Main drain Leaks...

[sgarofalo]

Suction from the pump pulling the water using only the main drain. When the leaves clogged the screen of the main drain it starved the pump of all water flow. He (we) believe that caused enough suction to pull the hydrostatic valve open and potential debris lodged in there preventing it from shutting.

We have a very Low water table here which helped drain the water quickly to the pond that very close to our home. I have never had any water in our sump pump crock which is at or below the deepest portion of our pool so I don't think we have any issues with ground water in our area.

 

[Catanzaro]

In order to possibly prevent this in the future, I would suggest using the skimmers as your primary source of "suction" and main drain as the secondary. I actually shut off my skimmers and close the MD until I hear the difference, meaning that there is little suction and then open the skimmers. Good luck with the pool and take care.

 

[sgarofalo]

Hi Catanzaro,

I totally agree, and 99.9999% of the time all three are open and that is how I typically run my setup. This was kind of odd,, I was in the middle of closing the pool and unfortunatley got called away for a few days and the pool ended up turning a slight tint of green from lack of filtration.

The water level was already below the main skimmers and I "thought" it would be safe to run the pump and circulate the water while I did a last ditch effort to slam the pool prior to closing.

To bad I didn't have high levels of CYA could have taken care of that with no problem with this fiasco!