My bride likes our pool to look as clean and inviting as a white trash, above ground, pool can look, at all times. During the winter, as short as it is here in South Texas, keeping the pool clean is difficult. In previous years I have tried to keep it clean through various different efforts. All of them seem to end up with the pool being drained and refilled sometime in March or April. The pool was installed back in 2012 one of the many years the world was supposed to end. I think this particular time it was the Mayan Calendar Prophecy. It didn’t end and the pool was awesome for my girls who were still reeling from the divorce. The first year I kept the pump running to circulate the chlorine all winter. And even that first year, the pool turned green in the spring. Not the nice St. Patty’s day dye the river green color. It turned the color of something that died in a swamp green. I must have spent $200 on chemicals to save it.
The next few years it happened again and each time I would shell out for the chemicals. The guy at the pool store suggested I drain it the next year since it was becoming saturated with chemicals and would have a hard time clearing. Reluctantly I drained it with a sump pump and I ended up replacing the liner. At the same time I installed padding and a foam cove around the base. With all that extra investment I made sure we enjoyed the pool as long as possible. Round here that can mean swimming until the beginning of November. If I did the solar heater it could be almost year round. Keeping it running and stocked with shock was the answer for a long time. It was working beautifully until we had the blizzard of ’21. Once the power goes off for 3 days, everything freezes, and we were not prepared.
The pool froze, no big deal, the pump and the basket filter and some pipes also froze. Huge problem. The head on the Sand filter was destroyed, the handle broke off and the fittings for the pipe connections cracked. The basket filter housing broke in half, ice is strong! I managed to find one online and get it delivered and replaced the broken pipes. All of this took forever since everyone was running behind due to the unexpected nature of this event. So in the meantime, pollen from all over the hill country and West Texas/African dust blew into the pool and we ended up with a green murky mess that had to be drained. It was at this point I decided to purchase bottom drains. It sounds like a simple thing, but they are very difficult to find and NO ONE will install them for you. I guess the idea of cutting a hole in the bottom of a big bag of water is not for everyone. Well back then I had more money than time so I hired a guy to dig a trench inside the pool bottom between the two drains and one to the side of the pool for the exit. $100 and he took about 3 hours to get it done and then did some other masonry work around the yard. Looking back it was a good price and he worked quickly. It took me another day to glue the pipes together and install the drains. As a one man job it didn’t go quickly and I left some significant wrinkles in the liner which become permanent once you fill it with water.
Thanks to Covid destroying the supply chain of almost everything, and one of the only chlorine factories burning to the ground, the price of chlorine went through the roof! I used to get a 5 gallon bucket of 3″ tablets for less than $100 now that same bucket is $279 and that price has already come down from the astronomical prices in the past couple of years. So my preferred method of opening the pool each year is to drain the garbage out of it and refill with clean water. This year since we had another hard freeze, no where near as bad as ’21. I drained the pipes and the pump and let the water level slowly drop via the leak. By the time we went to start it back up last week, there was only about 2 feet of water in in, but the drain was never finished and I did not want to flood everything next to the pool.
In a burst of energy one lunchtime I went out with a pick and shovel to go dig the trench for the drain outside the pool. Job one, move all the lumber in the way that stopped us from doing it before. Last year this was not possible because I was having a hard time walking around or even breathing for that matter due to my immense weight. This year is a different story, so I moved all the lumber over and took my first break. I was still able to breath and move so I grabbed the pick and started digging. This area is not as bad as most since it was built up to level it out for the pool, so there is about 6-12 inches of diggable material before you get to the limestone. I took breaks every few minutes and drank plenty of water. It’s that time of the year where it is 40º in the morning and 80º in the afternoon. By the end of lunch it was done and I added the pipe temporarily to help the sump pump drain the pool.
with the pool drained it was time to tackle the low spots and the jankey drain fitting. The close one is good, but the further one ended up shifting and the sand got under it lifting it and stretching the liner around it. So another Trip to Lowes. 10 50# bags later, it was time to take off the top caps. remove the liner holder and pull back the liner, remove it from the drain, pull back the under liner padding and level out the 500#s of sand to fill the low spots. That work done, I re-leveled the drain, my Bride helped me pack the sand around it this time and ensure it stayed level. We re laid the under padding and reinstalled the liner and holder and then all the wall caps that hold it in place. It took the better part of a day and as an added bonus I have a redneck sunburn. I am sure the dermatologist I am going to see in 2 days will be not impressed.
It is an awesome pool when it is clean, but it is plenty of work and not cheap to run. On the other hand it was less than half the price to purchase the the cost of digging a hole for an inground pool. So I don’t feel too bad. Speaking of feeling bad, my back is killing me. Ditch digging and sand hauling is a young mans game.
