How are my fellow Texans doing this morning lol

[OrangeAndBlue]

So far so good here in west suburbs of Houston. I covered the equipment pad with tarps yesterday (don't have extra blankets unfortunately, so it's tarp and some towels over some of pipe only). The pump is turned on to run continuously. It's a single speed pump so it's going full blast - not sure what rpm. I adjusted the valves to ensure flow through both pool and spa returns and suctions simultaneously. Water temp is at 44F currently and was 48F yesterday evening, so not too bad so far. As long as we don't lose power for long, I think this should suffice to make it through tonight's brutal temperatures. Tomorrow afternoon we should blip above freezing for a bit finally.
My backup plan is to shut off the breaker and drain the equipment if we loose power for longer than an hour or so. I have no idea how long would be safe to wait without power. I have an extra office desk lamp somewhere so hopefully I can find a 100W bulb and then will place that under the tarp this afternoon too. Hopefully that should prolong the amount of time I can go without power and avoid having to drain.
Good luck everyone!
(The hose bibs you see here are connected to the sprinkler system, which has all been drained)

 

[Newdude]

The hose bibs you see here are connected to the sprinkler system, which has all been drained

I think that sprinkler pipes will be round 2 of collateral damage. Lots of them run under decks/patios. We will see enough PVC damage, the poly sprinkler pipe doesn’t stand a chance.

 

[OrangeAndBlue]

I think that sprinkler pipes will be round 2 of collateral damage. Lots of them run under decks/patios. We will see enough PVC damage, the poly sprinkler pipe doesn’t stand a chance.

There will no doubt be lots of busted sprinkler systems and backflow preventers when things thaw out.

 

[dkinfowlkes]

Am getting ready to shut it down. Haven't been hit with blackout yet, but I assume it will come today, tomorrow... Would rather work outside with some sun and get it done. Would keep it going if I had confidence in power remaining through the night.

 

[washcycle]

I'm starting to lose the fight. Well plumbing froze so I can't keep the pool filled. I can switch to spa mode to buy a little more time before i'm going to have to drain everything and hope for the best.

 

[Mjg251]

Lost the battle last night here in McKinney. Drain cap on bottom of filter cracked and system lost water. Pulled all drain plugs and put jugs in the skimmer at 3 AM. The only good thing is I don’t have to worry about it anymore - I guess. Anything else I should do?

 

[JRB100]

Far North Dallas/Carrollton
Tarp covering all equipment as of Feb. 9.
Variable speed pump running 24/7 at 2450 rpm.
All valves partially open (at a minimum).
Air temperature was 8 degrees this morning (Feb. 15) with some patches of ice on the pool surface.

Water flow is normal. No power outages. Monitoring closely.

 

[dkinfowlkes]

Question: I have suction side cleaner. The wall fitting has vacuum safety lock. I have had it open while running via hose with filter. Cleaner in garage.
Once I shut down, can I just pull hose and let safety lock close?

 

[JFS61]

Hope everyone is doing well. The power distribution situation as it's stands, is quite disturbing. Kinda weird that a state like Texas, with all its oil and gas production, would have an issue with the shortage of energy.

As for the pool, it appears to be okay, although the surface has frozen over. As for the skimmer haven't check to see if the half empty jug of antifreeze did its job. Was a good thing that I didn't try and get my pool back up and running again (I pulled the plugs and drained the pad back in November), as we lost power for four hours. If it had been running, we'd have been in a world of hurt.

As for the house, I don't know. My mother didn't want to drip the outdoor faucets, so I put a a two inch section of rubber tube insulation over the sections of the spigots extending from the wall, and placed Styrofoam covers. Then proceeded to run all the indoor faucets, along with aiming space heaters at the portions of the wall where the spigots were located. So far, those locals, who, like me, used styrofoam cover have reported their spigots have frozen up. I haven't checked mine (and I'm not sure I want to). That said all the indoors taps, both hot and cold, still run as normal at all settings (that said, I don't know if that is a good sign, or one that is meaningless). Still wished I had dripped the outdoor spigots, but if I had, and something had gone wrong I would have caught Holy Hades for it. That said we've been down in the teens and twenties for several days before, so (fingers crossed) I'm hoping things will the same this time as well (although with a once in a lifetime event such as this, who knows).

 

[George2269]

Far North Dallas/Carrollton
Tarp covering all equipment as of Feb. 9.
Variable speed pump running 24/7 at 2450 rpm.
All valves partially open (at a minimum).
Air temperature was 8 degrees this morning (Feb. 15) with some patches of ice on the pool surface.

