Advice on running pool heater for a day ahead of polar vortex

[Newdude]

I don't think blowing out the lines is really necessary in those areas

I don't either for the sake of the buired pipes. But if the equipment pad is equal to or lower than the pool water height, the pipes will be full at the ground level.

Again, blowing the lines is easy once it's been attempted before, so I wouldn't even blink if I was down there. I'd just blow the lines in 15 mins and be good until it warmed up.

 

[mas985]

I agree that pads below water level require special consideration as you cannot rely on gravity to remove the water. I did qualify that in one of the posts above as the procedure I gave is for the pad equipment above water level.

But even blowing out lines can leave some water behind although it doesn't really matter if there is a little water that freezes. Freeze damage can really only occur in situations where the expanding ice has nowhere to go. So pipes and fittings must be >90% full of water before freeze damage can even possibly happen. If most of the water is gone, there is really no chance of damage. The drain plugs in the equipment should be sufficient to remove all the water that could possibly cause any damage, assuming again, the equipment is above water level.

 

[dailygenesis]

****** open invite to anyone following *****

Next year get a thread going in Sept when all the northern newbs are learning for the first time. Post pics of your setup and list anything relevant. We'll walk you though the supplies you'll need and also a trial run or two.

Not having to cover will save you half the battle and ALL of the heavy lifting.

Is this offer available before September? I might be looking into this once we get through this cold snap.

 

[Newdude]

Is this offer available before September?

Of course. My reasoning was by the time this is over we will be close to or into February and y'all might not see anymore freezing after that.

So I was just planting the seed for next season, but by all means jump on it now.

This is the 2nd or 3rd freeze for folks down by you, and they were all recent. By 4 or 5 many may be reassessing their winter plans.

 

[DB-Cooper]

Mine is holding steady at 36. I had a little bit of surface ice in a corner, but pipes and equipment seem fine.

What temp are you at now?

 

[JJ_Tex]

What temp are you at now?

We are at 33 degrees, which isnt bad since we were in the single digits overnight. Tomorrow we are back in the 40's and 50's so we are in the home stretch.

I did have a bit of ice on the surface that I broke up, but it was pretty thin. How are you holding up?

 

[DB-Cooper]

We are at 33 degrees, which isnt bad since we were in the single digits overnight. Tomorrow we are back in the 40's and 50's so we are in the home stretch.

I did have a bit of ice on the surface that I broke up, but it was pretty thin. How are you holding up?

View attachment 550124

Yesterday, I was reporting 38F all day. The moment the sun went down it started to creep down, 37 before I was in bed. Woke up to pee around 2am, 36, and then at 5-6am when I woke up for good, 35F. It's holding their now. We've got sun finally.

Due to last night's higher winds, I had some wind spray from one of my sheers which amounted to a little ice build up on the stone wall it shoots out of. Also, my edge tile line has a small ice bump where the water flows over due to the wind. There's zero ice in any body of water. Fortunately, wind forecast shows for real low winds through the final stretch.

It seems like both days in a row I lost 3F overnight. 35 - 3 = the magical 32, so it'll be interesting to see. I put my suction and return 2-way valves into "Service" and manually opened them up about half-way (a little less spa suction) so basically all pipes are flowing 100% of the time, I'm no longer doing the 15 minute freeze circuit dance as I don't want standing water in those pipes for 15 minutes at a time. It is sunnier and warmer today than yesterday, but it's going to be a close one.

Ice Bump:

 

[AndyTN]

You amateurs are completely over thinking this freezing water issue. You can completely avoid any freeze issues by simply building a bonfire in the middle of your pool and just thrown on a couple logs every few hours. The rusty wheelbarrow or steel drum may give you some iron staining later but you also avoid the corrosion issue on your expensive pool heater.

 

[DB-Cooper]

You amateurs are completely over thinking this freezing water issue. You can completely avoid any freeze issues by simply building a bonfire in the middle of your pool and just thrown on a couple logs every few hours. The rusty wheelbarrow or steel drum may give you some iron staining later but you also avoid the corrosion issue on your expensive pool heater.

