Draining Gunite Pool

[jaypool]

I need to drain my pool that was just built. Can I do that with a simple pump? Will it affect or break anything if I do it?

[Watermom]

Why do you need to drain it?

[jonv112]

If your water table is high, you run the risk of cracking the new gunite because there is no water in the pool to counteract the pressure of the water under the pool from pushing it up out of the ground. Or worse, the pressure could even lift your pool out of the ground!

[waste]

I will reiterate Watermom's ? - why do you think you need to drain it? (BTW- welcome to the forum ! ) If you tell us the reason, we may find a solution that doesn't require draining the pool.

[jaypool]

The pool guy was painting some rocks around the pool and got a TON of paint in it. I don't know how to get it out. The cartridge filter stops up every 15-30 minutes full of the paint and I've been doing this for a week now without any luck in getting the paint out.

By the way: this was after he got too much sand in it. I got advice on using the sand filter bag on the 380 to get all the sand/dirt out and I was in the process of doing this when he came back to finalize the paint on the rocks and got it in the pool. My water is now literally brown, the color of the rocks.

[105ex]

Like what jonv112 said, you don't want to drain. As the rain is starting to come back, the water table is probably going to get high quickly.

If you're draining because you're going to redo your pool, then that's different as you can have pressure relief holes drilled so your pool's concrete doesn't get cracked and the whole pool doesn't float.

Nonetheless, the answer to your original question is that a simple sump pump can empty out a pool just fine (but it may take more than a day) and you'd have to know the regulations in your area as draining water has to be done properly, too.