Katy Green Pool Cleanup for Runoff, Floodwater and Floor Blooms

Runoff across a level yard

On a lot with almost no slope, storm water has few places to go, and some of it can cross the deck carrying soil, mulch and lawn fertilizer into the pool. That load arrives just as the rain has thinned the chlorine, and it brings nutrients algae can feed on. The hot, sunny day after the storm is often when the color turns.

So a Katy cleanup tests phosphates along with stabilizer before the first dose goes in. If fertilizer runoff pushed them up, killing the algae is only half the fix, and your technician will point out where water is reaching the pool from the yard so the next storm does not start the cycle over.

Blooms that start on the floor

Open yards let the wind deliver dust and mowed grass that sinks rather than floats. Spread thin across the bottom, it burns off sanitizer and lets algae take hold out of sight, so a Katy pool can look dull and feel slick underfoot before the water itself goes green.

Cleanup in that case puts the effort at the bottom. Every floor surface gets brushed hard, and the settled layer is vacuumed out, to waste when the plumbing allows it, so the finest material does not ride back into the pool through the filter. Expect several filter cleanings before the pool is done, because fine dust loads a filter faster than leaves do.

When floodwater filled the pool

During Harvey, neighborhoods on the Katy side such as Bear Creek Village, Barkers Crossing, Mayde Creek Farms, Winsor Park Lakes and Canyon Gate flooded when the Army Corps closed the Addicks and Barker reservoir gates and water was held behind the dams. That flooding came from the reservoirs, not from creeks inside the City of Katy, and it left pools full of water nobody would choose to swim in.

A pool that took in floodwater is not an ordinary green pool. What came in may include sewage and silt, and the equipment may have been under it. The muck and debris are hauled out first, the pump and controls are checked before anything is switched on, and algae treatment starts only after that. The first stage runs through our storm cleanup service. Until that visit, the after-the-storm guide lists what not to do.

Partial drains and Katy refill water

Shock cannot clear a pool once stabilizer is so high that chlorine stays sluggish, and that is when part of the water gets replaced. In Katy, when you drain is as important as how much. Slow-draining prairie ground can stay saturated after storms and through cool months, so a partial drain waits for a dry stretch, and only enough water comes out to bring the stabilizer reading down.

What flows back in has its own chemistry. City wells, a utility district's supply and, in the next few years, a possible blend with treated surface water can each bring different calcium and alkalinity, and chloramine-treated supply water nudges the combined chlorine number up. The refilled pool is tested before the final balance instead of being assumed to match the water that left.

What a Katy cleanup checks first

• Signs storm water crossed the deck, or that floodwater got in
• Phosphate and stabilizer readings taken before the first dose
• A dull, slick layer underfoot on the pool bottom
• Ground moisture, before any water is drained
• Calcium, alkalinity and combined chlorine in the refill water
• Pump and filter condition, and how fast fine dust loads the filter