Getting Ready to Open - Took a Peek - Did I Not Drain Enough?

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Gailon

Gailon

Member
Jun 13, 2021
11
Maryland
Pool Size
12000
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Liquid Chlorine
I closed my Maryland semi-inground concrete block mound pool on November 12th last year.

I'm SO close to opening I can feel it, the temperature is almost there. Maybe one more cold dipping day next week, then sometime in May I'm going to go for it.

I took a look outside this weekend and saw some standing water (full of pollen of course) on my mesh winter cover. I was confused. Why was there standing water? It's not frozen. Is the pollen clogging the mesh or something?

So I took a peak under the cover and the water level is basically at FULL, almost right at my skimmer target.

When I closed, I drained the pool 12" or approximately 3000 gallons about 2" below my lowest return (so that I could get a nice 3000 gallon water delivery).

Did I not drain it enough? Or should I take this as a well planned closing? I suppose if the water was that high during the freezing months (or even half way) my skimmer was at risk? I did put a good amount of antifreeze in there and plugged inside the skimmer, but the antifreeze is probably all diluted now if the skimmer is full. Do I take this as learning for next year and drain 24" instead of 12" since we seemed to get 12" of water (snow melt + rain) while it was closed this year? What's your advice?

Admittedly this is my first time ever owning a pool. We bought the house last year and I've done all the maintenance myself, cleaning, powerwashing, repainting, filling, vacuuming, closing, and now this is my first ever true opening (since we drained, cleaned and refilled after we moved in).

Thanks so much!
 
Hey there Gailon, welcome to TFP :wave:

Sometimes there are small microscopic almost holes in covers that may have let water in. Ugh, the pollen is terrible, isn't it?

I would go ahead and open now so that if you need to deal with some algae you can do it and be done for before it gets warmer. Our rule of thumb is "Close Late, Open Early!"

Did you use RV antifreeze in the lines?

How do you sanitize your water?

Maddie :flower:
 
Hello! So I'm just a little further north of you in Central PA and have the same thing. I took my water level down about 16" or so when I closed at the end of October and right now, my water level is to the top of the skimmer mouth - not over the skimmer box but definitely more than 1/2 way up the skimmer. Once I de-winterize these plumbing lines, I'm going to have drain some water down to get to the right skimmer level.

As long as your plumbing lines were completely blown out, filled with antifreeze, and you plugged the skimmer with a Gizzmo or pool noodle, then it should be fine. If you have a mesh safety cover, be careful how far down you drain. We have a Loop-Loc mesh cover and their paperwork says not to drain more than 15"-18" for mesh covers (12-16" for solid) because the cover needs that much water to support the weight of ice and snow over the winter as is sags down. If the water is too low, then there's nothing to support it underneath and it could tear. If that happens and the water was too low, the warranty won't cover it.

I took the cover off about a week ago because I had zero FC and saw bright green algae in the skimmer mouth when I peeked under the cover. If you aren't ready to de-winterize your lines but FC is low, you can take the cover off, add LC and stir with the brush and/or run your robot if you have one to help circulate the water until you're ready. My water temp is getting closer to that magical 60* point so I'll get those lines opened up in a few weeks.

Good luck!
 
YippeeSkippy said:
Hey there Gailon, welcome to TFP :wave:

Sometimes there are small microscopic almost holes in covers that may have let water in. Ugh, the pollen is terrible, isn't it?

I would go ahead and open now so that if you need to deal with some algae you can do it and be done for before it gets warmer. Our rule of thumb is "Close Late, Open Early!"

Did you use RV antifreeze in the lines?

How do you sanitize your water?

Maddie :flower:
Click to expand...

To close, brought to a SLAM chlorine level and added a little algaecide for good measure, drained 12".

Used pool antifreeze to close after blowing out lines. Not very much antifreeze since my return lines seem to be inclined and wouldn't hold a volume without pouring out, couldn't get any in the main drain line, and just put some in the skimmer lines and the skimmer itself with a pool noodle circling around the inside of the skimmer.

I sanitized most of last season with with liquid chlorine. Switched when I made an oopsie and realized I was pushing my CYA too high with dichlor. Didn't realize it had CYA until too late! Managed to make it stop increasing around 60 so hoping it's settled back in with the partial drain for closing. Math says should be in the 40-45 range.

Would you suggest I drain it more next time so I actually have to fill the pool when I open? Or is it okay to be where I am "full" at opening? I guess some people don't even drain, right?
 
V___25 said:
Hello! So I'm just a little further north of you in Central PA and have the same thing. I took my water level down about 16" or so when I closed at the end of October and right now, my water level is to the top of the skimmer mouth - not over the skimmer box but definitely more than 1/2 way up the skimmer. Once I de-winterize these plumbing lines, I'm going to have drain some water down to get to the right skimmer level.

As long as your plumbing lines were completely blown out, filled with antifreeze, and you plugged the skimmer with a Gizzmo or pool noodle, then it should be fine. If you have a mesh safety cover, be careful how far down you drain. We have a Loop-Loc mesh cover and their paperwork says not to drain more than 15"-18" for mesh covers (12-16" for solid) because the cover needs that much water to support the weight of ice and snow over the winter as is sags down. If the water is too low, then there's nothing to support it underneath and it could tear. If that happens and the water was too low, the warranty won't cover it.

