empty salt H20 pool down clean out vs washing machine. hose vs 1.5" vs 2" hose

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so, to summarize, it's sounding like noone has a problem with me running a reg size hose to the washing machine/drain or the clean out drain attached to my house. sounds like Mknauss thinks I'll be ok with a larger hose and Ahultin says studor won't leak if it's working correctly. Seems like I'm more comfortable with a smaller hose or drain out to the front clean out if I can find a 155' hose. thx y'all!
 
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Once again I'm late at draining the pool. I started today at 12:30pm with a garden hose to the front yard clean out (150 feet of hose) and 6.5 hrs later has drained about 4". I'm calculating 3+ days of draining. temps will get to 79 on Thurs and 83 on Friday. I have enough hose to syphon out to the back house clean out but I assumed it wouldn't work cuz my pool is in ground and the clean out is higher than the pool. I filled a hose with h20 and tried to siphon it to the grass and it didn't work. I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or cuz the pool is lower. Years ago I was able to siphon to the road which is lower than the backyard but at the time I couldn't find the clean outs and it's not legal so I don't want to do that again. I'm not sure if my clean out in the front is lower than the top of the pool, but unlikely that it's lower than the bottom of the pool where I'd want to put the hose (if I were to siphon into the front yard clean out and pump into the clean out in the house). I'd like it to go faster but I might have to just deal with how it's going. This brings up questions.

I think there was some confusion due to the idea to drain to my washing machine or clean out on the house but now that I drained to my front yard clean out I'm wishing I would've bought the 1/2 HP and would probably want to do that next time. Or would a 1 HP have been good through a garden hose?

Anyone know how I can possibly siphon water out of my pool with the extra garden hose that I have? thx!
 
The outlet of the siphon hose must be lower than the water level.

Surprisingly a higher HP sump pump will not make that much difference. The long garden hose is the limitation. It is all about head loss.
 
Kim - you've been MIA for almost a month ...

Siphoning with a garden hose will be painfully slow. But as @mknauss stated, the outlet of the hose must remain lower than the water level at all times. So if your pool was 5 feet deep and the hose was atthe bottom of the deep end, the outlet would (more or less) need to be over 5 feet below pool deck height.

Given that the temps here are forecast to be in the lower to upper 90's over the weekend and into next week - you would be best served by calling rental places (FIRST THING IN THE MORNING)and renting a larger diameter hose to run from the pump to the cleanout. The other option is renting a pump/hose combo from Home Depot.

Time to prioritize draining the pool - before it's too late and the temps warm up much more.
 
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thx mknauss and Gene! that's interesting that a larger HP wouldn't make a difference. if I shortened the length of the hose and drained in a closer location (house drain or washing machine) would that make a difference? washing machine means then it has to travel uphill a bit. With what Gene is saying, that's a question for knowledge for the future.

For tomorrow morning, I'm planning on trying a 1 1/2" hose (or a 2") to my washing machine or clean out in the house. I think I have enough of both to reach to the back of the house (40 feet) vs the 156" to the front clean out. Plan b would be to rent from home depot or plan C-only empty half the pool. I'm trying to remember how long it took me to fill it in the past. Sat should be up to 88 degrees.
 
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I just checked the h20 and it went down about 11” from 12:30pm to 6am so my estimate of how fast it's emptying in 24 hrs is about 16-17”. I measured about 46” to go in the deep area. at this rate we're looking at midnight tomorrow-hopefully sooner since I have a baja... I'm hoping if I hook up the clamp correctly that with the 2" hose that will work. I have enough hose to take it to the clean out on the house but I can't get the clean out screw off so I'll wait for help or go to HD so I can get another clamp to attach to a long pvc that we use to backwash the pool into the clean out in front of the house so we can get the hose to reach to the washing machine. I also have an unopened 1.5" hose that's longer that I could open if needed.
 
I opened the clean out on the house and with the larger hose I didn't feel comfortable with it, then I tried to washing machine method and even though I was naive enough to use the actual washing machine instead of the drain behind it I'm glad I did. I could see how much h20 pressure and I didn't feel comfortable with the 1.5" hose in that drain either. I ended up attaching 2 1.5" hoses to a 1.5" PVC pipe with clamps and a rope to help with leaking and I'm in business now! I put it on my calendar for 2025 to do earlier and now I'll be able to drain in a day so I can plan better, too. now I have a system so that's good. The one thing I don't like about the 1.5" hose is that the submersible pump doesn't stand up in the middle of the pool. It falls on it's side so at the end I may up using the hoses to drain the last inches, depending on how it goes. Now I need to figure out how much salt, CYA... I have 2 bags of salt but I think it'll take 1. I have to work now but will look into that later. phew. thanks for your push Gene. I didn't sleep much last night but the pool will at least be in better shape than it would've if u wouldn't have pushed me to make a quick change in my process.
 
outdoorsgal said:
last inches
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Don't bother. Just fill up the pool once you get the bulk of the water out.

