Opening hydrostatic valve to prevent pool popping

[Pdo001]

Hi all,

New to the forum. I have an inground concrete pool. The pool was left unkept and it turned into a swamp by the time I got it. So I drained it to facilitate cleaning. My friend cautioned me about pools popping if ground water rises. So he said open the hydrostatic valve to relieve any pressure that may build and leave it open. He showed me the 1.5 in opening I needed to unscrew. However, when I unscrewed it, it was just a cap and wasn't any sort of valve. The water didn't drain or anything. The pipe goes down about 2ft and then I hit something hard. Looks like there's a bunch of mud underneath the water. So I can't really see if there's something else all the way down there. Anybody know if there's something else down there that needs to be somehow opened?

[Denniswiseman]

Normally hydrostatic valves work to allow ground water to enter the pool when the the pool is drained to equalise pressure and prevent popping out of the ground not to drain the pool
Some get blocked and don't work
Do you have a high water table in your area

[Pdo001]

Hi, thanks for the response. I'm not sure if I have a high water table in my area. I live in Annapolis which is close to the Chesapeake Bay. On the USGS website I looked up some records of well depths in the area if that can be an indicator. Some really close to the shore were as low as 30 ft. Others in the area varied from 80 ft to 1000ft depth. I do know I'm in a pretty high point of the area but my yard does sometimes get flooded when there's lots of rain and the sewer ditch that runs along the back of my yard gets clogged by debris and water can't run downhill fast enough.

Is it possible the valve is at the bottom of that hole. There is mud in the hole. So maybe that's an indicator water and dirt are coming up through a valve. What confuses me is the cap/plug I removed was a solid plug. I don't see how that would allow an equilization of pressure to my pool if the hole is plugged up.

[Pdo001]

My response seems to have disappeared.

I'm in Annapolis close to the Chesapeake Bay. I looked up on the USGS website well depth information. I'm guessing that's an indicator of water table depth. I couldn't find any info at my address but it ranged anywhere from 30 ft to 1000 ft in different neighborhoods around me. I do know my property is uphill at a higher point than surrounding houses. A drainage ditch runs along my fence line to the sewers. My yard floods once in a blue moon when there's tons of rain and the ground gets saturated or the ditched gets blocked by debris and water can't for downhill fast enough.

Thanks for the explanation of how the valves work. what's confusing to me is the cap/plug I unscrewed at the top to open the pipe wasn't a valve. It was a solid threaded plug and if there's a valve somewhere down that pipe, why would they put a plug above it that would prevent water from flowing and equalising the pressure?

There's mud in that pipe. So it seems that water and dirt had come up into it at some point. I'd like to somehow find out what's at the end of that pipe. Do you have any suggestions or know of a tool that's used to get to that valve if it's down there?

[Denniswiseman]

I doubt that it is down there, look at this video to get a better idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NuVjVl-JJo
You can also search for swimming pool hydrostatic valve