how often to drain pool in AZ and to DIY the pool drain or pay someone?

[outdoorsgal]

How often do most of you drain your H20 in Phoenix area and why do u drain when you do? Are you measuring CH or have u learned by now that your pool needs it every "x"/years? Then, the reality is that for those of you who drain less frequently, u r probably a disciplined rock star as far as caring for your pool because I think that matters.

I'm in Ahwatukee/Tempe right near S Mtn. PB said drain every year or 2 but I like to conserve H20. I don't like to fight with algae-extra chlorine isn't good for the environment either. I wish I could say I check my levels on a reg basis but I don't. I end up ultimately fighting algae each year, at least once, which is stupid since I've been on this forum since my build, but it's true. I've struggled with bad salt cells, boards... Last year we ended up paying a company for a brand new Hayward board and cell with 4 yr warranties, but I don't want to be naive and think we going to turn super disciplined about balancing our water and this year the pool won't turn green, even though I'm planning on trying, but each year I think this will be the year I'll be on top of my pool. Historically I've tried to keep chlorine on the lower side and hopefully I've learned my lesson with that, too. Either way, how much am I in for a battle if I don't empty my pool now. If some of you don't mind telling me your pool care "habits" and how often you empty that'd be great!

I have to say I'm at least happy that I'm thinking about getting the pool ready for the season on the earlier side this year . We were going to break down the filter today but I realized it's been 2 years since draining the pool. From what I recall 3 yrs is stretching it and more work trying to balance the pool (more acid?...), is that true?

So, if it's time, then there's the issue of do I buy or rent a submersible pump or pay someone to empty the pool. In 2018 I bought a pump from Harbor Freight and we were trying to get the pool empty for a warrantee issue and fighting time due to the heat. At that time Dirk said to be careful that an empty pool is subject to the possibility of various mechanical and physical problems, so proceed with caution... With so many times we've tried to fix things on the pool on our own with guidance of TFP a couple of times we just ended up paying someone which ended up being the right answer. I'd think that emptying the pool is easy enough but I'm gun shy with all of our past fails and trying to decide if we throw our hands up and start paying someone to take care of more of more of the infrequent things or continue to try to DIY things like a pool empty. I like DIYing things to a degree, though. What could go wrong with a DIY pool drain? I realize something like making sure the pump was off. When the PB sent out a guy to empty the pool once for a warrantee issue even they messed that one up and I had to shut it off so in the end I'll probably take good enough care unless there's something trickier than that that I don't recall. I'm thinking of the water that sits on the bottom at the end of a drain and remembering the drain screw was stripped, but I don't think that matters cuz from what I recall u just leave the puddle at the bottom of the pool after a full drain.

Thx for your sharing your experience and support ahead of time! It wasn't easy to say I'm not as diligent with my pool as I should be and I'm grateful that 99% of the time this forum is amazingly supportive cuz on many other online places I'd certainly be shamed for that.

 

[proavia]

Post a full set of current test results.
How old are your reagents?

Whether you need to consider draining or not is based on your CH and how active you plan to be with testing and dosing based on your test results. Keeping your CSI in the 0.00 to -0.30 range is important to keep your SWG from scaling.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

If you use a whole-house water softener and hook it up to the pool’s auto fill line, then you can go 5+ years or more without ever having to do a full drain. You may do partial drains here or there to correct high CH or high CYA, but draining the entire pool would only be necessary in an extreme event.

My take away from your long post is that you or someone else in your home needs to be more diligent and consistent in your pool’s care. While equipment can fail for any number of reasons and algae can get even the best of us, your conservationist side will be maximized with more consistent pool care. By testing frequently and knowing where your pool water chemistry is at, you enable yourself to only use exactly the chemicals you need and no more. You also minimize the amount of draining you have to do which helps to conserve water and keep you from laying out money for high water bills. Inconsistent pool care can also lead to stress on all of your equipment which, in the end, reduces useful life. Consider the pool care regimen like anything else in your home - you wouldn’t let a leaky pipe drip, you wouldn’t let your HVAC system go unserviced, you wouldn’t neglect oil changes and routine car maintenance, and so … the pool is no different. Care for it a little bit each day and you’ll rarely have major problems.

