Best way to care for pool if draining annually

[ltfdrebbin]

I've got a 42,000 gallon in ground masonry pool that we drain annually. It holds water for 3 months, and that is all. This gives us an advantage on things like CYA levels. I'd like to hear some different ideas on what chemicals we should use so we could spend the least amount of money, and have the smallest amount of work.

42,000 gallon 10 foot deep masonry pool.
In line chlorine feeder
Deck jets for fun (and aeration)
Ozonator
Clear solar pool cover
This pool is new, if that matters
we get 12 hours of sunlight daily, and the pool is used at least 2 hours daily by at least 4 people.

I'm thinking I could just use Tri chlor pucks, and Di Chlor powder, and a little bit of CYA at start up, but in true TFP fashion, I'd like to hear other opinions.

Thanks,
Sam

 

[jimmerz]

I'm not a PRO by any means, but if you drain it completely each year and add fresh water I see no reason why you can't just use the chlorine pucks all season. It would probably take all season just to get your CYA up to normal anyway? I know I used pucks the first 2 years and the minor draining we do and fill with fresh water my CYA is only at about 30-40 after 3 seasons. I am using liquid chlorine now and I have a bucket of pucks for when I go away for any period of time.

I think it's different for us Above Ground Pool folks? Probably not a good idea to drain my pool every year, lol.

 

[JasonLion]

Assuming 2 ppm of chlorine a day, three months of trichlor will raise CYA by 109, which is far too much. Using dichlor in addition would make it even worse.

Three months of cal-hypo will only raise calcium by 127, which is far more plausible.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

I'm curious as to why drain it each year? Any risk of floating the pool? Free water?

 

[Durk]

We ran our steel in-ground 40k gal 20'x40' for a total of 54 years. It always wintered empty as we had to repair rust spots in the spring. No risk of floating as it had already done that some time in the 1950's by maybe 3 inches. From the early 70's on until 2003, we used tri-chlor pucks after an initial dose of 30 ppm CYA each spring. FC tended to stick around 3 ppm. We never managed CYA, we didn't even have the test strips. it took a floater's worth per week, or seven 7oz. pucks, providing 8.4 ppm FC and 5.1 ppm CYA per week (so I guess we finished about 80, allowing for the fact we always vacuumed to waste and then backwashed weekly, so about 5% weekly water exchange). Never shocked it. FC stayed mostly around 3.0. It was once a week chemicals, no hassle, always crystal clear pool. No, nobody ever got sick. Things only went wrong when I got a new pool that wintered full and the second season I hit the high CYA barrier. So I came here and switched to Liquid Chlorine in 2005.

This worked fine for 30 years. Please don't tell me it didn't.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

This worked fine for 30 years. Please don't tell me it didn't.

Huh?? Why would anyone tell you it didn't work after you just said it did.

It does seem a tad wasteful to me (I do worry about water use even though we've all got these frivolous toys) but we all pick and choose our battles, eh? I've heard of small above ground pools being filled only seasonally but nothing quite as large as you write of.

 

[wjr75]

When you winterize a gunite pool here in the Midwest it leaves nasty water line marks as the water sits and rises over the winter. I have mine drained and power washed every year also..I only have 20k gallons to deal with and they drain a third when it is winterized. I started the BBB method last year and this year when initially filled I brought the CYA up to around 15ppm and use trichlor pucks in the auto feeder until I'm at around 42ppm CYA. Being almost mid July I'm just about there. I have an auto cover so I don't really lose a whole lot of chlorine to sun unless the cover is open. I still test every day and add the liquid chlorine to keep the level at the upper range of the CYA/chlorine chart as the CYA increases to my target. It is working very well this year thus far and will go to 100% liquid chlorine at this point. I can still add some pucks if we decide to go on vacation and it will still only bring the CYA up to 50ppm.

 

[ltfdrebbin]

We ran our steel in-ground 40k gal 20'x40' for a total of 54 years. It always wintered empty as we had to repair rust spots in the spring. No risk of floating as it had already done that some time in the 1950's by maybe 3 inches. From the early 70's on until 2003, we used tri-chlor pucks after an initial dose of 30 ppm CYA each spring. FC tended to stick around 3 ppm. We never managed CYA, we didn't even have the test strips. it took a floater's worth per week, or seven 7oz. pucks, providing 8.4 ppm FC and 5.1 ppm CYA per week (so I guess we finished about 80, allowing for the fact we always vacuumed to waste and then backwashed weekly, so about 5% weekly water exchange). Never shocked it. FC stayed mostly around 3.0. It was once a week chemicals, no hassle, always crystal clear pool. No, nobody ever got sick. Things only went wrong when I got a new pool that wintered full and the second season I hit the high CYA barrier. So I came here and switched to Liquid Chlorine in 2005.


This worked fine for 30 years. Please don't tell me it didn't.

30 years worth of experience is hard to argue with! I had a hunch it may be this easy for me, and I'm glad to see it worked for you. For the first couple of years, I will test more extensively to be sure CYA does not get too high, but these pucks might work very well for me.

 

[ltfdrebbin]

The reason we drain it is so that we can enjoy our pool for more than 3 months of the year. As far as getting water, unfortunately, we pay for that.

Sam

 

[Durk]

Huh?? Why would anyone tell you it didn't work after you just said it did.

It does seem a tad wasteful to me (I do worry about water use even though we've all got these frivolous toys) but we all pick and choose our battles, eh? I've heard of small above ground pools being filled only seasonally but nothing quite as large as you write of.

Why? There are anti-puck religionists on here. The more knowledgeable admit they have their place when used correctly but some others will attack any use of pucks almost as a reflex. I've seen it.

It wasn't really wasteful as we had a dedicated Artesian well only 70 feet deep that pumped that 40k gallons in 18 hours. All that H2O drained right back into the same water-table. We just borrowed the water; we didn't lose it. So wastage was limited to the electricity equivalent to a day or two of filtering. As I said, you had to drain to get the rust spots every year, especially after the EPA ruined the red lead Ramuc Type S primer sometime in the late 80's. Unlined painted steel was a maintenance headache, but it lasted 55 years and was still usable when I sold the land it was on. Amazingly, the 55-year old pump died the last year we had it. I had to do half the fill from the pond. Yecccch.