Edit 
Here's the :blah: :blah:
you didn't want. Sorry.
I've drained mine several times in the past 24 years; several times to acid wash. Several times when I just didn't want to bother with the winter muck. Most winters it did not get mucky as I kept the pool open and worked on the leaf cleanout daily but several years I couldn't be here to keep the masses of fall/winter leaves out of the pool so I just turned off the equipment and let it collect the gunk. We have a very low water table and pool was constructed so that only a few feet of the pool had to be dug for the shallow end and the rest was built so that the drop to deep end virtually follows the slope of the hill down. That was bermed with 12 ft drop off at end of deep end of pool.
I lucked into a fabulous replaster job, done in 1996. There are quite a few indications that the job was superior to most as the plaster has been abused since then, due to my ignorance and that "new" plaster had three pretty heavy acid washings. The last acid wash was in mid summer 2008 with temps at or >100 F. Pool sat empty before that for over a month in full blazing Texas sun. Before that the pool was only partially filled from Oct 07 to early summer 08, with the plaster and tile exposed to all the winter elements and the spring and early summer blazing sun and heat. Through all that abuse, plus many years of chemical imbalances, the 14 year old plaster and tile work (original tile from 1981) (never had any tile pop off) is still in great shape albeit the remaining calcium scale I didn't want to hit too hard with the last acid wash. (It's slowly lifting using sequestrants and pH kept under 7.2.) That's why I refer to it as a "Superior" plaster job that I
lucked into. The contractor who was doing some remodel work on our house hired the plaster guy. The job cost around $4K+ but I think it was worth every penny for the proven results and longevity. The blue plaster upped the price a bit.
From what the pool experts indicate, here on the forum, one is lucky to get 10 good years out of a plaster job, at least using the methods and materials used in recent years. Maybe my plaster guy used "old" type material and techniques. I knock on wood every time someone says to avoid draining a pool, in summer, in hot climates. I could have done some serious damage to my pool but luckily didn't. It looks like from inspecting the plaster around the returns that the "new" plaster may have been applied thicker than the original.
I highly advise avoiding all the mistakes I made over the years. Don't let that plaster pool sit in blazing sun for any length of time. Know your water table levels. In my local we have to drill several hundred feet to hit water. And when we get many inches of rain in a short period of time the water soaks in very quickly or runs down the hill. Popping out of the ground is just not any issue at all here but is so in many places.
And I would not recommend anyone draining a pool without full understanding of what he/she could encounter. Again, all those years I lucked out. Knock on wood.
My pool is easy to drain as the pumping station is "flooded" (way below pool down the hill) and a few hoses run down the hill hurry up the job. To do the last bit submersible pumps always come in handy and they can be used, too, to sped up the emptying. I've emptied the whole 25K gallons in a few hours using hoses down the hill, submersible pumps, and taking off the pump pot lid "down there" with the valve from bottom drain open. Just using gravity all of the water will empty through the pump pot except for about a foot in the deep end.
If one is draining to acid wash the best time to do an acid wash, especially in the heat of summer, is at night, with flood lights and fans around the pool to draw out fumes, especially if the deep end is very deep.
That's it folks.
gg=alice
22000 Gallon Kidney full of mustard algae. Can I drain my pool down here on the Gulf Coast (25 miles from the beach)? 