TFP provides all the tools you need to track your water chemistry and you have nearly 24/7/365 access to some of the smartest pool people and experts around (far better than any pool store or hard-to-reach pool builder). Asking a question, even the simple ones, helps countless people that never post and can be an easy way to get good feedback. It’s really not that hard to get into a simple routine … you just have to stick to it.

 

[outdoorsgal]

Gene, How are you? I'll get the results now. I have it in my calendar to buy a new kit March 1 when they go on sale but some of these reagants are probably a couple of years old. I bought singles. I now am starting to use google calendar so hopefully that'll help me with remembering to buy a kit early, check about emptying pool, breaking down pool... on time so that's one good thing. My husband is wanting to break down the filter today whether we drain the pool these coming up days or not. Should I have him wait? It needs a backwash, but it's due to be broken down, too. last break down was Aug 8.

 

[outdoorsgal]

Joyful Noise, I think looking into a water softener might be a good idea. I can't recall why we didn't do it when the pool got built. I think I always thought the salt going down the pipes wasn't good and we could live without it, plus another thing to store and maintain, but my husband has wanted one for years. I could see how the pool would be easier to maintain with it, especially a salt pool, not to mention the added benefits of all appliances... As far as more reg maintenance, that's gonna have to be the plan. We've just gotta get better.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Joyful Noise, I think looking into a water softener might be a good idea. I can't recall why we didn't do it when the pool got built. I think I always thought the salt going down the pipes wasn't good and we could live without it, plus another thing to store and maintain, but my husband has wanted one for years. I could see how the pool would be easier to maintain with it, especially a salt pool, not to mention the added benefits of all appliances... As far as more reg maintenance, that's gonna have to be the plan. We've just gotta get better.

Water softeners only use salt during the regeneration process to remove the calcium from the resin after it is depleted. There are rinse and backwash steps that ensure that no brine water is left in the softener vessel when it goes back into service. The only salt going into the pipes is the brine waste water that goes down the drain during and after the regeneration process. No salt ever gets into your water supply.

It should be illegal in AZ to ever build a home without a proper softener loop in the plumbing. Whether or not one gets installed is up to the homeowner but the plumbing should be designed for it by default. The water hardness here is ridiculously high and the amount of damage that it does to fixtures, household equipment and pipes is a huge cost. I installed my softener in 2018 six years after moving here and I kick myself for not doing it sooner. The upfront cost isn’t horrible but the water conditioning you get is so much better for everything. You should also loon to install an RO water tap under the kitchen sink. I can’t drink any water here unless it’s from a bottle or for my RO tap. The raw water is way too mineralized for my taste … and it’s probably contaminated with who-knows-what since we live with an Air Force base in our community.

 

[outdoorsgal]

FC 9
CC 0
CH 1000
TA 110

I know my TA is too high. I don't think I need to bother with CYA and Salt. I think I answered my own question. x to empty the pool. Isn't it when it's past 800 it's harder to manage chemicals? and the only reason u wanted me to measure FC was to see if I would need to SLAM first?

 

[outdoorsgal]

Water softeners only use salt during the regeneration process to remove the calcium from the resin after it is depleted. There are rinse and backwash steps that ensure that no brine water is left in the softener vessel when it goes back into service. The only salt going into the pipes is the brine waste water that goes down the drain during and after the regeneration process. No salt ever gets into your water supply.

It should be illegal in AZ to ever build a home without a proper softener loop in the plumbing. Whether or not one gets installed is up to the homeowner but the plumbing should be designed for it by default. The water hardness here is ridiculously high and the amount of damage that it does to fixtures, household equipment and pipes is a huge cost. I installed my softener in 2018 six years after moving here and I kick myself for not doing it sooner. The upfront cost isn’t horrible but the water conditioning you get is so much better for everything. You should also loon to install an RO water tap under the kitchen sink. I can’t drink any water here unle it’s from a bottle or for my RO tap. The raw water is way too mineralized for my taste … and it’s probably contaminated with who-knows-what since we live with an Air Force base in our community.

Matt, I think a salt water softener with the loop installed (or house is 78-no loop) is about $5k from what I remember but maybe I'm wrong. If u recommend a salt water system that's be great. then to hook it up to the pool-does that mean digging pvc pipe all the way to the pool? if so, that really stinks that the pb talked my husband out of it when we built the pool 8 yrs ago. We have a very good carbon filter for drinking water. It even takes out flouride. Wasn't easy to find that feature. It takes out a lot of things that the home depot ones don't.

