Shocking your pool isn't necessary, although, it's not a bad idea either. If you get an extremely heavy rain fall, you could shock your pool for good measure. This will help fight off any contaminants that the rain may have brought to your pool.
And if you're wondering if you can shock a pool IN the rain, the answer is yes. Just remember that rainwater adds more contaminants, so it won't be as effective as shocking during dry weather.
Use shock treatment on your pool one or two days before the storm. Add chlorine levels significantly during the treatment and let it run for 24 hours to allow the treatment to fill the entire pool. Make sure all furniture or items around your pool are safe to prevent injury to persons or property.
When preparing your pool for a storm, leave it uncovered. Installing any kind of cover across the pool will not do much to protect against dust and contaminants because storms often bring strong winds and heavy rain that can cause the cover to lift off your pool.
Generally when it rains, your pool doesn't overflow. You wait for excess water to sink into the ground, drain a little pool water, bring us a sample for testing, and then add the necessary chemicals.
After it rains, you should remove standing water as soon as possible. To do this, you'll want to use a siphon or a water pump. An automatic pool cover pump is one of the most useful pool supplies in New Haven County, CT because it can remove standing water from your cover without you needing to do the work.
Running your pool pump during a lightning or electrical storm should be avoided as a power surge or nearby lightning strike could damage your pump. However running your pump during is beneficial. The extra filtering will help clean out the impurities rain has introduced into your pool's water.
In most cases, your pool can even handle rain from most tropical depressions and hurricanes. If your pool is completely full after a storm or heavy rainfall, you don't need to take drastic steps such as emptying your pool. If you do, the hydrostatic pressure can cause your pool to come out of the ground.
Covering a heated swimming pool at night will reduce heat loss. That means warmer water, which is what anyone who has ever gone swimming in a chilly pool can tell you is very important.
You should cover your pool every night for several reasons. First off, a pool cover saves energy and conserves water by decreasing the amount of make-up water. Also, it reduces the consumption of chemicals, and finally, it saves a lot of cleaning time since it keeps the debris out of the pool.
The quick answer is no. You don't need to drain your pool, as there is no risk to your pool by it being full. The only thing you lose with a pool filled to the rim is your skimmer's surface cleaning action. Overall, it still draws water and the equipment is just fine.
First, if the draining is done at the wrong time or under the wrong conditions, you can actually risk damaging your pool structure and liner. All the water from your pool needs to go somewhere when it's drained, and that usually means the ground.
While covered throughout winter, water is sure to build up on the pool cover. This is when a cover pump is essential to keeping water off the cover. Automatic pumps can be left on the cover. But Aqua Pools recommends removing the pump, including the hose, and bringing it inside during freezing weather.
Many pool owners use a float under their cover instead of an air pillow. The plus side to using a float is that you likely already have one lying around.
But large quantities of precipitation combined with an overflowing pool and poor drainage can cause problems such as flooding, structural damage to the surrounding buildings as well as out of balance swimming pool water chemistry.
The pool will only overflow by the amount of rain in excess of the amount of rain needed to fill the pool to the top. So if your pool is the normal 3” below the top, the rain would need to exceed 3” before any additional rain would be available to overflow onto the deck.
The size of your pool, the efficiency of your pump and filter, and how dirty your pool is are just some of the factors you need to consider. Nevertheless, most pool cleaning professionals would advise against running a pool pump for more than 8 hours a day.
So while a solar cover won't actually 'turn your pool green', it will warm your water by up to 8 degrees, so if the other conditions are right, adding a solar cover can easily accelerate algae growth, very rapidly. You need to get the water balance in your pool right before putting the cover back on.
In dry and/or windy conditions, the evaporation rate of the pool increases. Therefore, it is generally beneficial to have a transparent or bubble cover on during daylight hours. In warm, humid conditions the evaporation rate decreases. In this case, it may be more beneficial to leave the cover off during the daytime.
After Shocking Your Pool
It is safe to swim once your chlorine levels are around 5 ppm or after 24 hours. It is always best to test first!
The best time of day to shock your pool is in the evening. This is because the sun's rays can affect the effectiveness of the chlorine by dissolving it too quickly, before it has a chance to rid the pool of contaminants and clean the water.
It may be cheaper to run the pump at night, but honestly you should run it 1 hour a day per 10 degrees of temperature at least, and it should be during the day. Running the pump at night should only be when you are doing a major chemical treatment such as algae clean-up.