View attachment 550142 View attachment 550145

Haha, I was skeptical after the first photo, but the guy really sells it in the second!

How are you doing? Memphis has gotten two waves of real bad weather throughout this!

 

[dailygenesis]

I put my suction and return 2-way valves into "Service" and manually opened them up about half-way (a little less spa suction) so basically all pipes are flowing 100% of the time, I'm no longer doing the 15 minute freeze circuit dance as I don't want standing water in those pipes for 15 minutes at a time.

This is what I always do for any extended period of freezing temps (more than just a short dip below freezing overnight). Just always seems better to me than rotating back and forth all of the time. Just set the valves manually and keep water flowing through everything.

 

[dailygenesis]

Yesterday, I was reporting 38F all day. The moment the sun went down it started to creep down, 37 before I was in bed. Woke up to pee around 2am, 36, and then at 5-6am when I woke up for good, 35F.

Just going back to the original topic of this thread, I would say that my pre-heating the pool by running my pool heater in advance of this weather system has helped. I am in Oklahoma City where our temps have been a good 10 degrees or so below yours throughout this event. I had the pool at 70 when we went below freezing on Friday night. As of this morning, I am at water temp of 37 (air temp was at 3 overnight), which is a little higher than you after a longer period of temps that are quite a bit lower than yours. I estimated earlier that heating to 70 in advance bought me about a day and a half additional time before reaching 32 degrees. I think it might be even more than that given what you guys are saying about your temps in Texas.

Just for context our temps here were in the single digits for two solid days. We are just now going to get into the 20s during the day today, and then to the 40s tomorrow.

That said, we also had a good bit of sun throughout, only a little precip, and not a ton of wind. The impact of this event seemed more mild than the one we had last Christmas, even though that one was shorter, I believe.

 

[dailygenesis]

Of course. My reasoning was by the time this is over we will be close to or into February and y'all might not see anymore freezing after that.

So I was just planting the seed for next season, but by all means jump on it now.

This is the 2nd or 3rd freeze for folks down by you, and they were all recent. By 4 or 5 many may be reassessing their winter plans.

Thanks, I might hit you up on a separate thread to discuss this. I've read and read a lot about it, and still feel I don't have enough of a grasp on it to feel comfortable.

 

[DB-Cooper]

Just going back to the original topic of this thread, I would say that my pre-heating the pool by running my pool heater in advance of this weather system has helped. I am in Oklahoma City where our temps have been a good 10 degrees or so below yours throughout this event. I had the pool at 70 when we went below freezing on Friday night. As of this morning, I am at water temp of 37 (air temp was at 3 overnight), which is a little higher than you after a longer period of temps that are quite a bit lower than yours. I estimated earlier that heating to 70 in advance bought me about a day and a half additional time before reaching 32 degrees. I think it might be even more than that given what you guys are saying about your temps in Texas.

Just for context our temps here were in the single digits for two solid days. We are just now going to get into the 20s during the day today, and then to the 40s tomorrow.

That said, we also had a good bit of sun throughout, only a little precip, and not a ton of wind. The impact of this event seemed more mild than the one we had last Christmas, even though that one was shorter, I believe.

My pool isn't a good comparison. A friend of mine two blocks over told me his pool last night was 46F while mine was 38F. I'm sure he's still in the 40s. My pool is effectively above ground, and it's entirely northern facing and exposed to more wind that the typical backyard in-ground pool. That said, your weather was better. We've had zero sun until this morning, but my house towers over the pool (3 stories) and blocks a good chunk of the sun in the winter.

My controller just flipped from 35F to 34F. We might get to 33F today and pure sun. It'll be curious to see if the sun alone helps at all despite the temps.

 

[Newdude]

I've read and read a lot about it, and still feel I don't have enough of a grasp on it to feel comfortable.

You have to be out there doing it IMO. When you turn this valve under pressure and air shoots out that return, the light bulb goes off much sooner.

 

[Newdude]

It'll be curious to see if the sun alone helps at all despite the temps.

