Pools hold a lot of water. A hot tub can hold ~400 gallons. Pools hold many times that. The chemicals used to treat it are a bit less expensive than the water itself. Additionally, the chemicals keep it clean. Draining it would still leave algae behind, as well as all the debris. You’d need to drain it every few days, which is a problem when your typical hose would take many hours to actually fill the pool.
The chemicals can irritate if they’re in too high of concentrations. But generally, our skin is good at mitigating that impact
A modest pool of 24ft x 12ft x 52 inches deep would take over 24 hours to fill using a typical garden hose that flows around 6 gallons per minute, and that water would come in pretty cold, too. Typical cold water temperature is 45-50 degrees Fahrenheit. Much too cold to swim in. This 10,000 gallons of water could cost over $50, assuming 2021 Las Vegas water surcharges.
Repeating for our metrically challenged friends:
A modest pool of 8m x 4m x 1.3m deep would take over 24 hours to fill using a typical garden hose that flows 25 liters per minute, and that water would come in pretty cold, too. Typical cold water temperature is 7-10°C. Much too cold to swim in. This 42,000 liters of water could cost over $50, assuming 2021 Las Vegas water surcharges.
The pool water will have to be cleaned regardless of if you do it yourself or drain your pipes. If you drain the water, it goes to the city water treatment plant. A pool contains a lot of water and it would take a long time to drain and fill back up, plus .. your water bill will be extra high that month.
Some people use salt in their pool, others use chlorine. These are the main things people use on a regular basis.
Chlorine dissipates once it’s done its job. At the beginning of the season you may shock your pool to kill anything that had been growing over the winter, but the instructions will say don’t get in the pool for x amount of hours after doing so. Then the pool filtration system and a vacuum will remove the solids.
Concerns about chlorine: When you test tap water for total residual chlorine in potable water, the holdtime for the water sample is fifteen minutes under TCEQ regulations. After fifteen minutes the sample would be invalid because no chlorine would be left in the water.
People have mentioned the cost associated with refilling a pool. There is also the time it takes to refill using a garden hose. Since that is all most people will realistically have. With a flow rate of 6-12 gallons per minute a 20,000 gallon pool would take almost 28 hours to fill up at the very best flow rate (20,000 gallons ÷ 12 gal per min ÷ 60 min per hour = 27.777 hours). That is a complete waste of time when it takes 3-5 hours a week to properly clean a pool of debris and make sure the chemicals are in proper balance.
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