Water flow is normal. No power outages. Monitoring closely.
View attachment 175889View attachment 175890

your overall set up is similar to mine but we lost power for over 8 hours so I had to drain the pump at around 2 am and shut down all the equip, now just breaking up ice around the edges of my pool to relieve pressure off the tile and skimmers. not sure what else I can do. if there is damage then I cant do much about no power for 8 hours I dont believe,

 

[jatx]

Cold weather sucks. Any time someone makes fun of us for getting 95 degrees and higher in the summer, must not understand that our extreme weather can easily be fixed by flip flops, shorts, a beer and a pool. You dont have to worry about stuff breaking, you don't have to "summerize" stuff, and your freakin refrigerator works like it is supposed to.

100% agree with this! Give me oppressive heat over oppressive cold any day.

 

[eep]

Far North Dallas/Carrollton
Tarp covering all equipment as of Feb. 9.
Variable speed pump running 24/7 at 2450 rpm.
All valves partially open (at a minimum).
Air temperature was 8 degrees this morning (Feb. 15) with some patches of ice on the pool surface.

Water flow is normal. No power outages. Monitoring closely.
View attachment 175889View attachment 175890

Similar situation here, this morning I aimed all the jets upward and removed my cartridge filter to get more water flow. Massive single speed pump is finally doing some good - The overflow from the spa and jets are really helping keep the ice down to about 50% of the surface area. I have tarped my equipment and put small 250W space heater underneath. Nice 5" of snow insulation of it now.

 

[urriolagoitia]

Lost the battle last night around 2:30 AM here in Allen, TX. Outage alarm app woke me up with the power going out. Did not hesitate to immediately bundle up and venture out to face the elements at 8F. Water in pump was already starting to slush and was able to drain all equipment in this order: pump, filter, heater, and cleaner booster pump. Not a whole lot of water came out of the heater and almost no water out of the cleaner booster pump. Inspected equipment this afternoon and there is no physical evidence of damage. I also shoved some noodles in the skimmers. Pool is now covered in 1” of ice. Only time will tell if I sustained any damage. Keeping fingers crossed.

 

[wuthrirc]

I'm just sick!! Everything was going well even at -1 last night. Pump was running and water still circulating. Then we lost power for 2 hours. But when it came back on, everything was still working. Then we lost power for 11 hours. When power came back on, the pump was "on" but nothing was happening. So I know stuff is frozen. Tried to drain the cartridge filter, but drain plug frozen solid. Tried to remove lid from pump filter. Wouldn't budge. Put it in service mode and gave up at dark. It's 6 degrees. Be brutally honest. What's the best and the worst scenario when temps finally get above freezing? I'm so stressed!

 

[davidh89]

I've got a Pentair Intelliflow... so far so good. However, I just noticed my pressure is a 2 psi (normal pressures is ~15 psi); Intelliflow is "running," but do not seem to have any flow. I've restarted a couple of times - it restarts normally, then the speed drops and pressure falls... Might be part of the freeze protection cycle, but didn't find that in the manual, and not a behavior I've observed before. I've not observed any freezing in my pool equipment thus far. Any thoughts?

 

[mknauss]

Any thoughts?

Welcome to the forum.
The Freeze Protection should use the Pool mode rpm if you have automation. If you do not have automation, it uses the rpm set in the Antifreeze section of the menu. The default rpm is 1000 rpm.

 

[davidh89]

Thanks! Yes, I have automation. RPM setting for Freeze mode is 950 (prob close enough but I'll increase it to 1000 - easy enough). However, there's no notable circulation - no flow over the spa and skimmer water isn't moving or not enough to tell... May have a switch/display problem on the controller. Pushing the button for the pump (which was lit; indicating "on"), and the pump started - seems to be running normally now. Thanks for the quick reply!

 

[davidh89]

Update.... May have a switch problem on my display. Functioning properly now.

 

[mknauss]

Update.... May have a switch problem on my display. Functioning properly now.

Great. Fill out your signature so we know your pool volume, type, equipment, etc. Helps us help you. Enjoy the forum.

 

[TexasBR]

We have NOT had that issue (evaporation) as of yet. I ran the heater for about 24 hours and got the temp up to about 80. The water temp is now 75'ish and while there is quite a bit of steam coming off, the pool level has not dropped too much. Granted, it has snowed ALL DAY, but the moisture content of this has been fairly low. The rain sensors are frozen around the state, so I don't know what the "liquid amount" has been. Forecasts showed between .75" and 1.5" which would obviously help with the evaporation a bit. Tonight will be the tell all as the temp is forecast to get down to -5 with winds still howling around 30 MPH.

Wow - 80 degrees sounds nice and swimmable