With All This Rain….?

It has been raining for days and I know some of you new pool owners are wondering; “How will this affect my pool and the water chemistry?”.  When rain water pitter-patters the surface of your water it brings hydrogen into the water. The pH of a pool, by definition, is its potential for hydrogen so as it adds hydrogen to the water it will subsequently raise the pH. If only lightly, this is something to keep in consideration when a heavy, multi-day rain comes through the area. You will also want to shock the pool with liquid chlorine an extra time or two during a multi-day rain so a major algae bloom doesn’t present itself. You will especially want to shock the pool at the end of a major rainstorm. Liquid chlorine has a high pH factor so it can lightly raise the pH of the pool as well. Testing the pools water after a major rain is almost necessary as the rain with dilute certain things such as chlorine levels, salt levels and stabilizer levels, requiring additions to re-balance the pool as well as it will throw of the pH levels.

We also want all of our pool owners to keep in mind that as the water levels raise in your pools you will need to keep close watch so the skimmer can properly skim the surface of the water. There are multiple types of filtration systems out there so I will try to detail how each of the filters can be used to drain some water off of the top of the pool to skim the pools surface properly.

With a sand filter you will need to start by shutting down the pump and system. The top of your valve-head will have a port for waste. Switch the valve handle to waste and then re-start the pump. This will run water directly out of the system without passing your sand and enables you to drain directly out of the system. Drain as much as needed, turn the system back off, reset the valve-head to filter and turn the system back on as you will be ready to go at that point.

With a cartridge filter on an aboveground pool it is a little different than on an inground pool as there is a gravity feed on an aboveground compared to the inground. To drain water off of an aboveground you will start by shutting off the pump system. The bottom of your aboveground filter tank will have a drain cap that will need to be removed to drain water out. Remove this cap and allow to drain until the pool is at the ideal water height. Re-plug the filter, you may have to shutoff the valves to re-insert the plug as water will be rushing swiftly from the system. Most importantly, once the system has been restarted you will want to “bleed” all of the air out of the tank so you get optimum filtration. This is accomplished by rotating the wing nut on the top of the tank head and allowing all the air to hiss out until it sprays water. Once it sprays out you seal it back tight and the filter is ready to go. Inground pools with cartridge filters are best drained by dropping in a cover filter pump or a sub-pump to drain the water out as desired. Most inground cartridge filters have a drain cap on the side of the system where you can drain but they tend to drain very slowly. This is why a submersible pump or cover pump comes in handy.

Diatomaceous earth filtration systems vary depending on the unit. Most are going to have a ball valve on the bottom side of the unit that can be rotated to drain out all the excess water but it will drain out your diatomaceous earth media. You will need to recharge the system with more diatomaceous earth.