Heavy Rains Flooding Pool

[Cherie]

Hi. I'm hoping someone will respond to this before we go to bed tonight and await the next big downpour, due in around 1:00a.m. My question is, what harm can it cause to allow the rainwater to fill the pool nearly to the top of the pool? If I turn the pump off, since the skimmer would be overflowing anyway, would it hurt to allow it to just overflow and allow the rainwater to fill as close as a couple inches from the top of the pool? If it gets that high, then I'll go dump some water.

Our pool is buried three feet and with a deck around it. The liner is not flush against the walls - it sits out from the wall between the top of the pool, where it's folded over and attached, and the water. I don't know if this is normal for AGP's or not. Beneath the water line, it's flush against the walls. The problem is, the installer barely left enough liner at the shallow end to get it over the wall to get it attached. So I have dual concerns: (1) Will allowing rainwater to fill it nearly to top cause that end of the liner to pull out, since it was shorted anyway, and (2) will it cause any damage otherwise, to allow it to fill a couple inches from the top, which of course, would mean that the skimmer would be pouring water out?

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

My pool has overflowed several times from heavy rains. What has happened is the water has gotten in between the liner and the wall and washed out some of the sand from the cove areas. It's not really an issue at the skimmer other than it doesn't "skim" properly.

I'm sorry I didn't see this last night but really all you can do is set to syphon it out at this point - hopefully it wasn't that bad? Good luck Cherie!

 

[Cherie]

Thanks FPM. I just went back out and turned the pool back on. Apparently, we didn't get it as bad as the radar was showing last night, because it's not much fuller than it was when I left it last night. But according to the new radar, we're in for another ride.

So if I let it keep filling, and the water completely covers the skimmer opening, the skimmer will not skim properly, but will be ok other than that? That's the only area that we didn't put decking over - so will be prone to getting boocoos of rainwater soaking in. I went out last night and weighted down some plastic all over that area so that no more water would accumulate there. It worked well, so I'm leaving it there for now. If I remove the lid from the skimmer, which would allow air to come in from the top, would that make a difference?

I'm going to research this idea for a near future modification to the pool so I don't have to keep fretting over an overfilled pool when we get the much-needed rain: Create a secondary opening in the skimmer wall at the top, connect a pvc pipe to it and connect the other end of the pvc pipe to the wastewater pipe, which is underground, about four feet from the skimmer. Thus, my hypothesis (don't I sound smart? ) is that, as the pool overfills from rainwater, the skimmer will overfill and the overfill will run into the pvc pipe and on down the pipe we put in leading to the city wastewater - like an in-ground pool does!

 

[stev32k]

We have had just over 60 inches of rain so far this year. We had 2" yesterday and 1/2" so far today and it's supposed to rain every day this week. It's come down so hard a couple of times that my overflow could not handle it and I had to pump water to waste. I don't want it to fill brim full because of getting water between the liner and the inside walls. It's raining so hard right now I can't see the far end of the pool, and if it keeps up I'll have to start pumping again.

I'm not concerned about the skimmer I just don't want water to get behind the liner.

 

[kjcole]

I think that I'm missing something here. :?: How is the water getting behind the liner (beaded liner, I'm assuming, otherwise I'm really missing it). The top of the skimmer is lower than the bead, isn't it?

 

[stev32k]

I think that I'm missing something here. :?: How is the water getting behind the liner (beaded liner, I'm assuming, otherwise I'm really missing it). The top of the skimmer is lower than the bead, isn't it?

The water level can (and has) risen high enough overflow the top of the pool. When that happens water can get behind the liner. The seal between the top of the liner and lip of the pool is not water tight. The skimmer is not an overflow it's just an inlet to the pump.

 

[kjcole]

Thanks for the explanation. I think things are different between an AGP and IP. I can see very easily how this can happen with an IG pool since everything is happing at grade. In my AGP, the skimmer top (Lomart) is a few inches below the bead. It has a loose fitting lid, so as the water rises it functions as a very effective overflow to the ground, with is nearly 50 inches below. Last month we received 8 inches of rain in 1 1/2 days and my pool level never rose higher than the top of the skimmer, even with a clogged, overflowing gutter feeding it. The bead level was never threatened by water even at the highest 'fill' levels from the rain and gutter. Do most AGP skimmers function like mine?

