Shock or Drain?

[rickaltman]

Good morning to all -- This long-time pool owner but new forum member has a dilemma. We are relandscaping in our backyard, including the asphalt and pool coping. This has necessitated the covering of our pool and prohibition of maintenance for a period of two weeks. Worse, now we have to lower the level of the pool below the skimmer line, so I will have to turn the filtration off entirely for about a week.

Bottom line: our pool is surely a filthy cesspool and will probably get worse before I can make it better.

At a minimum, I will need to shock the crap out of it, and should that be my best course of action, I would be grateful for advice about how to perform an extreme shock. But I wonder if maybe I should just drain the thing, scrub down the walls, and start over.

Any and all thoughts and comments welcome.



Rick A.
Pleasanton CA

[Denniswiseman]

Be careful of draining your pool if you have a high water table as it could pop out of the ground
What is the construction of your pool, and what lines do you have.
At this stage I would be inclined to pour a lot of Liquid chlorine in (Sodium hypochlorite, plain bleach) and circulate it with a sump pump to mix it
Meanwhile get yourself a decent FAS/DPD testing kit (Taylor K2006C or TF100) so that you can test your own water after the work is completed because you will probably need to Slam with relation to Chlorine / CYA Chart
FC:
TC:
pH:
TA:
CH:
CYA:

[rickaltman]

Thanks, Dennis --

After hearing about pools that are much worse off than mine is and the way they respond to shock, I have pretty much concluded that I do not need to drain mine. I will follow SLAM procedures once I have access to it and will be hopeful that I can restore it.

[Denniswiseman]

Please do get a test kit and get some chlorine in just to make sure it doesn't get to bad which will make it a lot harder if you have an algae bloom

[rickaltman]

Please do get a test kit and get some chlorine in just to make sure it doesn't get to bad which will make it a lot harder if you have an algae bloom

Would that I could. The pool water is completely inaccessible and the filter is now turned off, so chemicals wouldn't circulate anyway. I'm going to have to hope for the best once I can access it.

[Denniswiseman]

Please do get a test kit and get some chlorine in just to make sure it doesn't get to bad which will make it a lot harder if you have an algae bloom

Would that I could. The pool water is completely inaccessible and the filter is now turned off, so chemicals wouldn't circulate anyway. I'm going to have to hope for the best once I can access it.

Is there no access to pour some liquid chlorine in and a sump pump to circulate just for a while to help

[rickaltman]

At the moment, I can't get anywhere near it. As soon as they pour concrete, then I can at least get my body to it. At that point, I could dump some liquid in, and I do have an electric drain/pump that I could activate just to move some water around. But one way or the other, it won't be pretty once I get my pool back. I'll be using that SLAM video as my bible...

[Teapot]

Rick, it is still better to add chlorine than not to add chlorine, even if you just move the water around with a makeshift paddle.