How Should You Drain Your Swimming Pool?

This final installment of our series (see Part 1 & 2) will focus on the details of how to go about draining your pool, the timing involved, and which location you should choose to drain the pool water.

Tips for Draining Your Pool

Make sure your skimmer valve is closed if your pool’s main drain and skimmer valves are separate from each other. You can also leave the main drain valve completely open and plug your skimmers. Roll out the backwash hose. A larger than 2” backwash hose is best for lowering the amount of pressure. Then place the filter’s multiport valve in the recirculating position.

After you follow these steps, you can turn on your pool pump. Keep a watchful eye on the pool draining process at all times. When you notice the pool drain beginning to suck air, you can switch to a small cover pump for the last part. This should take place when there are roughly one thousand gallons of water still in the pool. Try not to shut the pump off in the middle of the process if you want it to keep running correctly.

After using the filter pump, you will probably still need to drain a few hundred gallons of water from the bottom of the pool if you’re completely emptying it out. You can put in a three-way valve between your pool’s pump and filter to drain this last bit from the pool. Another option is a garden hose spigot with a tee fitting. An even more dependable choice for complete pool draining would be a submersible pump. These pumps can quickly drain your whole pool in a day’s time.

For an extremely fast drain, consider renting a suction and discharge hose as well a gas powered trash pump. If you have lots of algae or solid debris in your pool, this may be your best option as it won’t clog nearly as easily as a submersible pump. Pools that haven’t been kept up may require a trash pump. Trash pumps are strong enough to get the job done in a couple of hours.

A word of caution is in order when using a trash pump on a mucky, messy pool. Be sure to hose down the pool walls as well as the water drains. You don’t want the yucky gunk inside the pool to stick to those walls and become an absolute nightmare to clean later after it dries!

The Right Time to Drain a Pool

When there hasn’t been much rainfall recently, the water table is relatively low, and you’re ready to get your pool repairs done, that’s the ideal time to drain your pool. You don’t want it to sit empty for long, so make sure everything you’ll need to fix the pool’s problems is on hand before you start to drain it. As far as temperature goes, it’s best to drain your pool when it’s warm outside. Temperatures below the mid 50°’s F would leave your empty pool’s surfaces vulnerable to damage.

Choose the Best Location for Draining Pool Water

Always pump 50 to 100 feet away from your pool so you don’t end up with excess water seeping into the ground underneath it. Move the hose around to different areas to keep the ground from getting too saturated with water. You don’t want to erode hills, so pick flatter areas to drain the water into if at all possible. If you have clean, balanced pool water, you may be able to send it right into the street’s storm drain. Check with your city to see if they have any local ordinances about pool water drainage.

After you drain your pool, try to get your repairs done quickly so you can refill your pool rapidly. If you’re still not comfortable with the process of draining a pool on your own, feel free to contact a pool service provider in your local area.

Lyon Financial

Since 1979 Lyon Financial has made the backyard resort dream come true for over 400,000 families across the U.S. Through our solid relationships with more than 3,000 pool contractors and our continued commitment to putting our clients first, we have built a reputation as the first choice in providing pool financing solutions. For more information, visit lyonfinancial.net or call (877) 754-5966 today.