I took the cover off about a week ago because I had zero FC and saw bright green algae in the skimmer mouth when I peeked under the cover. If you aren't ready to de-winterize your lines but FC is low, you can take the cover off, add LC and stir with the brush and/or run your robot if you have one to help circulate the water until you're ready. My water temp is getting closer to that magical 60* point so I'll get those lines opened up in a few weeks.

Good luck!
Click to expand...
Thanks! I have no idea if it's Loop Loc brand, it looks pretty old and the prior owner didn't leave me any paperwork, but it certainly looks like one. It even has those little plastic sliding covers over the springs. Is that 15-18" from the pool deck surface? or 15-18" from normal water height?

I'm going to take a half day Friday to Open so I have the whole weekend to work on it if necessary!

You know what's interesting? I looked forever for a PICTURE of how to put a pool noodle in the skimmer instead of a Gizzmo and never found one. I ended up just kind of stuffing it down in there in a circle after plugging the hole with a rubber stopper.

Is that normal for you that you ended up with more or the same amount of water than when you drained it? Works well I assume if so?
 
Anywhere with rainfall and snow melt will easily fill and at times over flow a pool drained to 6-12” below returns. I have to pump water off everyone of my pools with safety covers. I love it because it gives me time to vacuum to waste all the fine crud on the bottom.
 
There are winters when we have more rain then snow. You have to check your water level under the cover when we get warm spells and pump water out of the pool if the water level is getting too high.
 
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It's 15-18" from the top of the swimming pool. Yes, it's normal for me to have the pool filled with the same if not more water than when I drained it down. I actually prefer it because we are on a well and I'm not keen on filling with our unfiltered, unsoftened well water but that's just preference.
 
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Okay! My first time opening my first pool ever so far so good! Got the cover off and equipment installed Friday. DE recharged and ran overnight with a little charge of liquid chlorine.

Today I got the cover rinsed off, brushes, vacuumed, took chemical measurements and everything looks good in ranges. CYA still higher than I'd like but workable. pH came up overnight with the water movement.

I noticed my pressure raising real high quickly within an hour or two even with bumping, probably because the DE working hard to clean up the dirty water, so I replaced the DE at the end of the day. Also was slowing down my flow rate so think that was a good call.

If you can maybe see the water is quite cloudy. I'm happy at least it isn't green, but now 24 hours later I can barely see the bottom of the shallow end, and none of the deep end.

Let's maybe see what happens with the new DE, bringing up to SLAM level, and another 24 hours of pumping? Any other cloudy advice?

Definitely I think seeing some improvement in color in the 24 hours later picture
 

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Gailon said:
I closed my Maryland semi-inground concrete block mound pool on November 12th last year.

I'm SO close to opening I can feel it, the temperature is almost there. Maybe one more cold dipping day next week, then sometime in May I'm going to go for it.

I took a look outside this weekend and saw some standing water (full of pollen of course) on my mesh winter cover. I was confused. Why was there standing water? It's not frozen. Is the pollen clogging the mesh or something?

So I took a peak under the cover and the water level is basically at FULL, almost right at my skimmer target.

When I closed, I drained the pool 12" or approximately 3000 gallons about 2" below my lowest return (so that I could get a nice 3000 gallon water delivery).

Did I not drain it enough? Or should I take this as a well planned closing? I suppose if the water was that high during the freezing months (or even half way) my skimmer was at risk? I did put a good amount of antifreeze in there and plugged inside the skimmer, but the antifreeze is probably all diluted now if the skimmer is full. Do I take this as learning for next year and drain 24" instead of 12" since we seemed to get 12" of water (snow melt + rain) while it was closed this year? What's your advice?

Admittedly this is my first time ever owning a pool. We bought the house last year and I've done all the maintenance myself, cleaning, powerwashing, repainting, filling, vacuuming, closing, and now this is my first ever true opening (since we drained, cleaned and refilled after we moved in).

Thanks so much!
Click to expand...
I'm in Central to North Jersey and had a brand new pool last fall with a new loop loc hybrid cover and I pumped the water down 15" before close. I had to pump out water twice over the winter as the water got close to the top, that's how much rain we got. Opened up and the water level was juat about spot on, half way up the skimmer.
 
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+1. Like Allen said above, no 2 years are the same, but in the Northeast we average 3 ft of off season precipitation. It is entirely up to you if while occasionally peeking under the cover, you drain a foot 3 times, or six inches 12 times.
 
I drain 18” every year
I am opening this weekend and my water level is already halfway up my skimmer.
Past years I have had to drain some before opening.
 
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Thanks for the confirmations everyone! The opening went great and the pool looks great! This forum is an awesome source of information! I'm so excited because it's my first time ever owning a pool in my whole life, and I 100% took care of all the maintenance, closing, and now opening on my own thanks to the wealth of knowledge here. So to pull back that cover (though the high water was surprising) and to see no algae, green, or contamination, and just take 2 days to clear up the winter water cloudiness made me super proud.

The kids are very excited to swim, even at 62F
 

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Gailon said:
Thanks for the confirmations everyone! The opening went great and the pool looks great! This forum is an awesome source of information! I'm so excited because it's my first time ever owning a pool in my whole life, and I 100% took care of all the maintenance, closing, and now opening on my own thanks to the wealth of knowledge here. So to pull back that cover (though the high water was surprising) and to see no algae, green, or contamination, and just take 2 days to clear up the winter water cloudiness made me super proud.

The kids are very excited to swim, even at 62F
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