Bought house with a pool, trying to understand plumbing

[GoofustheDoofus]

Hi TFP, new to the boards.

Bought a house with a pool a bit over a year ago, things have been going great, just catching up on some points I am a bit confused about and believe this is the crew that can help me out.

1) I have 2 skimmers and 2 'floor drains' (not sure if they are actually drains, I don't see anyway in the system to actually "drain" the pool through them. You can see on the pad, I can switch the flow from the skimmer into the pump to #1 or #2, but no 3rd valve to control those bottom drains. There is the spigot on top of the pump plumbing, if they water is high I can pump water out of the pool, but I assume if that water level was below the skimmer line, I would actually not have any way to get water out of the pool, without putting some sort of external sump pump in the pool.

My question is - based on the below, any way to help me identify the purpose of those 'floor drains' - and beyond the spigot / external sump pump - any other way you see to be able to drain the pool (not that I need to know) with my current system?






2) my other question is more specific to the skimmers - in Skim #1, I have an open pipe generally above the water line. Is this some sort of small overflow drain? And if so - where do you think that goes to?

In Skim #2, you can see there is no open pipe, it is actually closed off. Not sure what that is for?


Thanks in advance team!!!

 

[ajw22]

The two drains at the bottom of the pool is one main drain in an anti-suction configuration so that no one can get stuck on it.

The main drain is often tied into a skimmer so that if the water gets low in the skimmer the pump will pull from the main drain and not run dry. Turn off the pump, pull out the skimmer basket and look if you have more than one hole at the bottom of a skimmer.

 

[Divin Dave]

Hi dragon,
as mentioned above, the drains are really not drains. Usually the are plumbed back to the skimmer.
Pull the basket and see if there are two holes in the bottom of the skimmer.

just as a FYI, main drains really dont contribute to pool circulation as much as what was believed way back in the 40s. They are one of those things that just never went away. Many if not most pools today, are built without them.

Unless you get your water chemistry good and don't let it get way out of what with too much CYA, there is no need to drain a pool.

You are correct about that faucet on the pump. If you get too much rain and the pool fills up, you open that faucet do pump water out. Most pools "should" have built in overflow, so hopefully that faucet wont be needed.

 

[GoofustheDoofus]

Thanks both for the responses.

At the bottom on the skimmer, there are indeed 2 holes. One seems to have suction, the other seems to have no force around it. Looks like this:


Is there something I would test to see it they are hooked up to those floor “drains” on the pool?

And yes, I thought there would have been built in overflow protection, but it seems not! I had an error once and left my fill line going overnight (forgot to set a timer to turn it off) and when i woke up the pool was overflowing big time!

 

[ajw22]

The hole without the suction is connected to your main drain. No easy way to test the main drain with your setup.

 

[Jimrahbe]

dd,

The little hole at the top of one skimmer is either an overflow drain or a fill line..

In my case it is a fill line. This is where water gets added to my pool.

If a drain, I would assume it is connected to your deck drain system, but who knows for sure.

I would stick a garden hose in it and look to see if you can hear or see where the water goes.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[PointeTaken]

And yes, I thought there would have been built in overflow protection, but it seems not! I had an error once and left my fill line going overnight (forgot to set a timer to turn it off) and when i woke up the pool was overflowing big time!

Yeah, mine doesn't have overflow protection either. I have some drainage on the deck for splash-out and rainfall, but no way it would handle a major overflow event. When we anticipate a large amount of rain, I stick an automatic 1600 GPH submersible pump on the top step with a spacer (i.e. a concrete paver) underneath to maintain the proper water level.

 

[GoofustheDoofus]

Thanks for the feedback all, you really helped me out. Sorry for the delayed response, had some people in town around the holiday weekend back at start of September and got bogged down!

Appreciate all the info