PM. If I still don't have power by then, everything is getting drained. This ought to be fun in the wet slushy snow and freezing air. Also, in case anyone else is reading this in a similar situation -- ALWAYS turn off the breakers to your pool equipment when you drain equipment. This would be easy to forget in a power outage, but could really ruin some stuff when the power is restored.
 
Ryno98 said:
I've augmented my plan by partially redirecting the exhaust from my generator toward my heater. Luckily they are only about 6 feet apart. May not help a ton, but so far seems to be keeping the area around the heater approx. 3-4 degrees above ambient temp. I'm giving the power company until 9 PM. If I still don't have power by then, everything is getting drained. This ought to be fun in the wet slushy snow and freezing air. Also, in case anyone else is reading this in a similar situation -- ALWAYS turn off the breakers to your pool equipment when you drain equipment. This would be easy to forget in a power outage, but could really ruin some stuff when the power is restored.
Click to expand...

Good thinking on the breaker. I could have easily forgotten that.

If you could get the gen closer, and cover the whole shooting match with a tarp, or it and the heater, it might help warm things up a little. I'll wish you good luck too man. Let us know how it shakes out.
 
Salvation!! The power came back on while I was reading the heater manual to find the drain plugs! There have still been a few ominous "flickers", but so far so good. The pumps are all firing away for the night. If the power company had just looked at my usage over the past 72 hours or so with four 3 HP pumps going around the clock, they probably would have hooked me back up sooner. I might be their best customer! It's a relief for me because tomorrow night is supposed to be even colder (19F).

Thank you all for the help! Even though this turned out to be a frightening drill, it's great to have good folks to help get plans lined up and get some reassurance.
 
I'm in Longview. They have fortunately "upgraded" tonight's forecast to a low of 22. Thanks for the link. I kicked on the heater today to get the pool temp back up into the upper 40's (it had fallen as low as 37!). I get a ton of wind across my pool, so it probably cools off a bit faster than most.
 

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