Pool floods: prevention and acceptance

[jbone1313]

Hi folks,

I have already done a lot of forum searching and reading on this topic.

We built our pool in 2019. In July 2020, we got three inches of rain in one hour, and our pool flooded. After working with our builder and another contractor, we cleaned up the pool, and aside from a light brown ring at the bottom, the pool is fine now.

We did a lot of earthwork around the property to hopefully prevent another flood; however, we are still concerned another flood could happen, and we want to do as much as possible to have more assurance that we will not flood.

ASIDE from earthwork and retaining walls, what other options are there for preventing and dealing with pool flooding?

Could we possibly raise the pool coping? To me, this seems logical; we raise the coping like six inches or a foot, and then water cannot get in. Has anyone ever done that?

Another option is to accept that the pool floods and clean it up when it happens. I would not mind buying equipment to do that, but I do not want to drain the pool regularly, mainly because we live in the desert, and water is precious here. Side note: I am aware of the risks of draining a pool.

Are there people who have pools that flood regularly? How do you handle it? Do you have to drain your pool every time?

We have a Pentair cartridge filter. Can that be setup to "vacuum to waste?"

Really appreciate the support!

 

[ajw22]

Welcome to TFP.

No matter what you do there are times when Mother Nature will overwhelm your defenses.

There are ideas in this Wiki. One of them is to lower your pool water level when a storm is expected.

Precautions and Procedures During Floods - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[Jimrahbe]

J,

It sounds like your problem is not that rain is overflow your pool, but the area around your pool is causing the rain water, and dirt, to flow into your pool.. Is that correct??

If so, the only real answer is to have the grade of the surrounding area lowered and tapered away from the pool.. You can't stop water, but you can make it drain to somewhere other than into your pool.

Also, the pool itself should have an overflow drain.. This won't help with rainwater getting into the pool, but it should keep it from overflowing the coping.

Does your decking have drains? My whole backyard is now either decking or pool.. The gutters on my house all dump into the deck drain system that carries everything out to the street.

A couple of pics might spark some better answers.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Strawberryshortcake]

This happened to me 3 times last year. It was really unbelievable. The amount of rain was something i’d never saw before, and my pool turned into a mud bath. The first time I waited over a month for it to clear from the pool by filtering, and then I waited the second time...third time I decided to floc. I put the pool on recirculate, added the floc, waited for it to mix then shut it down for a day. Everything dropped and it was so much dirt. I vaccumed the pool extremely slowly to waste, and it was fine. Much better then the pool being unusable for weeks.

A few days later we dug up our yard to prevent it from happening again. I don’t know how the landscape was when they put in the pool probably 30 years ago but a lot of it was tilting towards the pool which was bad. The side of the yard always flooded and took ages to dry out, and that’s what ended up flooding into the pool. We had basically dug a ditch all the way to the front of the house on the side of the yard, and pulled the earth near the pool in a slight downward slope towards that ditch, and the ditch also had a gradient down and out of the yard. For good measure we also had them pile some of the dirt up into a mound in the area that would wash into the pool, sort of like a dam to make sure it just went the other way.

So far that has worked beautifully and we’ve not ever come close to a similar situation again.

 

[jbone1313]

@Jimrahbe

Hi Jim,

I am grateful for all of the responses here. Indeed, the issue is the area around the ground causing the water and dirt to flow into the pool.

We have done a ton of earthwork and berm building. Unfortunately, our pool situation is challenging, because it sits at the low point of the surrounding acre, and the grading options next to the pool are quite limited. That means berms and walls are the way we can control the water.

I realized I was using "apron" in my OP when I actually meant "coping." Our coping is concrete, so it is conceivable that we could simply add more - a higher - coping. The obvious downside to that is the water level will be lower than the edge of the pool, but if that is what keeps us from flooding, then I will take it.

Have you ever heard of people raising their coping by building more of the same material on top of it?

I will post some pictures when I can.

Thanks!

 

[jbone1313]

@Strawberryshortcake

Thanks so much for sharing your story! I am so sorry that happened to you! But, hey, at least we are not alone!

I am really glad the earthwork you did helped.

Is your filter a cartridge? Does vacuum to waste work with those? If you do not feel like answering, then that is fine; that is something I can probably figure out by googling.

Thanks again!

 

[zea3]

You can add a T with a valve to your plumbing between the pump and filter so that you have an option to vacuum to waste. Some people will remove the cartridge from the filter and open up the drain at the bottom of the filter body and vacuum to waste that way, but it doens't leave you with a way to direct the flow of waste water. With a dedicated waste line you can attach a backwash hose and direct the water where you want it to go.

 

[jbone1313]

@zea3

Great tip; thanks!

In your experience, when pools flood and waste is vacuumed, how much water is lost? Most of it? Some of it?