Salt - you will likely need close to 360 pounds. Or 9 bags. Always test to confirm.
CYA - about 8 pounds. Only add 4 pounds to start and test after a couple days.
 
mknauss. thx. I was told that often times the heavy minerals like salt and calcium sit on the bottom. I'm not sure if that's true, though. If it's not true it wouldn't make sense to bother. 9 40 lb bags? I'll confirm cuz I thought it was much less. I have 2 so far. I'll wait a couple days between salt tests, too. since temps will get up there this week I may have to be ready to add chlorine if needed I'd suppose
 

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If the pool water was well mixed before you started, the salt and calcium are pretty much equal throughout the column.
 
mknauss, ok, thx. Also, do u know how to shut off the auto fill when it's x to refill the pool? pebble guy said not to have that on when refilling pool cuz there will be a water line going down into pool from the auto fill. Unfortunately when they built the pool they put my new hose bibs on same line as the auto fill
 
outdoorsgal said:
pebble guy said not to have that on when refilling pool cuz there will be a water line going down into pool from the auto fill.
Click to expand...
I believe that is only a concern with new plaster. But, you should have a shut off for that line. Or put something under the float valve to prop it up and keep if from turning on.
 
mknauss, no shut off valve cuz it's on the same line at the hoses. I regret that quite a bit. the pb said he was going to do that to save us money and we didn't know at the time why there are several reasons not to do that, including now we can't plumb soft water to the pool if we wanted to. we'd have to dig up a lot of stuff to get a separate h20 line out to the pool. they share the h20 line from the house to the pool then split off. I figured out how to put something under it.

I'm done the drain and refilling with 4 hoses. I should be ready to add some chemicals tomorrow then I'm out of town for part of Friday. I'd like to buy what I need but I guess I'll wait to test the h20 so I can get a real reading since Leslies probably won't allow me to return anything and I don't want to hold on to extra salt for the next 2-3 yrs if I don't have to. thx for your help!
 
Kim

My SWG has been producing chlorine for almost two months.

Try to stay away from Leslies. Go to the Walmart over on Elliott and pick up 2-4 gallons of MA (Kem-Tek) and 2-4 gallons of liquid chlorine (Pool Essentials).

You will also need CYA (stabilizer) - Walmart has this too.... Clorox Pool&Spa Stabilizer 4 lb. bag. Your pool will need 6-8 pounds, so get 2 bags.
Use PoolMath to see how much CYA to add. Add about 75% of what it calls for - use the sock method (do NOT just dump into the pool or skimmer) use the sock method. Test the CYA 24 hours AFTER it is ALL dissolved.

I checked stock online at that particular Walmart and they have all of the above in stock (per their website).

You can also get the salt there or at HD or Lowes. You will probably need 8-9 forty pound bags of salt (but test the full pool for salt before adding any - it will be low because of the refill).
I've used both of these - in the BLUE bag - Morton's Pure and Natural water softener crystals or Diamond Crystal Solar Naturals salt crystals for water softeners. Both are solar salt in crystal form and don't have any of the additives of the yellow bag stuff.
It takes a little more time to dissolve - continue to brush until it's all dissolved. But it's cheaper than the "pool salt" at the pool store.

Do NOT dump all the salt in at one time. Using PoolMath, shoot for about 2800-3000 ppm of salt. Put in 50% to 60% of what PoolMath calls for. Brush to dissolve, let the pump run for 24 hours continuously and retest. After retesting, add whatever PoolMath calls for to get to target (2800-300 ppm), brush to dissolve, let pump run continuously for 24 more hours and test again. That should get you in the ball park.

I'm trying to get you to sneak up on the recommended CYA and salt levels as you don't want to overshoot.

As you are aware - Testing is paramount. Make the time to do it. Take your time. Rushing or not making time to properly test has caused you issues in the past.
Making the time to test, testing correctly and adjusting your chemicals more frequently will actually save you time in the long run.
 
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And you need to start posting testing results to PoolMath so we can see the results here.
It makes it easier for us to see what's going on.

Your last entries were from 4 YEARS ago and only show two MA additions.

How old are your reagents?
 
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You’re moving right along in your process just wanted to mention- be sure to add 5ppm worth of liquid chlorine asap & then daily so nothing grows while you’re working on getting everything else in line & getting the swg going.
Don’t turn on your swg until your salt additions have been circulated for 24 hours or you can zap your cell. Just dose daily with liquid chlorine & gradually raise the salt as recommended above.
 
thanks Gene. that's very helpful. I'm having a problem. my trees r being watered even though I have the timer off so it's causing the fill to go slower and im worried to mess with anything or have someone look at it cuz they'll have to shut off the water. my garden is dry and i wanted to see if I were to water it if the h20 on trees would shut off. the h20 for garden did not turn on and h20 for trees did not stop.instead the antisyphon valve or "vacuum pressure breaker" started leaking pretty bad. I shut off the irrigation again so trees will continuously be watered and pool will be watered slower. I have 4 hoses and may take the screwdriver out of the leveler so that can help potentially. pool is almost 2/3 full. hoping nothing busts
 
I spray the pool walls when I can. as long as nothing busts I'll wait it out. irrigation guy said he can come Monday. I used to do my own irrigation but I don't want to mess with it
 

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