Where can I drain filter backwash water? Connect to house drainage system? Pump to street/drain?

[jmk396]

I've finally setup my above-ground pool and it's working great but after about two weeks the pressure on my filter showed around 20 PSI (?) so I was told to backwash it. I didn't realize it, but it took drained quite a lot of water before it turned clean and I now had a second pool in my yard

Where do most people drain their filter/backwash?

Can I connect it to my house drainage system? (is this legal/safe?)

Because the filter is near my house, I thought about running PVC from the filter into the basement, through the basement, and all the way over towards my garage where I can setup an outlet to dump the water into my driveway. (the bottom of the driveway drains into a city drainage system)

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Discharge of pool water (backwashing, draining, etc) is controlled but local building/health codes of the municipal area you live in. Some municipalities have no restrictions while others require chemical neutralization and/or capture of debris using a separation tank. Check with your local authorities on what the correct procedure is.

Depending on the construction of your home, there are often an external sewer clear out line near your house that a plumber would access if you had a drainage/clog issue. If allowed by code to use the city sewer for discharge, pool builders would normally try to hook up a backwash line to that.

You have to be very careful about using your home’s plumbing for backwash discharge. The flow rate of water from a pool pump can easily exceed to flow rate of the drain line and cause water to back up into your plumbing - bathtub/shower drains, sinks, etc. As well, it is not advisable to run a discharge line through your house as a leak could cause significant damage. Draining to your yard is almost always ok by code and the plants/grass appreciate the water. Despite what you might read online, pool water will not damage your landscaping.

 

[DeRooZoo]

Like JoyfulNoise commented: check your local ordinances on the discharge of pool water. For example, we can only use the street gutters (i.e running it down the driveway) for dechlorinated pool water... for our city, dechlorinated means less than 1ppm.

I do understand your issue... our pool is in the lowest part of our yard, so when we backwash & rinse, we use a 2" vinyl discharge hose (picked up 50' of it for like $25) to move the water away from our pool area.

 

[jmk396]

Thanks so much for the replies. I'll definitely check with local codes before I do anything.

If I do decide to run the water down my driveway, can I run PVC from the filter and through the house to install an outlet near the driveway? This would save me time in the future from having to drag a hose/tube across my yard every time I need to backwash.

I thought maybe I could use pex tubing in the house but large sizes are quite expensive. Would 1" PVC work or would I need 1.5" PVC inside the house?

(Again to clarify, I'm thinking about connecting the filter to the side of the house (some kind of inlet, maybe PVC or tubing), then run PVC through the basement towards the garage and then install some kind of outlet + hose to drain the water in the driveway...)

 

[DeRooZoo]

You probably can. When we first started our filter, we had about 175ft worth of hoses and PVC running from our pool to the driveway approach (we had not chlorinated yet), worked just fine. If your pool is at a lower level, beware... when you disconnect your hose (or PVC) from the discharge, all the water will run to the lowest point... so the amount of water in your pipes and hoses will come back to you, but it will still be less than having all your backwash by your pool.

With regard to size, 1" PVC will be too small, go with 1.5" or even 2".