WARNING: Don't overtighten a filter canister drain plug

[tucsontico]

I went to bed with my pool looking like this:


Woke up to it looking like this:



Yep, I lost over 4 feet of water during the night! My pump was set to run for 2 hours after sunset so this drainage occurred in just 2 hours! I discovered this morning that the drain plug for the filter canister had broken off and the pump sent 18,000+ gallons of water out into my backyard. The good news is, I was here to prevent any further loss when the pump tried to restart this morning!

My guess is I over-torqued the drain plug when I recently cleaned the filters (Aug 30) and the plug finally snapped in half at the base of the threads. The moral of the story is: DO NOT over tighten a drain plug!

 

[jblizzle]

Oops
I have had 2 incidents myself:
Previous house I had my filter crack and drain the pool nearly 100%.
Current house I had the multi-valve not seat completely after backwashing and drain about 60% of the pool.

 

[tucsontico]

Oops
I have had 2 incidents myself:
Previous house I had my filter crack and drain the pool nearly 100%.
Current house I had the multi-valve not seat completely after backwashing and drain about 60% of the pool.

Yep, totally sucks because I had the water just perfect. Anyway, allows me to clean some scale off the tiles while it refills!

 

[jmastron]

Ouch -- non-pool but related, check your toilet connector hoses; many attach to the tank with a similar kind of plastic nut, and if overtightened can split at the base of the threads the same way. We had a neighbor who's 3rd-story bathroom one burst right after they closed on the house; I noticed water pouring from the siding both front and back, and luckily was able to contact the real estate agent (and shut off the water). Still was a *lot* of damage and rebuilding, and that was before they moved furniture in.

There are a couple of styles -- ours had white plastic nuts that appeared to be 2 pieces glued together at the base; I replaced with ones that have a grey nut that seems to be single piece. I wonder how the drain plugs are made. Either way though, overtightening can put stress on the cap.

To stay on topic, I had to ask my wife not to take the Polaris cleaner out of the pool without disconnecting it from the wall; I had visions of 5000 gallons of water pumped onto the lawn when the timer activated the next morning before we realized.