A customer called me today and said that he had accidentally let six inches of water out of his pool. He asked what he should do to get the chemicals back in order. Since he has an Aqualogic system with a salt chlorinator, I told him to superchlorinate the pool. (I set the superchlorinate timer to 12 hours). It comes set at 24 hours from the factory. I also told him to add a gallon of acid, since the ph was high.
Lesson learned; you can't walk away from the pool when you're draining it. It pumps down very rapidly.
A related subject is that pool water discharged onto a lawn will cause a coffee-like stain in the grass. It doesn't hurt anything and it clears up after a week or so. Just something to be aware of. I was at a pool once where the homeowner was grilling the landscape guy over the discolored grass.
The landscape guy didn't have a clue. I walked up and said, "Oh, that's me. I was draining the pool." The only thing I can think of to minimize the stain in the lawn is to move the drain hose around each time you let water out of the pool. Or get a hose long enough to reach the curb. Then the water will go down the storm drain.
Another related item is overflow discharge. One of my customers had me plug the overflow in his skimmer because he has an expensive palm tree right next to it. I don't know if the overflow from the pool would hurt the palm tree, but why take the chance.
