advice on being away for a few days

I have an 18x36 inground pool, and I'm going to be away on a short vacation this weekend. I will be leaving Saturday morning and won't be home until Tuesday evening. I live out in the country with no neighbors, and I don't know of anyone who would be able to come by and check on it. What should I do as far as the pool pump? I'm thinking I might just load the water up with bleach and leave the pump off. I'm concerned about the skimmer filling up and causing the pump to lose prime while I'm away. Thanks for the input.

Stacy

I think your better off using mostly the main drain with the skimmers on just slightly. Put a floater in with some 3" pucks as long as your CYA is OK. THe pucks in the floater will last about 4 days. I'm not a fan of trichlor pucks but sometimes they do have a use.

I have a similar question, we are going to be away for a full week though. Our pool doesn't have a valve to control main/skimmer. With the neighbors trees any sort of storm or wind is guaranteed to fill the skimmer basket. Any thoughts on if I should leave the pump off for the week? I know it'll be a mess when we get back, but better than a burned up pump I think.

You can put a rubber stopper in the skimmer to make all the flow come from the main drain. Just make sure the pump is off when you put in and take out the stopper or it may get sucked into the piping too far to get out.

Mark, thanks for the advice. Got back yesterday to a pool with some leaves, but clear water. The pump was fine. For anyone else who sees this, it did have about 1-2" of water evaporate during that week, so I'm glad I overfilled it before leaving.