Pumping Water Out of Pool - Help/Tips?

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hollywoodfrodo

hollywoodfrodo

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Feb 20, 2018
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Lakewood, CA
I want to empty some of the High CH Water out of the pool before we get rain so I can lower the CH - not a lot of course, just enough to allow for the rainwater to refill. Our system has a manual valve located after the filter that when opened has a pipe that leads to the house drainage system.

Is there anything special I need to do to use this? Of course no one from the Pool company showed or told us anything specific about it at the time of the build. Do I just turn the pump on (assuming a lower rate) and turn that valve and let the water flow until it gets to the level I want then turn the pump off?

And what is the correct order of event for opening that valve up, turning on pump, turning off pump, closing the valve?

Thanks for any help!
 
By "house drainage system" do you mean outdoor drains channeling away rainwater to storm drains, or the house's line to the sewer system? Many localities in CA prohibit discharge of pool water into the storm drain system. The sewer line is generally OK to use.
 
Rocket J Squirrel said:
By "house drainage system" do you mean outdoor drains channeling away rainwater to storm drains, or the house's line to the sewer system?
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's all to code and passed inspections so it's going where it's supposed to - the sewer system.

I'm more wondering about the correct way to do my part which is turning the valve and running the pump since it's something I've never done before.
 
Start your pump and open the valve. You may need to pinch back a valve on your returns to force more out the hose bib. It will not be much out of that bib, maybe 7-10 GPM, at most.
 
mknauss said:
Start your pump and open the valve. You may need to pinch back a valve on your returns to force more out the hose bib. It will not be much out of that bib, maybe 7-10 GPM, at most.
Click to expand...

Okay - that's what I was wondering about - it seemed to me like the way it was designed it wouldn't pump all the water out of that pipe but just allow some of it to go that way while much of it would still go through the normal return, but I wasn't exactly sure since I hadn't done it. Thanks for the clarification.

When you say "pinch back a valve", do you mean just adjust the actual return eyelet into the pool to make it smaller/give more resistance?
 
Do you have a valve on your return line to the pool? If not, then you will be hard pressed to get much out of the hose bib.

This is where a small, inexpensive sub pump comes in handy. You might consider that. They can be purchased from Harbor Freight, Home Depot, Amazon, etc for under $100.
 
Hmmm... Maybe I didn't paint a good picture. I'll try to post some pics which I'm sure would help, but I don't think I have any super good ones. I'm not talking about using the hose bib. We do have a hose bib, located right after the pump itself and before the pipe that goes into the filter. But then after the filter there is a T pipe with one side going into the heater and SWG and pool and the other pipe going straight into the ground. The pipe that goes into the ground has a valve on it (manual blue knob valve) which is closed, but when opened has underground pipe that goes into the house sewer drainage system - that's the one I'm talking about using as my understanding is that is the sole purpose of it - to allow draining the pool if necessary.

1-Pipe.jpg

2-Pipe.jpg
 
OK -- that changes things. Open it. If you see a pretty good drop in your pool level, then great. If not, you can pinch off the flow using the three way valve I see on your return line.
 

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Be careful so you do not drop your water level below the skimmers. Or change to main drain suction only.
 
So far nothing is working. I opened the valve and had the pump running, but it seems like because water can still flow through the normal returns, it is. And not enough water/pressure is going through the drain pipe to drain anything. The only valves we have on the return lines are to switch from the standard pool returns to the water wall and for the pool returns switch from the wall to the floor returns. I tried switching to the floor returns but that had no effect. I tried the pump at normal run speed and at higher speed but no change.

Not sure what else to do to force the water to go through the drain pipe.
 
The upper three way valve on the return. You might have to remove the handle to get past a stop on the valve body but you should be able to partially close off the returns. Just do not dead head the pump.
 
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