Drain Water to Winterize

[Dave224]

Move from HERE

I also need to drain down my first year pool for winterizing. The guy closing it wants me to drain it down not just below the skimmers but also below the returns. And I want to do that to lower the CYA for next year. The problem is the overnight temps. F will be in the low 20’s and I want to keep the water circulating through the equipment until everything is blown out. My question is will the main drain alone supply enough water to do this? One of 3 supply pipes. I can turn down the speed of the pump. Seems like this should work. Any other way better?

 

[ajw22]

You only know if you try your pump drawing from the main drain only. You may need to adjust the speed of the pump so it is not trying to pull more water then the main drain can supply.

For one day temps falling into the 20's is not likely to be a problem anyway. Read...

The Physics of Freezing and Freeze Protection

Recently, there have been a lot of questions from those living in moderate climates about using automatic freeze protection or running pumps to prevent freezing and what a pool owner should do when temperatures drop so I thought it might be useful to have a thread which dealt with the issue from...

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[Dave224]

I did get the flow just fine and now it’s drained to where it needs to be. I also read the very good article above. Thanks for your help.

 

[Woodstock1234]

Supposed to be 78 here on Thursday. Could swim if I was a polar bear.

 

[mariane]

Supposed to be 78 here on Thursday. Could swim if I was a polar bear.

Yea, it's hard to close when the weather is supposed to be warm. A couple of years ago, we turned the heater up to high 80's and swan in mid October.

 

[anthonypool89]

The guy closing it wants me to drain it down not just below the skimmers but also below the returns.

Why? From rain, etc. the water level wil likely come up above the returns anyway. Assuming you're plugging the lines either way, I'd rather be sure that they are effectively plugged by knowing that no air bubbles are coming through once the plugs are in. At any rate, that's a heck of a lot of water to pump out.