Picked a great year to be a first time home and pool owner!

[Halome]

Charleston, SC here, first time home and pool owners and only in the house since mid August. We were proud of ourselves to be doing so well on the maintenance aspect of ownership, but came no where close to knowing what the heck we should do with torrential down pours and never got that far in our self teaching.

So what does a naive couple do when they are "not in a flood zone" and didn't get around to purchasing flood insurance yet? Freak out that the pool will overflow and flood the house and drain some water out of the pool, of course!

So, after the fact I'm of course learning that might not have been the best of ideas. The water table by me has gone berserk, and my liner is floating a bunch.

I've seen a few fix suggestions on here, but am I wrong to think this situation (10-15+ inches already estimated to have dropped on us) is an exception and requires more specialized steps/action?

I'm wondering what, in the future, is my best course of action in the event of pending massive floods? Drain a little, not at all, add more, etc?

We [now] have plans to install some sort of drainage system on at least one side of the pool as it produced mass puddles. We will likely have it so it diverts to the very large ditch line/creek immediately behind the pool/fence (where the waste valve drains). Any other suggestions?

I can post pictures/video when it's daylight out, but I'll leave you with this treat: Instagram

 

[Texas Splash]

Good morning. Look at your neighbor here: Torrential Rains in SC overflowed my pool. Tough times for you all. Not much you can do when Mother Nature intervenes. Once the waters recede, you'll be able to see how your liner reacts and whether or not it settles down to its original configuration. If not, then you'll have to decide if/when any repair action is warranted. For now, simply keeping your water clean will be a good course of action and adjusting chemicals as needed. Perhaps doing a SLAM if any junk flowed into the pool like on the link above. Trying to guess about how much water to drain before a storm is just that ... a guess. But when a pool is full, there's nothing you can do about the water table pushing-up from below. That's a tough one. Sorry to hear about your troubles.

 

[Halome]

Oh goodness, we are fortunate compared to that so far! We had a lull this morning, allowing some of the standing water time to drain. Flash flood watches for another 24 hours still, and the ditch line water is rising from run off, so I'll just keep my fingers crossed it doesn't rise to that level! :/

Thank you for your reply and the suggestions , I really appreciate it!

Video of the pool now that it's light out,and view of the ditch: https://youtu.be/0GemRRJPynA

 

[Texas Splash]

Uh boy. That is a shame and I feel bad for you. That water table is so over-saturated. I suppose you won't know the real outcome until this is all over. I've seen where some pool owners had sump pumps and drainage installed under/around the pool to help prevent that from happening, but even then, there is no guarantee. But how often do we really expect something like this to happen? I hope you are able to recover soon.

 

[Saturn94]

Unfortunately with that much rain there's not much you can do other than keep the water level in the pool as high as possible without going above where the liner attaches to the coping.

Definitely keep FC up to avoid adding an algae outbreak to your troubles.

Here in VA we're also suffering from the same storm, although we've "only" had about 7" of rain so far....and no liner float so far (keeping fingers crossed).

What a mess!

 

[otter86753]

Hey there neighbor. Hope you are safe and dry inside. We only had a small leak in the downstairs powder room, which for our old house, we are very grateful for. I too have pumped out my pool 4 times. Fortunately, our storm drains are not backed up so the water doesn't collect in our garden, but actually goes down the drains. We feel very fortunate.

 

[Halome]

Hey! That's great to hear something good in this crazness! I imagine a lot of folks found leaks this weekend they had no idea they had

We have a few vents in the roof that had water blown under them and one nail that wasn't properly sealed, causing a few little puddles. We have been spared a much bigger mess so far! Here's hoping for a smooth recovery for everyone!

 

[otter86753]

Glad you only had a few leaks as well. We have a friend in Georgetown and they are having major issues. Columbia is a mess as well. We feel pretty fortunate all in all. Sent you a private message.