+1. Your water is held by a concrete thermos that helped slow the cooling. Several days in now that its cool, it'll help slow the warming just the same.

But if the sun hits just right, maybe it can pick up a few degrees more than it should. Keep us posted.

 

[DB-Cooper]

+1. Your water is held by a concrete thermos that helped slow the cooling. Several days in now that its cool, it'll help slow the warming just the same.

But if the sun hits just right, maybe it can pick up a few degrees more than it should. Keep us posted.

Yeah, it looks like some of the ice hump on the tile line has melted where it's getting sun. Dark blue glass likes the sun. We're still at 22F air temp and a light breeze, only about 20% of the pool is in full sun right now.

 

[DB-Cooper]

Ice hump is gone (although a small piece slid down into the pool and is floating (about the size of a popsicle). Pool is now reporting 35F, so clearly the sun is doing something as it's still only 24F air temp.

 

[DB-Cooper]

We're starting to warm up and appear to be headed out of the woods. Yesterday, my water temp briefly hit a reported 34F before switching back to 35F once the sun came out. We hit 32.2F air temp for less than 10 minutes yesterday, removing that we will have spent ~80 hours below freezing.

Last night, it was 20F at 11pm when I went to bed and the water was still 35F. I was waking up regularly last night (due to my own anxiety, not alarm or anything). At 1am, it said 34F. By ~5am the outside temp was reporting 13F, and around then it reported 33F water temperature. It's been there since. Since the sun has come out, we're already up to 24F air temp with a planned cruise up to 46F. I think the lack of wind last night helped slow my cool down, as previous nights I was seeing 3-4F drops, but I only saw 2F despite it being slightly colder (we did have sun yesterday and maybe some warmup effect).

This morning, the pool looked good, but as I walked closer by it, the smallest glaze of sheet ice was apparent on the baja shelf. With the fairly aggressive fountains dumping and the three bubblers on the shelf, this just seems to be the area that water gets pushed to and sort of trapped with no agitation. You can see the circular wake pattern from the bubblers. Picture below.

I have good historical data on water temperatures for future arctic blasts. Part of me was curious if we'd get sub-freezing water temps and what the result would be, if things stayed running it'd give a bit more peace of mind, but I'll consider it a victory that this will end and I got to only 33F. If this blast was a day longer, it could've been a different story.

 

[AndyTN]

How are you doing? Memphis has gotten two waves of real bad weather throughout this!

We got down to 3F yesterday morning and I had a frozen toilet line and two frozen spigots. I spent a few hours yesterday messing with the water and trying to get them flowing again. No water leaks, fortunately. I completely drained the pool equipment in advance and I have been running a little cheap pump in the pool to circulate the water. The pool surface is completely frozen over except about 3 feet of the deep end where the hose from my little pump is splashing the water around. The skimmer is full of the saltiest water on earth and I have even mixed it up a few times with a spoon to make sure it didn't freeze hard like last year.

We are supposed to get slightly above freezing today but then another cold plunge with lows in the single digits for the weekend. We have had extreme cold the past few winters but nothing this prolonged with 7 out of 8 days not getting above the freezing mark.

 

[DB-Cooper]

We got down to 3F yesterday morning and I had a frozen toilet line and two frozen spigots. I spent a few hours yesterday messing with the water and trying to get them flowing again. No water leaks, fortunately. I completely drained the pool equipment in advance and I have been running a little cheap pump in the pool to circulate the water. The pool surface is completely frozen over except about 3 feet of the deep end where the hose from my little pump is splashing the water around. The skimmer is full of the saltiest water on earth and I have even mixed it up a few times with a spoon to make sure it didn't freeze hard like last year.

We are supposed to get slightly above freezing today but then another cold plunge with lows in the single digits for the weekend. We have had extreme cold the past few winters but nothing this prolonged with 7 out of 8 days not getting above the freezing mark.

Brutal. We're hitting 72F today, small overnight freeze Friday night into Saturday morning. I just checked your forecast, you've got 2-3 more days of this. Ugh, I feel your pain.