I've been scouring this forum for a few months now, as I recently bought a house (6/24) which has a 33,000 gallon in-ground pool. It took me about 8 days to get the water chemistry where it should be, but thanks to this forum, I was able to do so. I've been using about 1 gallon of chlorine every 36-48 hours and maintaining proper FC levels for my CA level. This forum is fantastic!
That being said, closing time will be here before I know it. My wife insists I let the pool guys do it the first time around, which I may reluctantly agree to. However, I want to ensure I personally fully understand the closing process so I can take it over next year.
I've read through a few different closing guides and posts here and one thing that I'm a bit perplex on is the water level. It says to drain 6" below the lowest return\skimmer. My pool has 2 skimmers, and my attached spa has an additional skimmer. The pool has 2 additional 'holes' in it, in line with the main drain, but higher up in the pool. They have 'dispersion' covers or something of that nature (just a plastic cap that has a 1" gap to allow water to flow around the cap). There's one that is about 6ft deep, and another in the shallow end which is about 3.5 ft deep. Then, finally, there's a single jet coming out of the side on the deep end which is used to circulate the water and is connected to a booster pump which I have to manually operate. When I had a pool person come out early on, he had mentioned that both of the additional 'holes' in the bottom of the pool were returns, not drains, which I suppose makes sense to me.
So, does that mean I have to drain my water to 6" BELOW the lowest return, which is about 6 ft down. That means I'm going to have to drain a large amount of the pool water (perhaps 70%?) and the water level will end up about 6.5ft below the skimmers. That just doesn't seem right to me, but perhaps I'm confused.
In the pool equipment room, I've got some valves I can use to control the skimmer and main drain lines. So one line coming from the pool is marked main drain, the other line coming from the pool is marked skimmers. This seems to reinforce the idea that those 2 additional holes in the bottom of the pool are indeed returns.
That being said, closing time will be here before I know it. My wife insists I let the pool guys do it the first time around, which I may reluctantly agree to. However, I want to ensure I personally fully understand the closing process so I can take it over next year.
I've read through a few different closing guides and posts here and one thing that I'm a bit perplex on is the water level. It says to drain 6" below the lowest return\skimmer. My pool has 2 skimmers, and my attached spa has an additional skimmer. The pool has 2 additional 'holes' in it, in line with the main drain, but higher up in the pool. They have 'dispersion' covers or something of that nature (just a plastic cap that has a 1" gap to allow water to flow around the cap). There's one that is about 6ft deep, and another in the shallow end which is about 3.5 ft deep. Then, finally, there's a single jet coming out of the side on the deep end which is used to circulate the water and is connected to a booster pump which I have to manually operate. When I had a pool person come out early on, he had mentioned that both of the additional 'holes' in the bottom of the pool were returns, not drains, which I suppose makes sense to me.
So, does that mean I have to drain my water to 6" BELOW the lowest return, which is about 6 ft down. That means I'm going to have to drain a large amount of the pool water (perhaps 70%?) and the water level will end up about 6.5ft below the skimmers. That just doesn't seem right to me, but perhaps I'm confused.
In the pool equipment room, I've got some valves I can use to control the skimmer and main drain lines. So one line coming from the pool is marked main drain, the other line coming from the pool is marked skimmers. This seems to reinforce the idea that those 2 additional holes in the bottom of the pool are indeed returns.