Home Saver Fire System

[TMan]

www.thehomesaversystem.com/index.html

This was invented by Paul Claffey whose son owns Claffey pools and built my pool.

You may have heard about at the time that I write this that over 1,000 homes in Texas have been destroyed by wildfires.

They have two versions - 1 that uses your pool pump and the other that uses city water from your irrigation system.

Since I have a 35,000 gallon pool with a 2.7HP pump, I opted for the version that uses the pool pump.

Here in the metroplex installation is included in the price. Since I opted to do it myself, they knocked $60 off the price. I didn't install it the way they said, but instead tapped into the backflush line. My pump doesn't like running without enough back pressure so I can run after the filter, or if the 50 ft of hose is giving me enough head, I can set the valve to waste and go directly to the fire hose.

I'm not so much afraid of wildfires as I am of lightning strikes. My house is the highest one on the street, and it has been hit by lightning before. Fortunately for me, it was a "cold strike" and didn't cause a fire. The following year, two blocks from us a house was hit and burned to the ground before the fire department got there 20 minutes after the call. They were off fighting another fire.

All I need now is one of those red fireman hats. ;D

[TMan]

www.the33tv.com/videobeta/d0798c81-a564-4541-b911-7790c7e8267e/News/07-16-11-Homesaver

In case you missed it in the article. This shows Paul, and I was there the day they shot this, but I stayed in the background. I could have been on TV.

[5ontarget]

I live out in the sticks and I used to volunteer on the local fire department. We have haul all our water to the scene, as there aren't hydrants. There was a structure fire on this property with a pool and we were getting ready to draft some water from the pool when the homeowner tells us that we can't draw water from his pool. We had our second tanker on the way, but would like to have extra water. If my house, garage, barn, or anything on my property (our neighbor's property) was on fire and needed water, PLEASE suck my pool dry. For the record, I don't have a pool and live 1/3mi from a lake, so water isn't that big of a deal, as long as the tankers can draft water.

[MLB]

Cool setup! I have a separate 1.5 hp pump just for the water feature in the pool. That would be an ideal second use for it. I've thought of tapping it before, just for dropping the level of the poolwater for winter though (no backwash in my filter / saline system)

[TMan]

They tell you in the instructions to be sure and turn off the skimmers (or you would be quickly sucking air), and not to remove more than 2/3's of the water in the pool or you can damage the pool.

When I was in New York our pool was aluminum with a vinyl liner. One year I was having a hard time getting rid of the combined chlorine. Like I do here, I bought my chemicals from the same people that built the pool. I mentioned to the woman behind the counter that I should just drain the pool and refill it. Her eyes got big and she said: "Don't you dare. With all the rain we have had and the high water table, the walls would cave in."

[MLB]

That's extremely good advice (for an in ground pool). I've seen plenty of underground structures "float" to the surface when the ground is wet, or simply in a granular non-cohesive soil. Underground storage tanks need to have a weight (usually concrete) attached equal to the weight of the water that that tank would have held. Even shotcrete pools like mine don't weigh that much.

Plenty of folks won't believe that their massive pool structure can push up out of the ground. I tell them to try to hold a tiny 5 gallon pail underwater. It takes about 40lbs to do it. The typical 15,000 gal pool (empty) takes 125,000lbs to keep down in saturated soil!

Mother Nature is not to be trifled with ;D

Another problem in dry weather is lateral soil pressure. That can cave in the sides too.

[TMan]

How do you come up with the 125,000 lbs? Are you saying that my 35,000 gallon pool would require 291,900 lbs? i.e. weight of a gallon of water at 8.34lbs. I would think there would be other factors involved.

My pool in NY was built into the side of a hill, so it would have had more water pressure on the upper side, or so I would think.

[MLB]

Spot on TMan. That's worst case though. Technically, there's some significant friction stopping the pool from lifting up, the weight of the pool structure itself, and that's assuming totally saturated soil, but it's the exact same principal that keeps the Queen Mary bobbing on the surface. Usually, the soil is just a bit damp, is somewhat cohesive, and therefore only a little cracking happens (until it rains cats & dogs).

Unballasted subgrade tanks pop up all the time. Pools, having an open top generally just heave up until the bottom buckles upward and sides cave in.