Too much rain, need to drain

[Macrosill]

Is there a benefit or detriment in draining excess water from rain by backwashing vs pump to waste? Is it possible to backwash too much?

This is one of those times when I thought the grass was greener on the other side. For the past 3 years I had 3 leaky liners and was complaining. I replaced and upgraded everything except the wall ans uprights. It is water tight. Now I wish I had that "self draining" liner.

Brian

[matt4x4]

I rarely get rid of the excess water, the hot days that follow the rain usually do this for me! Besides, in the country we hang on to every drop since wells don't like to generate mass volumes of water fast.
But, if I do have to lower the level - like closing time, I backwash it all out, this way, I'm pretty much guaranteed that my filter medium is clean.

[cleancloths]

Yes, but when you have too much water the skimmers stop working. I just pump to waste, but there is no reason you could not do it through backwash.

[markphin]

except that when you backwash with a DE filter you are flushing out your DE, possibly unnecesarily. When lowering pool levels, do through waste, and backwash only when necessary.

Personally, unless the water level is up to the coping, I let heat and wind lower it for me. Just can't beat free water. Skimmers still work, just not as effectively.

[cleancloths]

except that when you backwash with a DE filter you are flushing out your DE, possibly unnecesarily. When lowering pool levels, do through waste, and backwash only when necessary.

Personally, unless the water level is up to the coping, I let heat and wind lower it for me. Just can't beat free water. Skimmers still work, just not as effectively.

I guess it depends what type of skimmer you have. Mine have a basket with an inner ring that floats up and down. Normally they inner ring is floating and stuff goes in it and gets trapped in the basket. When the water gets too high the inner ring reaches its travel limit and stuff stops getting trapped as it just floats over the top of the ring.

[chrisexv6]

I always thought a *skimmer* was meant to *skim* the surface of the water? If the surface of the water is over the skimmer, its not really skimming anything anymore

Those of us with vinyl liners need to keep track of the water level. Dont need it getting up to the coping and floating the liner out of place!

-Chris