Swimming Pool Bottom Drain

A swimming pool main drain uses suction to pull pool water through it.

Swimming pool bottom drain.

Main drains in swimming pools sit in their lowest points. A main drain circulates the pool s water by pulling water off the bottom of the pool and sending it to the filter. Swimming pool main drains are much more than just that circle with all the little circles sitting at the bottom of your pool. My solution in leu of cutting on in and having to drain the pool was to make a bottom drain on top of the liner.

An inground swimming pool s main drain is located in the deep end of the pool. And it s important to fully understand what your swimming pool s main drain does so that you can keep it working properly and so that you can protect the swimmers in the pool from it. We ve already seen that the water in a swimming pool needs to circulate through a filtering system to remove dirt and debris. A clogged drain can make it impossible to keep the water in your pool clean and properly balanced.

Swimming pool circulation pumps draw water from the pool utilizing suction plumbed to the skimmer inlets at water level and the main drain at the pool s bottom. That is it is not used to drain the pool. The main drains are usually located on the lowest point in the pool so the entire pool. During normal operation water flows to the filtering system through two or more main drains at the bottom of the pool and multiple skimmer drains around the top of the pool.

Heavy particulate matter that sinks to a pool s bottom is often sucked away through a main drain. Because it is located at the bottom of the center of the pool it can easily become clogged by debris that sinks to the bottom of the pool. Skimmers sit near a swimming pool s waterline taking in water via gravity and letting it flow down to the filter. Instead of using the trick of turning the pool cleaner brush upside down on the bottom of the pool i used 20 of 1 5 inch pvc plumbed into the skimmer port used for the traditional flex hose vac brush.

Your swimming pool s main drain requires regular maintenance. Instead it is an outlet housing a pipe that runs to the pump which sucks water through a skimmer then through a filter then through a heater if you have one and then back to the pool via multiple inlets. If it isn t cleared you can waste time and money. Although the rest of the pool s parts such as the filter may seem to be working just fine the drain is always at risk of getting clogged.