 

[Cherie]

kj, our pool is different from either of y'all's (that's a Texas word, btw ) in that it is both an AGP and an IGP. It is a Doughboy that has been buried three feet into the ground, with the skimmer still above the ground, but with the skimmer pvc buried, as well as the pvc for both returns buried. Also, our pool is not a beaded liner. It's been folded over the top (doubled-folded everywhere exept the shallow end, where the installer misjudged how much liner he would need and only had enough liner left to get it up and over the wall to put the coping on).

Our concern is that, if something goes wrong, i.e., water overflowing the pool and putting too much water going down the outside of the pool into the ground deep enough to saturate the ground and wash out any sand under the liner or in the deep end, or any other problems that may come with rain-saturated ground, it would be a very expensive repair bill...assuming we could even find anyone to do the repair. Also, as I mentioned above, because the liner is pulled very tight at the shallow end, such that he was only able to get it up and over the wall (not folded over itself) and get the coping on it, we're concerned that if we allow the rain to go all the way up, the weight of the water could pull the liner out from under the coping and send a loosed liner into the pool. Now THAT would mean the end of our pool! We couldn't afford to have the whole thing done again. These are the things we're questioning as to concerns of allowing the pool to overfill with rainwater.

Having the deck around the pool now helps protect the ground from oversaturating. But an overflowing pool would negate that!

But I sure don't like having to go out there in lightning to drain water off. Rain doesn't bother me, but lightning might!

 

[kjcole]

Cherie,

I see your concerns about the small overlap, and the increasing water level putting more stress on the liner (my liner isn't snug to the wall above the water line either). I don't think you have to worry about washouts at the base of the pool structure with a partially buried pool like yours. I was worried about that with mine, since I dug mine into a slight slope, effectively making a 'bowl' and then retained the dirt with timbers. I graded for drainage and put a few inches of river rock for a few feet around the outside of the pool to prevent erosion. Now overspill (I have a deck completely surrounding my pool too) drains out to a natural slope rather than standing at the base. Longstanding saturation may cause settling at the footings (a worry here in up north during the wet spring melts and fall), so you want good drainage around any AG pool. A little rock and some corrugated plastic drain tile, properly graded (e.g., 1/4 inch per foot), to carry away the overflow would alleviate any concerns like that.

 

[Cherie]

Well, the problem with that, kj, is that we already have the deck installed and what a booger it was to build! So getting access to the area immediately around the pool walls now is NIL. Also, I need to be able to shoot some ant granules up under the deck and against the pool wall (haven't quite figured out how to do that effectively yet). So putting any type of solid drain-off, like the corrugated you suggested, would block me being able to shoot ant granules in and watering them down.

We did, however, build a small outward slope of ground from the pool wall out, when we finished filling the dirt back in from the install. It took an entire summer of hauling more dirt to it to build it up, then water it in (it would pack down each time) so we would have a slope away from the pool. The slight slope is still there - we didn't change anything when we built the deck. But I'm not so sure that a ton of water flowing over the top and onto that slope wouldn't begin to degrade it such that the water ended up making a trough. It's hard for me to explain my concern and there may be no reason for alarm at all anyway. But it's like with regular rain, I knew it would hit the buildup and go on down. But if there's a deluge of water all coming out of the pool, seems it could degrade the slope, send water down the sides (via saturation) and start causing problems.

We've had rain constantly here since last Friday - so it's been four days now. We have a lot of standing water in our yard. This doesn't happen very often in Wylie (we live between two lakes and the lakes seem to scare off the rain when everyone around Wylie is getting a good bath). But when it does happen, it happens GOOD!

I guess we should plan on trying to rig up some type of overfill pvc and pipe it into the city-required backwash line we had installed. Then add a lower level of decking around the skimmer area. The deck will help protect the pool now - but gullywashers are still gullywashers! Here's our deck build, btw: http://s586.photobucket.com/albums/ss30 ... k%20Build/

Thanks for all the help. I appreciate it.

 

[kjcole]

Hi Cherie,

That slope should do it unless you really get strong runoff there in a gulley-washer. A few inches of rock around the pool would ease those erosion concerns (unscrew some boards to get access). I'd just monitor that area (peek between the boards) - since there's a lot of dirt there you'd have plenty of warning before the erosion could get down to the base of the pool.