Draining or maintaining a pool requires a lot, but they do not need to be drained regularly. Although, it’s every pool owner’s greatest fear to wake to see a green pool, full of heavy chunks of algae, floating remains, or even a dead animal.
You should drain your Arizona Pool when one of the follow is present: (1) increased total dissolved solids (TDS); (2) need for significant repairs; (3) high Cyanuric Acid (CyA) levels. There’s no one answer to this to be honest, in this article you will learn more about why you should drain your Arizona pool and also when to do so.
When this happens, draining the pool might be the last resort at that point. There are different reasons why you will need to drain your pool. But again, you also need to know how to drain. Before diving into when and how to drain your pool, let’s first discuss why you should drain the pool.
Why You Should Drain the Swimming Pool
There are a lot of reasons you should drain your Arizona swimming pool. Although it may come with a cost, draining your pool is necessary. Here are five genuine reasons you should drain your pool:
Work Against Dry Climate
The challenge with Arizona pools —as with streams, brooks, rivers, and wells — is that they lose the water in them too quickly once the climate gets hotter. Water in your pool evaporates very rapidly and drops to a low level that causes the chemical level to drop as well.
After refilling the pool with water a couple of times, you’ll have to drain it and refill it with fresh water. This way, the water doesn’t get hard or the chemicals lose their sanitizing power
Regulate Stabilizer Level
Well, you need a moderate stabilizer in your pool, if anything, to sanitize the chlorinated chemicals and balance the chemical level in your pool. For an effective stabilizer, you need to drain the pool, add new chlorine to avoid or eliminate unsafe stabilizer readings.
Proper Pool Repair
You’ll need to drain your pool when there is the need to carry out a part or whole fix or repair. Leakage, unusual algae formation, cracks, bad coating, or dry climate can cause you to repair the pool. This will require draining the pool.
Other reasons to drain the pool include carrying out heavy pool cleaning or preventing calcium buildup.
How Should I Drain My Swimming Pool in Arizona?
There are so many things to put into consideration before draining the pool to avoid any swimming pool damages. Before starting the process of draining your pool, you should ensure that the groundwater levels are at the standard level. When the swimming pool’s water levels are high enough, they can cause your drained pool to pop out of the ground.
Also, Arizona pools made with fiberglass and vinyl liner require special attention because these kinds of pools are not to be drained completely. Removing the water entirely from the pool can cause the pool to crack or bow at the surface.
Having assessed the groundwater situation and understood the type of pool you have, it is now safe to drain your pool with a submersible pump. You can as well use the filter pump to drain, but there are risks of damaging your expensive pool hardware.
When draining, pool water should be drained into the sewer outlet on your property. Although sewer lines are not designed to take on huge water capacities at once, while draining, you should keep the outflow to approximately 12 gallons per minute or even less.
Draining your swimming pool can be a big task, and draining improperly can also result in some consequences. Therefore, planning can give you a better edge and save you from the big trouble later. Moving back to several reasons why you might need to partially or fully drain your swimming pool.
When Should I Drain My Arizona Pool?
Do you have way too much debris in your swimming pool, and it’s difficult to remove? Or the filter handle and chemical can’t handle the cleanup? If your answers to the questions are all yes! Then, it’s time to drain your swimming pool finally. So when do you really need to clean your pool? When there are: (1) increased total dissolved solids (TDS); (2) need for significant repairs; (3) high Cyanuric Acid (CyA) levels.
Increased Total Dissolved Solids (TDS)
One of the most common reasons why swimming pools get drained is the excess increase in the total dissolved solids (TDS). As time goes on, TDS in your swimming pool water increase, and once it gets to about 2500 ppm, you will start to lose the balance of the pool water.
Adding chemicals will not solve the TDS water problem. Depending on the quality of the swimming pool water and the quality of the chemicals you use to maintain the balance, it is expected that you drain the pool every three to five years because of the presence of TDS.
Need for Significant Repairs
The number two reason to drain your pool is if you need to make essential pool repairs. There are some kinds of repairs or refinishing needed, and the best way to achieve this is to drain the pool completely.
Draining the swimming pool is best because improper draining can damage the pool materials. However, if you will be repairing or refinishing your pool yourself, be sure to learn a thing or two about the draining process for your pool specifications. You can simply call on a professional to inquire about whether the repair will warrant pool draining.
High Cyanuric Acid (CyA) Levels
The high Cyanuric Acid (CyA) that builds up in the water cannot be removed by adding chemicals, so the best and economical way to reduce CyA is to either partially drain the pool or add fresh water to adulterate the remaining. Another way to reduce the intensity of the CyA is to completely drain the pool and fill it up with freshly treated water.
Draining Pool: When Not To
As much as there are compelling reasons and appropriate times to drain your pool, you should refrain from emptying the pool at some other times. Draining the pool requires some caution and control.
Don’t drain your pool if:
- your pool will crack or pop
- there‘s no place to drain the water
- draining will cause hydrostatic pressure in the pool
- your pool is made of fiberglass (contact manufacturer’s manual)
- draining will be too costly
Final Thoughts
The idea of draining your swimming pool is a good one, but you have to note that not every pool repairs require you to replace the water. Some repairs can be done underwater, and other problems can also be treated with chemicals. So, be sure you know how to drain your pool before attempting to do so effectively, or you can simply call on a professional that can help out.