Dumping water

[P00LNerd]

During rainy periods, where we're getting more water into the pool than required to make up for evaporation, at what point do you guys make the call to dump water?

We don't have municipal water, and it takes 300 gallons from our well for each inch of make-up water, so we try to use that sparingly. July into early-August is normally a dry period for us, meaning I'd never be dumping water, lest I have to add back from the well the following week. But it has been wet, and just too humid for rapid evaporation in our 90F+ heat, and the water line is getting awful close to the top of our skimmer opening.

Do you wait until water is basically kissing the top of the opening?

 

[trivetman]

When its too high to flow properly over the tops of the weir doors in the skimmers

 

[HermanTX]

You reach the top of the skimmer opening, you will lose the skimming action. If you do not have a lot of debris floating in the pool then maintaining it somewhat high is ok.
Do you have a main drain?

 

[Newdude]

Mid season I get next to no heavy debris and it's all dust so i let it go to the top of the skimmer. At that point, I still don't care and I'm only draining because the next big storm will overflow me. In the spring I'll let it go 75% up or so to still skim the heavy stuff.

 

[P00LNerd]

You reach the top of the skimmer opening, you will lose the skimming action. If you do not have a lot of debris floating in the pool then maintaining it somewhat high is ok.
Do you have a main drain?

No floor drain, just a skimmer. Not sure why, other than maybe because my pool is built into a hillside, and my equipment is all located below the water line, close to the level of the floor in the deep end. Maybe they felt that would cause too many hassles for winterization, etc.

I get some leaves during every storm, which seem to be almost daily right now. As the water level gets close to top of skimmer, I suppose I should be finding more of those leaves on the bottom, than in the skimmer basket. I do think that's what I'm seeing, altough since the water level is ever-changing and every storm is different, it's hard to say with certainty.

The message I'm getting is, lower the water level a bit when I see the skimmer isn't taking debris of the size finding its way into the pool. As water gets close to top of skimmer, it limits the size of debris that can enter the basket. Right?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

The skimmer will only work properly when water “falls” over the weir door. As @trivetman said, If the pool is full such that water flows past the top of the weir, then the skimmer won’t work. It doesn’t really affect the pump at all, just the cleaning performance of the skimmer. So it’s up to you - if you want to avoid using the well and you don’t mind breaking out the leaf net to catch debris, then leave the water level high.

 

[SJPoe]

When the water hits the top of the skimmer, I'll drain some, but it doesn't usually get there that often.

With the remnants of Hurricane Beryl and some other storms recently however, we've had well over 7 inches of rain this month, and multiple multi-inch rainfalls last month, so it's been crazy and we did drain some.


(photo from the wife while I was in Florida last week- halfway through the Beryl rain)

Typically I'll drain it down to an inch or so below the weir to ensure skimming is working, and then let it ride.

 

[P00LNerd]

Thanks, guys! In my case, I think the Weir door is tall enough to completely close off the skimmer, so no chance water is just running across the top without at least some help from Bernoulli. But I can see where having the water level too close to the top of the opening could cause debris to just hang on the opening long enough to get water logged and sink to the bottom. I think that happens with some of our compound leaves, which come down as leaf clusters still attached to their stickers.