Pool Brown: Over 12 Inches of Rain Yesterday

[PointeTaken]

We had more than 12 inches of rain yesterday, along with 30+ mph winds. To the best of my knowledge, I managed to keep the water level in my pool below the deck through the entire event. Imagine my surprise when I saw this morning that the pool that was blue 24 hours ago looks like this:



With the amount and rate of rainfall we had, I think it’s very likely the pool deck flooded completely, so I’m guessing a lot of this is storm water runoff. What do I do as next steps? I’ve shut everything off because I have no idea what’s getting sucked into the pump right now. Do I wait and see if the sediment settles to where I can vacuum it? Do a series of drains and fills? Call a pro?

By the way: I had no idea what category to stick this thread under. Mods, feel free to move it to a different board.

 

[mknauss]

Google search results

www.troublefreepool.com

Bummer. Essectially, scoop out debris, start circulating to remove dirt (your sand filter will be a blessing to start but a curse at the end), maintain FC in the pool water as best you can. Once you have gotten all the major debris out you can consider using a clarifier (SeaKlear Chitosan is a good one), but that is several days down the road.

 

[PointeTaken]

your sand filter will be a blessing to start but a curse at the end

Why’s that?

 

[mknauss]

Easy to backwash at the start when you are getting out lots of debris. But in a day or two the pool will just be left with fines that the sand filter will not filter. Then you will most likely have to use DE in the sand filter (to make it dirty enough to catch the fines) and possibly clarifier to clump up the fines.

 

[Mdragger88]

Awww man
Since u turned everything off for a while you may be able to vac to waste what has settled then after that…
Filter, filter, filter - backwash when pressure rises 20-25% over clean pressure. After the mud is vac’d off the bottom & you can see better you can use your robot to help u. You just don’t want to send him on a mission he may not return from.
Obviously keep fc up during this time to be on the safe side , use liquid chlorine to supplement.
Like Marty said towards the end when it’s mostly clear u will need help with the finer particles.

Add DE to a Sand Filter

A clean pool filter will increase the efficiency of your pool! ... your filter are to backwash it, clean the manifolds and grids, and add new DE.

www.troublefreepool.com

You may need to address the drainage in your yard to prevent this from occurring again in the future.
There have been quite a few people in your situation- it will get back to beautiful, it’s just gonna take some work & time.

 

[Msch99]

 

[Newdude]

Bummer PT !!!

We’ve seen it to both ways. For some folks it was heavier particles that all fell by turning the pool off for a day or two. Others had real fine stuff that stayed floating and only circulating it helped. One guy, @Mopar4u comissioned a second pump/filter to double his production. Other members have had a combo of heavy and fine stuffs so you may need to change gears on the fly.

Best of luck and keep us posted.

 

[PointeTaken]

You may need to address the drainage in your yard to prevent this from occurring again in the future.

Drainage isn’t usually an issue; even with tropical storms coming through we’ve never really had much runoff - if any - from up the mountain, but the entire region was so saturated yesterday I think water from the top of the mountain was just taking any and every route down to the river that it could find. Unfortunately I think that included going over my pool deck and into the pool. I cleaned the pool deck drains and lines out just a couple of months ago, but they simply weren’t designed to handle 3-4” of rain per hour.

 

[PointeTaken]

use liquid chlorine to supplement

That’s all I’ve used for the past two months … no salt to be found around here recently, even softener salt .

 

[Newdude]

but they simply weren’t designed to handle 3-4” of rain per hour

I’m torn all the time in our new era. There’s only so much that makes sense to spend for 100 year storms………. But they happen every 9 years now.