 

[proavia]

Hi Kim, doing well - thanks for asking. And you (besides the pool I mean)?

If your husband is wanting to breakdown the filter for a thorough cleaning now, let him do it while he's in the mood.

With CH of 1000ppm, it's time to drain and refill. Did you use the speedstir for the tests?
I agree with Matt on all points about the water softener. It's a game changer and not just for the pool. You refill the pool after draining with unsoftened tap water and use soft water for the autofill.

• If your house doesn't have a softener loop already, adding a water softener will allow soft water to go to all interior faucets and the hot water heater. Also, all exterior hose bibs (probably including the one the autofill is plumbed to) downstream of the softener attachment point will have soft water. You just need to be sure that regular hard water goes to any landscaping irrigation valves as you don't want to use soft water on plants/grass.
• If you have a soft water loop, and the softener is plumbed to it, all interior faucets and hot water heater will have soft water. And the exterior hose bibs will have hard water. In this case, you would need to have a soft water line plumbed to the autofill line.

No need to worry about the TA - especially since you will be draining within the next week. Your fill water TA is probably around 130. The TA will come down slowly with each acid addition as you adjust the pH.

Get the new reagents ordered as soon TFTestkits starts their annual refill sale on March 1st.

This needs to be the year you truely commit to testing and dosing more frequently, along with TFP methods. You need to make the time to do it. Either that, or you will be spending more time and money replacing and fixing stuff with the pool. After you have it dialed in, it's really only 5-10 minutes every day and maybe 30-45 on one weekend day. But again, it's your pool and your choice in how you manage it.

 

[outdoorsgal]

Gene, I'm doing well, thx. The water softener sounds good, but I'm glad you mentioned that it's bad for plants. Now that you mention it, it does have higher salt levels, doesn't it? That'd be good to know to put a lesser amount of salt in the pool to account for the added salt from the water softener as far as the pool, too, but as for my plants, when the pool was built, I had 3 extra hose bibs put in the backyard because I'm a big gardener. The pb put the water line to auto fill on the same line as the 3 water bibs unfortunately. That's really too bad because fixing that now would be a lot of digging and I'd have to look at pics and see if we could figure out where they T off. I guess when they were to dig up the line they'd find it. If you have any thoughts about that I'd love to hear it. Maybe we could run a hose from the h20 softener to fill the pool instead? I'm not sure if that'd even be worth it, though if we'd still have CH filling the pool with the auto fill and in reviewing notes from before you had said that in Phx, all the h20 from a pool can evaporate once or more xs each year. So, if it was being filled with CH water through the auto fill after that the 1st fill just saved us a year or less.

Re the refill, I think I remember that a lot of the CH sinks to the bottom so I'll have to see if I can find a thread I saw that exists of how to get the last bits of h20 out of the bottom of a pool. So, it's time to drain the pool. What do you think? Buy a pump at Harbor Freight so we own it and go for it?

I have a list of steps:

• water meter trick-check # on water meter before emptying pool (recommended from Dirk 2018)
• shut off panel so there's no power going to the pool.
• put pump near drain which should be the deepest part of my pool
• shut off auto fill
• drain.
• while pool is draining take apart DE filter.
• Clean salt cell
• while pool is draining and filling, keep exposed plaster moist with a hose at all times
• while pool is draining, after water level has dropped below the level of all light fixtures, remove light fixtures and use a hose to spray the niche out behind them
• while pool is empty, double check drain covers, make sure retention screws are snug (don't over tighten)
• at the end of the drain, hose the sides and skim the leaves out of the middle
• check water meter and snap a pic of how much water puddle is left in pool to subtract
• start refilling with a couple of hoses immediately
• use bleach to bring FC to 3ppm", after CYA is added, use bleach to bring FC up to correct level for new CYA number. Maintain FC with bleach until all salt is dissolved and SWG is restarted-DE in skimmer

-Reading my list, the part of filling the pool with 2 hoses immediately and keeping pebble moist... I recall I was told by a pebble guy not to use auto fill to fill the pool because it can form a stain coming down from the auto fill. I'm picturing how slow it'd fill.

thx!

