Reverse Osmosis Treatment vs Drain & Fill
- Thread starter LeviStraussTx
- Start date
I added a half gallon of 10% last night when it was about half full. I’m going to do a test of un-mixed water here shortly. I started the pump and the filter is spewing out of the gasket where the clamp is, so I can’t run the pump to mix it up until I fix that. I think I left it dry for too long yesterday, so I’m going to pick up some o-ring lube during my kiddos nap time and hopefully that fixes it.
Ok, here are some pictures of the drain/fill. I rented a 3” electric pump and 150’ of hose from a local rental company. It was $65 out the door for the whole weekend. I needed 150’ of hose to get it out to the streetThey said it was 10,000 gph, and I had to push it up about 6 feet in height plus 150’ in length, plus there were inevitably a few minor kinks that slowed flow. My 14,000 gal pool took about 2.5 hrs to empty. All-in-all pretty darn fast. It left about 2-3” in the bottom, so then I used a WaterBug pump and got it down to about 1/8”, then finished with a wet shop vac to get all the water and the remaining debris (sand, some leaves, random plaster that fell out from behind the lights, etc).
I also used a tripod rotary impact sprinkler to keep the walls wet so they wouldn’t dry out and crack. The temp all day was around 80-85, with partial sun.
While it was draining, I scrubbed the waterline tiles. I didn’t get the white calcium lines completely removed, but it’s better than it was. I also discovered that the water line had a green-blue along it as well. I also cleaned the filters, and they were covered in this colored stuff also. I’m guessing it was something growing, so I’m glad I did the swap now.
When I started to refill, I used a few different sources. The auto fill is a pool miser connected to the sprinkler system on a 1.5” pipe. I removed the normal toilet fill valve that is used for daily auto-fill top off. I then used a new valve and pulled out the bottom part that screws into the pool miser, attached a washing machine discharge hose to it with a band clamp, and screwed it in. It blasted water like crazy. I was also able to use the hose bib next to the pool, then another hose bib connected to the sprinkler. Our water service pressure is really good, so even with all three of these running, it didn’t effect the flow of any of them and we could still shower and do dishes inside. Start to finish, the poll was drained and filled in 11.5 hrs, with a few breaks in the middle. Started at 2:20 pm. Woke up at 2am to check on it and it was 1” from the regular fill level. Then a rainstorm this morning filled it the rest of the way.
I also used a tripod rotary impact sprinkler to keep the walls wet so they wouldn’t dry out and crack. The temp all day was around 80-85, with partial sun.
While it was draining, I scrubbed the waterline tiles. I didn’t get the white calcium lines completely removed, but it’s better than it was. I also discovered that the water line had a green-blue along it as well. I also cleaned the filters, and they were covered in this colored stuff also. I’m guessing it was something growing, so I’m glad I did the swap now.
When I started to refill, I used a few different sources. The auto fill is a pool miser connected to the sprinkler system on a 1.5” pipe. I removed the normal toilet fill valve that is used for daily auto-fill top off. I then used a new valve and pulled out the bottom part that screws into the pool miser, attached a washing machine discharge hose to it with a band clamp, and screwed it in. It blasted water like crazy. I was also able to use the hose bib next to the pool, then another hose bib connected to the sprinkler. Our water service pressure is really good, so even with all three of these running, it didn’t effect the flow of any of them and we could still shower and do dishes inside. Start to finish, the poll was drained and filled in 11.5 hrs, with a few breaks in the middle. Started at 2:20 pm. Woke up at 2am to check on it and it was 1” from the regular fill level. Then a rainstorm this morning filled it the rest of the way.
- May 3, 2014
- 62,674
- Pool Size
- 6000
- Surface
- Fiberglass
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
Great job.
For future reference, the last 2 or 3 inches are no big deal. Could have excluded the effort to get that out.
Do be cognizant in your area you have to be concerned with surface water and the pool shell popping out. No issue this time, so that is good reference for the future. But if you have had alot of rain recently, keep that in mind if you do it again.
For future reference, the last 2 or 3 inches are no big deal. Could have excluded the effort to get that out.
Do be cognizant in your area you have to be concerned with surface water and the pool shell popping out. No issue this time, so that is good reference for the future. But if you have had alot of rain recently, keep that in mind if you do it again.
Thanks for the feedback. I was aware of the risk of “floating” the pool, based on other threads, but I didn’t think it was much of a risk for me. The gunite was poured over a year before the house was done, plaster done, and pool filled, and it never had an issue then, so I figured no big deal. Not sure if you could see, but the two far sides are actually a retaining wall where the next level down is 4 feet lower than the coping, then past that is another 4 foot retaining wall.
That said, I hope to never need to do this full drain and fill again. Now that I’m all in on the TFPC method, I hope to do only do partial water exchanges every year just to keep the TDS, CH, and CYA in check.
Turns out the water is hard, but not as hard as I thought. My theory that perhaps the water samples from the sink and hose bibs would be better after running a while proved true. At the end of the fill, my CH tested at 325 ppm. I’m quite content with that. Working the get the CYA and Chlorine settled now. Currently climbing up to 30ppm for CYA and sitting at 11.5 ppm chlorine. I’ll update later in the week as it settles out.
To touch back on the original topic of this thread, I wanted to share some info on Reverse Osmosis here in DFW. I did a lot of calling around, and as far as I can tell, there is only one provider that does RO pool treatments. A treatment for a pool up to 20,000 gal was quoted at $575 and would take 24-48 hours. I don’t want to break any rules and advertise, but if you’re interested please contact me and I’ll get you the info.
To touch back on the original topic of this thread, I wanted to share some info on Reverse Osmosis here in DFW. I did a lot of calling around, and as far as I can tell, there is only one provider that does RO pool treatments. A treatment for a pool up to 20,000 gal was quoted at $575 and would take 24-48 hours. I don’t want to break any rules and advertise, but if you’re interested please contact me and I’ll get you the info.