-Hey, pool owners. In this video, we're going to show you
how to drain and clean your swimming pool.
In a previous video we showed you how to clean a green pool
by bringing the chlorine up to shock level
and continuously cleaning the filter until all the algae was removed.
In this video we will drain all the water from the pool
do a chlorine wash on the walls
refill and balance the water chemistry.
Let's go ahead and get started.
-Okay. A couple of things to consider before you drain a pool is
you probably don't want to do it
if you've had a lot of rain
because the water table could be high.
What that means is if you have a shell of a pool sitting empty
and the water table is high underneath it
it could potentially pop the shell out of the ground.
We've seen that happen in Florida from time to time.
Another thing you want to keep in mind is
when you're draining it you want to drain the water far away from the pool.
You don't want to just drain it right next to the pool
because then you could be dumping 20,000 gallons
of water right next to the pool, and that could
again, go underneath the pool and cause some problems.
Those are the things you want to keep in mind before you drain.
All right, to drain this pool
we're going to be using a sump pump.
Sump pumps are really easy to use.
Basically, you plug them in.
You connect a hose to them and you drop it in the water
and it drains the pool. If you don't have a sump pump
and you have a sand or DE filter
those are easy to use your existing pool pump to drain the pool.
What you want to do is you put the backwash valve
in the drain position and turn on your pool pump
and make sure you're only pulling water from the main drain.
That way, you're not pulling water from the skimmer
or pulling air from the skimmer once it drains below the skimmer.
Let's go ahead and continue.
All right, so to set up the sump pump
you can get a hose fitting thread it in there.
Then we've got a backwash hose that will slip over the fitting.
We got this metal clamp and we'll tighten that down.
All right, we're just going to roll the hose out
to the far corner of the yard where it's downhill.
All right, we're going to start
by dropping the sump pump into the shallow end.
The cord isn't that long
and you don't want the end of it to be in the water
so as it drains we're going to move it to deeper water.
We're going to go ahead and drop it in.
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As you can see, most of the pool water
has been drained out just down to a couple of inches.
We're going to remove the drain cover
and remove the plug that's underneath the drain cover.
That's basically to prevent the shell from popping out
if there was any pressure underneath
that water would bubble up through the main drain.
All right. We're using a clean-out plug wrench right now.
It has a connection for inch and a half or two inch plugs.
I'm just going to remove that plug from the bottom drain.
This was the plug that was underneath the main drain cover.
We removed that so if there's any pressure underneath
any water, if I have a high water table
the water's going to come up through that main drain.
We're going to start with just regular garden hose
just spraying some of the larger debris down
to the bottom of the pool so we can pump it out.
You can use a regular nylon deck brush
to get the more stubborn spots.
Again, it's going to be easier if the surface is a little wet.
Everything that we've pressure washed and brushed
is piled up near the main drain.
We're going to use the sump pump and suck it up out of here.
We're down the last bit of water
and what we have to do is keep diluting it
and pumping it out because just the water level's not high enough
for the sump up to grab it
so we're just pumping it out and diluting it
with the fresh water until we get all the green algae out.
Once you've pressure washed the pool surface
and removed the algae filled water
it's time to do a chlorine wash on the pool walls.
Before getting started you'll want to reinstall the main drain cover.
Next, prepare the walls by wetting them down with a garden hose.
When applying chlorine to the walls
you want to do it from outside of the pool
pouring it down the walls as evenly as possible to avoid streaking.
The reason for pouring from outside of the pool
is to avoid tracking chlorine onto the deck and creating unwanted stains.
Most algae should be killed off in a matter
of minutes after pouring chlorine on the walls.
Continue to pour around the entire perimeter of the pool.
Let the chlorine sit for about 30 minutes
before washing all the pool surfaces off with fresh water.
You can now proceed to fill the pool back up with water.
While the pool is filling up
it's a good idea to proudly start with a fresh filter.
This particular equipment pad has a cartridge filter.
We are going replace the cartridge.
If you have a sand or DE filter
you might want to change the sand or replace the DE grids
because chances are the inside of these filters
if you had a swamp, it's going to be pretty nasty.
You'd want to start with a fresh filter.
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We're going to turn the pump on and we got the air bleed open
and we're going to leave it open until water starts to spray out.
Once the pool is filled up and the pump is running
you'll want to test and adjust the chemicals
to avoid your pool from turning green again.
The six main readings you'll want to check for are free chlorine
total chlorine, pH, cyanuric acid alkalinity and calcium hardness.
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As you can see we're done with the drain and clean.
The owner says it hasn't looked this good in 10 years
so we're pretty happy with the job.
The whole process took us four days.
The first day, we drained it we pressure washed it.
The second day we came back and we did the chlorine wash
on the sides and the bottom.
Then the last two days, it was just filling up.
It's all ready to go, and looks good to swim in.
If you have any questions about this particular job
or anything else pool-related
leave a comment down below or visit us at www.inyopools.com.
Thanks for watching.
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