Another newbie! (Looking for advice...)

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If you can isolate the bottom drain, then you can use your pump to drain the pool. Do you have different valves for the floor and the skimmer? But I am not sure I would want to run all the water through the filter using the backwash. Do you have a multi-valve with a Waste option? If not, I would consider renting a submersible pump or buying a cheap one from some place like harborfreight.

Did you ever do the CYA test again with 50/50 split of pool and tap water?

A 3 foot drain is likely less than 50% ... so it may take doing this 2-3 times, depending on how high the CYA really is.

Any idea on how high the ground water table is at your house? If it is more than 3 feet down, you should not have any problems.
 
The skimmer and the bottom drain are two separate valves and I can turn either on or off. Also, I can pump to waste, rather than backwash. I didn't do the CYA test yet with the tap water/pool water split because I am out of reagent. I will buy some in just a little bit and check it again that way. One positive note, I did find out that if I had to refill ALL 35,000 gallons, it would only be $210. YAY!!!! So, I am off to the store to by reagent to check level again. I will update asap.
 
GreatCanadian said:
Ahem. I guess you realize that now that you've copied and pasted all of Pool School into ONE Word document, that people are going to be bugging you for a copy!! LIKE ME!! :)
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Yeah, I was thinking we should try to get that posted in a sticky or something ... or better yet, add it as a link at the bottom of Pool School.
 
Not really any of my business, but I use the Chrome browser and in the print menu you can chose "save to PDF". This may be worth a shot if you plan to share the Pool School documents in multiple user friendly formats... :lol: Hope that is a little helpful, as I considered doing just that!
Misty
 

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Actually, if do it, I would make a single PDF with chapters, searchable Table of Contents, chapter headings and subheadings, headers, footers, logos and page numbers. Or a series of PDFs with a single TOC.
 
techguy said:
Actually, if do it, I would make a single PDF with chapters, searchable Table of Contents, chapter headings and subheadings, headers, footers, logos and page numbers. Or a series of PDFs with a single TOC.
Click to expand...

I think a single document (PDF) would be best so multiple files do not need to be downloaded.
 
On the topic of the pool water exchange, you might want to try the barrier system, with draining old water out of one end and filling fresh from the other, and keeping them apart with some plastic sheeting like painters use. The best example of this I have seen pictures (I think on another pool message board) of used pool noodle floats with one side of the sheeting stapled around it, then it was cut long to have an overlap on the sides and bottom, with weights stapled to the bottom trailing edge (I think they used a lightweight (almost decorative weight) chain, but I suspect anything that would lightly hold the barrier in place would work. The idea did involve matching the speed of draining with the speed of filling, these people used a common cheap $50-$75 sump pump with a garden hose adapter then it fed to a garden hose Y with shut off valves, one hose went to the draining water the other looped back to the old water, this way they could use the Y valve to regulate draining speed without chancing burning out the pump motor. In their case the limiting factor was the flow of the fill hose. They would check it every hour or two and move it down as needed depending on how the middle/edges were bulging.

Ike


p.s. one more thing to remember, cold water sinks, so if your fill water is colder than your pool water it will try to sink to the bottom, you can take advantage of this to a limited degree, if the fill water is colder drain from the skimmer, if the pool water is colder drain from the bottom drain. Also place your fill hose in the right place depending on temperatures, if your fill water is colder run the hose to the bottom of the pool, if warmer place at the surface horizontal, not so it is shooting down and mixing.
 
Sorry for the delay on my response, we have had a family crisis and had to put the pool issue on the back burner. However, we are back to it now, and I tested my CYA again today. It was 90. Not as high as I had originally thought but still requiring a drain. We now have the water drained down 3 feet and have started the refill. I will send the Pool School word document to Techguy and maybe he can fix it in a pdf format.
 
Got it, I will put something together for review by the powers that be. I am not looking to share this outside this forum and whatever final document is created will need to have the full support of the TFP team. I know I do don't own the content, I am merely looking to format it.
 
Ok, I am working on getting our pool back in shape and just wanted to double check with you all to see if I'm doing things correctly. We drained the pool down to the advised 1 foot in shallow end. The drain went super fast using both the bottom drain and a sump pump, got it done in under 3 hours. The refill, however, took much longer!! So, after about 14 hours we were halfway there, added 3 gallons of bleach to the non-circulating pool just to get a jump start on the algae problem. Then after about 30 hours, it is full. (We also brushed the bottom and sides a couple of times while refilling.) So, with a newly filled pool this morning, we added 10 more gallons of bleach and let the pool circulate for about 2 hours. I just took readings with my 6 piece test kit from Walmart. I know that I need to be able to read more accurate results for the chlorine. Is there a kit that I can order to test just the FC and CC? Here is the results from the test this morning and also pics of what we are looking like now.

Before Drain/Refill
TC - 1 ppm
pH - 7.5
TA - 100
CYA - 90

After Drain/Refill and Shock
TC - over 5 ppm (burnt orange color)
pH - 8.2
TA - 150
CYA - (only have enough reagent for one more test, should I use it now?)
 
deesha23 said:
And this is, I'm sure, a (stupidly) obvious question, but once I start draining and get below skimmer level, I will have pump off till we get refilled up to skimmer, right?? I keep thinking the water we leave in the pool will be even more disgusting than it already is if it isn't circulating at all... I have not done this kind of fill before, but I'm guessing 20,000 gallons or so could take several days. All with the pump off? Also, I am planning on draining with my backwash system. Will this work when it is below skimmer, just pulling from central drain? Thanks in advance!!!
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Can you post a picture of the plumbing? Assuming you have valves to shut off the skimmer then you can certainly drain using the main drain and backwashing or setting the filter to "waste". Waste is probably the better choice if you have that option available.

If you don't have valves to shut down the skimmer then you can put your vacuum hose into the skimmer port and drop that in the pool as a way to keep the skimmer from sucking in air.
 

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