Emptying the pool

later Thursday:

Hopefully we are close to getting our pool surfaced, so today Tim hired a pump to empty out all the rainwater. It was about a third full! A bit swampy looking. And very cold.

The pump was a bit tricky actually. It didn't come with any instructions and Tim said the employee he picked it up from was a bit surly. We didn't know -- do you put the pump bit in the water and the hose out, or the hose in the water? It seemed safer to try the second way first, the pump part did have an electrical cable attached so we weren't sure about submerging it. But the hose didn't suck up any water, so we carefully tried it the other way, keeping the electrical cable out of the water, and it happily pumped water out.

We ran the hose directly to a drain behind the house (and checked, it came out in the gutter in front of our house, ran down beside the road and into a stormwater drain) but we couldn't get the grill off to put the hose inside so had to hold it in place for the whole two hours or so. Quite uncomfortable. I found the best way was sitting in a chair and holding the end in place with my feet.

But eventually the water was all out. So much easier and quicker than trying to bucket it out!

Now hopefully it will dry out, and we don't get any more rain for a little while.