Future planning for closing

[PrairieGirl]

This was our 6th season closing, and every year, we're trying to find ways to make this faster for us. As you can see with my sig, we have a spa and IG pool. We drain the spa into the pool, and then drain the pool below the skimmers as the first steps of our closing process. Since we don't have a back wash or other exhaust port, my spouse has opted to just remove the top of the filter housing, remove the cartridges, and just let the pump overflow the filter house and wash all over the ground. I think this contributes to the erosion we've had under the equipment pad (It's sloooowwwwly slanting) and convinced my spouse to figure some way to attach our vacuum hose to the pump and dump the water farther out in the lawn. He didn't care for that this year, and thought it took too long (yeah compared to filter pump dump!) I know a bigger submersible pump is an option (We have a small cover pump we use to put water back into the spa at close) but it's way to small to move the 1500 gallons we end up dumping.

I was thinking we could find some larger hose that could have a union type fitting and connect it to the pump directly?


SOOOO, all that said for people who don't have a port to dump water from your pool, what do you do to lower your water level?

 

[mknauss]

Get a submersible pump. It is not a good idea to use your pool pump to lower the water level in your pool.

 

[PrairieGirl]

Can you give me a good reason to not use the pool pump for this purpose? I need to convince my spouse. What damage could it cause to pump or pool?

 

[Newdude]

The pump has to overcome gravity as the water lowers. It works fine to a point as inground pumps are already designed to self prime. Once the water gets low enough the pump loses prime or struggles to maintain it and burns out. Every yard is different and there is no water level that works for all.

If your pad is at pool level, it should pull the first foot or two no problem. But many pads are already elevated a bit and we can’t know who has what, so we don’t recommend something potentially really bad for a chunk of the population. I had no problems using my own pool pump but I made sure to babysit it if I was draining.

 

[mknauss]

Losing prime on the pool pump (very susceptible to this once your water level goes below your skimmer) can damage your pump. A $1000+ pump being used when you can use a $80 submersible pump is not a wise decision.

A submersible pump will also allow you to lower the water level if it rises too high due to rain, or if you need to do any maintenance of tile or other items.

 

[Newdude]

It’s like a shop vac. You don’t need it until you need it. But when you DO need it……. OH boy it’s worth it’s weight in gold to clean up the flood.

The submersible pump should be in all pool owners shed, just because. Especially for those of us that close for the winter.

 

[PrairieGirl]

I loves my hubs, but I have struggled to convince him that loosing prime could really do that much damage to a pump. Our pumps are all somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 yrs old and I think we'll be replacing them next season. We had trouble getting it primed this fall after cleaning out the pump basket. Our pool does have an overflow drain in a skimmer, so we've never had overflow issues, but maybe protecting a new pump will convince him. He just won't like that it takes more time to drain for closing. We have 2 sump pumps/pits in our basement, so this would probably be a pool-only tool.

 

[Newdude]

He just won't like that it takes more time to drain for closing.

I did not like that myself. At all. So I hacked it with a bigger pipe. It wasn’t as good as the pool pump but it still made a huge difference while sitting there waiting.

Submersible pump hack.

Hey all !! I’ve been doing this for years but finally got good pics to show the difference. I have a standard 1/3 HP submersible pump withshown here Flow from 100ft 3/4 inch hose. Here comes the fun part : In the sprinkler section of the home centers / hardware store they have 3/4...

www.troublefreepool.com