Our last flood brought a ton of dirt into our pool.

 

[Strawberryshortcake]

@Strawberryshortcake

Thanks so much for sharing your story! I am so sorry that happened to you! But, hey, at least we are not alone!

I am really glad the earthwork you did helped.

Is your filter a cartridge? Does vacuum to waste work with those? If you do not feel like answering, then that is fine; that is something I can probably figure out by googling.

Thanks again!

No problem, we have a sand filter. That's tough about the cartridge filter. I think there might be some DIY ways to add the option to have a waste port but I've never had to look into that?

This was my pool after the flooding and then after the floc settled. You can also see on the side of the yard there where we scalped it downwards into the new ditch.
But if you are already at the low point that is hard. It seems weird that the builders didn't consider that when approving the spot for the pool..aren't they supposed to take that sort of thing into consideration?

Maybe a landscaping company would have better resources/advice on controlling flooding in that area. Maybe they could suggest a more extensive draining system or something?
Perhaps looking into a sand filter would be the cheapest / easiest option if you accept that it's going to do this and you will floc it each time? Honestly, I was terrified to do it but it wasn't so bad. You do lose water of course but it's no where near a full drain situation. I think I took my pool from full up to just below the skimmer to vacuum all of this out.



edit:
I found some more photos. You can get an idea of the water loss
In the middle pic we were nearly done. Compare to the top flood pic on the side walls, and you can see the water loss to vacuum.
If you ever do decide to use this method (anyone!) I suggest a LONG pole and a vacuum WITH WHEELS. I tried with another vacuum we had that had brushes and it was awful, the wheels are super important imo! I used this one https://www.lowes.com/pd/Aqua-EZ-14-Flexible-Swivel-Handle-Pool-Vacuum-Head-Wheeled/3018963

 

[Jimrahbe]

J,

I have never heard of anyone that added to their coping thickness, but I guess is could be done.

Besides coping, do you have any decking around your pool?

I suspect that in AZ you don't have much grass to help with the run off..

The decking around my pool is sloped in a slight "V" shape so the the middle of the decking is lower than the rest.. In that "V" are drains that carry the water to the street.

No matter what filter you have, if you vacuum to waste all the water will by-pass the filter and go down the drain..

Your only real option, in my opinion is to prevent the dirty water from getting into your pool.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[zea3]

It depends on how much rain there is and how much dirt gets washed in. You can always buy a second cartridge and vacuum to the filter and rotate them out to clean when they get full, if you don't want to waste too much water. You would be cleaning the filters pretty frequently, however.

 

[jbone1313]

@Strawberryshortcake

Thanks a lot - again - for the reply! So helpful.

From an outside perspective, it is easy to blame the builder, but we are giving him the benefit of the doubt. Our situation is quite unique, and I think he did the best he could.

We have already done almost as much earthwork as we can, hence I am thinking about other angles, such as raising the coping.

@Jimrahbe

Yes, we have flagstone decking, and it seems to be sloped correctly. As you said, our issue is fundamentally that we need to keep the water from getting into the pool.

Thank you.

 

[bmoreswim]

I’d be tempted to build a retaining wall around the entire deck structure. Is there a picture from above, or several area pictures with the area flooded?

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Can we get a picture or three of your pool and yard area?

 

[jbone1313]

Ok, as requested, here are some pictures. I tried to take them from a lot of angles, and I tried to highlight the earthwork we have done. They were too big to upload, so here is a link.

Edit: pictures are uploading. Please wait 10 minutes after the time of this post.

Thanks!

Pool Pictures

Folder

1drv.ms

 

[zea3]

Ok, I think part of the problem is your corrugated metal fence is not allowing water to drain quickly enough. It looks like all the water is rushing toward the transition between solid wall and mesh wall. If the higher land behind the metal wall is also yours I would put in a french drain to divert the water so it is flowing down around the pool instead of in it.

 

[jbone1313]

@zea3

Appreciate your thoughts. Yes, cutting holes in the fence to allow the water to escape was one of the many things we have done. It is part of the bigger picture strategy of a) reducing the amount of water coming on the property b) for water that does come on the property, ensure it leaves the property promptly by increasing its velocity c) diverting water away from the pool. I believe a lot of progress has been made on those fronts, hence my focus is turning towards walls and possibly raising the coping.

I will think about the drain idea. I am sure my wife has thought about that and overthought about it too.

Thanks again!

 

[jbone1313]

Deleted

 

[zea3]

Another thought, instead of raising the coping, maybe build a raised planting box on the long wall were the rocks and cactus are now. The planting box would work kind of like a dam and you could add drainage behind it the direct water away from the pool.

 

[kimkats]

With out some where for the water to go nothing is going to do much better than what you have already done. What is on the other side of the solid fence?