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Gene, I'm doing well, thx. The water softener sounds good, but I'm glad you mentioned that it's bad for plants. Now that you mention it, it does have higher salt levels, doesn't it? That'd be good to know to put a lesser amount of salt in the pool to account for the added salt from the water softener as far as the pool, too, but as for my plants, when the pool was built, I had 3 extra hose bibs put in the backyard because I'm a big gardener.

Just to clarify, that’s not how a softener works. They don’t add salt to the water, they exchange the calcium ions in the water with sodium ions. When calcium laden water flows through the resin, the resin has sodium ions attached to it and the resin will release those sodium ions and grab on to the calcium ions instead. So when the water exits the resin bed, all of the calcium has been exchanged for sodium.

The problem with softened water is that it has high sodicity (sodium ion concentration), not high salinity. And high sodicity water is bad for landscape planting. That may seem like a minor detail but for pools it matters. When generating chlorine using an SWG, is the chloride ion concentration that matters, not sodium. So if you were to lower the amount of salt you added to the pool, you would starve the SWG of the chloride ions it needs to generate the chlorine gas for disinfection.

It sounds like the age of your home precludes the easy addition of a softener. In that case, I would suggest you use an RV water softener that is portable and something you regenerate manually as needed. @mknauss is our resident expert on how to use and install and RV softener.

 

[mknauss]

@Rancho Cost-a-Lotta has an even more sophisticated RV water softener set up. Mine is pretty simple. The unit will process about 600+ gallons of water before needed recharge based on my fill water CH of 250 ppm. So during summer can be every two weeks. Your pool surface area is much larger than mine so you might want the larger RV system like Rancho has.

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

@Rancho Cost-a-Lotta has an even more sophisticated RV water softener set up. Mine is pretty simple. The unit will process about 600+ gallons of water before needed recharge based on my fill water CH of 250 ppm. So during summer can be every two weeks. Your pool surface area is much larger than mine so you might want the larger RV system like Rancho has.

I use the "Park Model" 32,000 grain portable softener. I get about 1,200 to 1,500 gallons before I need to flush the unit. My starting CH is 125. The softener takes fill water CH down to less than 25 ppm.

With portable systems, the regeneration process (flushing) is done manually. It's a bit of pain, especially with the larger Park Model.

Consider also a standalone automated softener dedicated to the fill line. Cost is about the same as the larger RV softeners. You would need power, a water source, a connection to the fill line, and a connection to your sewer line. If you're lucky, your backwash line is connected to your sewer line. Build a simple enclosure to protect the unit.

 

[proavia]

Kim

Given your posts, issues and time constraints over the last 8 years, I would NOT recommend an RV or portable type water softener for you as it requires diligent monitoring and manual regeneration. Either install a whole house water softener (and check the salt level every month or two) or don't install a water softener at all. A whole house softener will auto regenerate based on usage without any need for interaction from you. Basically all you will need to do is add the correct salt to the brine tank once in a while.

If you go tue whole house softener route, also put in an RO system with its own water spigot at the kitchen sink (and a line to the fridge ice maker) - as suggested a few posts up by Matt.

Honestly, you need to decide how important and valuable your $40k+ investment is. Over the years, you have been provided the knowledge and guidance necessary to make caring for your pool simple and easy.
It's up to you as to whether taking care of the pool should be a priority or not.

 

[outdoorsgal]

thx everyone. Yes Gene, time constraints for sure. I'm just getting back to this post now. I'll see if I may consider the soft water system down the line. For now. I'll get one of the pumps as posted here to empty the pool Submersible Pumps - Further Reading and follow the directions I posted above. I believe the pool company used the typical blue hose that flattens out when backwashing but I think with the pumps that are recommended on TFP I'll need to get a couple of long hoses. No I do not have a line to the clean out. I barely just was able to find the clean a few years after the pool was put in as it was pretty well buried. Also, if anyone has any good ideas how to get the rest of the puddle out of the pool that'd be great. I might just get the kids down in the pool with bare feet, buckets and a shop vac. I believe the bottom might have a concentrated amount of salt and calcium from what I recall. If there's anything else I should know pls let me know otherwise thx much for all the help!