For the third time this week, I'm actually pumping water out of
my pool — somewhat unconventionally — because the rain has filled
it to its maximum height.
The National Weather Service keeps extending their river flood
warnings because the rain won't move out of the area.
We totally need the water, but this is too much, I'm afraid. We're
having to add water to our pool weekly — sometimes more than that —
during the hot summer weather. But really. Having to dump water OUT
of it three times in a week??
UPDATE:
It's happening again. We pumped water out of the pool for
over a half hour late last night — I should have done more, but
Laurel was ready for bed — and am doing it for another 45 minutes
now. We placed a flip-flop in the pool as a convenient water
level marker, and it's floating at the top of the basin, barely under
the coping. (It might actually be stuck there, meaning the gap between
the water and the coping is less than the height of the footbed — maybe
¼".)
The "somewhat unconventional" means of dispatching the water involves
use of our "robot": an automated pool cleaner. The pump pushes water
through the vaccuum port down a line attached to the cleaner. Normally,
the pressure pushes the cleaner along the bottom of the pool and sucks
debris up from the bottom and out into a bag at the top. To use the
cleaner to get water out of the pool, lift the cleaner out of the
pool and disconnect the bag. This will do two things: first,
it'll give you about a 2" aperature through which pool water can escape;
depending on how much crap has already been caught in the filter, I can
drop the water about 1" over roughly 20 minutes. The second thing it will
do is get you drenched. Try to lay the cleaner on it's side
or prop it up to shoot the water further from the pool. Sure, it's not
nice to the area that receives the water, but I'd rather soak an area
of my lawn than have water coming out of the pool and approaching the
house.
Both times we've had rains like these, they started on the day our
pool guy complained the water level was too low. When he does this, he
usually turns on our hose to bring the water up to an acceptable level.
I think I'm going to start paying particular attention to the weather
forecast on the days of his visits, and let that guide my decision to let him
fill or not... but with most of the heat for the year now behind us,
maybe it won't be an issue again until next summer.
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