My dad’s customers ask this a lot after new pool construction so I thought I would put something together for everyone out there. After all, what good is an empty pool?
There are four ways for you to fill your pool after new pool construction or after draining your pool:
- Fire Hydrant Access using a fire hose (10,000 Gallons in 60 minutes)
- Water Truck Delivery (45 Minutes for 6000 Gallons)
- Using Multiple Hoses to fill your pool with City Water (25 hours for 10,000 Gallons)
- Using your well to fill your pool (25 hours for 10,000 Gallons)
Fire Hydrant access which uses a Fire Department hose can pump 10,000 gallons in a little over 60 minutes. You can hire a water truck delivery which would take about 45 minutes for 6000 gallons of water. Using a garden hose to fill your pool is slow and steady but with average water pressure(fill a 5-gallon bucket in 45 seconds) you can fill a 10,000-gallon pool in about 25 hours. Using well water to fill your pool can take about the same time as using city water but it always depends on each home’s well.
You can see above the quickest way to fill your pool for the summer is by using a fire hydrant. With our measurements all laid out before us, it might seem a bit cut and dry. Actually, the real question that most people would like answered is how quickly can my pool be ready to swim in. Keep reading as I dive into each of these methods laying out the time frame plus the issues you may face to get it ready to swim.
How Fast Will Your Pool Fill Up Using Each Method?
I put together a table below to give a quick idea of how long each method would take for a few different pool sizes.
| Pool Filling Method | 5,000 Gallons | 10,000 Gallons | 20,000 Gallons | 30,000 Gallons |
| Fire Hydrant | 30 Minutes | 1 Hour | 2 Hours | 3 Hours |
| Water Delivery (Time between Multiple Truck Delivery Not Calculated) | 35-40 Minutes | 1 Hour 20 Mins | 2 Hours 40 Mins | 4 Hours |
| A hose from Home or Well. (45-second fill on 5-gallon bucket) | 12-13 Hours | 25-26 Hours | 50-52 Hours | 75-77 Hours |
I hope the above table gave you a nice idea of how much time it will take for you to fill your own swimming pool. We are going to dive into each method a bit more to find out how long until you can get to swimming.
Using Fire Hydrant or Fire Truck to Fill Your Pool
As we have been able to see, this is hands down the fastest method. The first obstacle to overcome will be finding out if this service is provided in your municipality. We have a more detailed article that jumps into how to fill your swimming pool using a Fire Hydrant that will give you some tips on finding who to contact.
Let’s jump into the actual water quality here because this is what is actually going to affect your time from fill til time to swim. Filling your pool with a fire hydrant can be some very dirty and ugly water coming out of the hydrant. This is because these underground pipes fill with so many contaminants like minerals and sediment. Once the water gets moving through these pipes it kicks up a lot of these nasty things right into your pool water.
The above image is from a Fire Truck which doesn’t seem to have mineral problems but there are some algae or bacteria issues with this water.
What does this mean for your initial clean and shock? It means you will probably have a bit of work in front of you depending on how the pipes in your area are. It might take you an entire day to just clean the sediment.
The time to shock your pool and get the correct balance will heavily depend on your area. I wouldn’t be able to give an exact time estimate since it is so dependent on your city pipes and water. I do feel safe to say you probably won’t have your pool ready to swim at least for a few days using this method.
I will say that your city water will most likely be safe it will just be ugly and could possibly cause damage to your pool if you don’t act quickly to clean that water.
I will give this method a ranking of C- since it fills your pool so quickly. The issues you could face getting the pool cleaned and balanced with possible damage to your pool liner or tile make this method a bit unattractive to me. If you are still considering, you can read more in-depth about filling your pool with a Fire Hydrant in our other article.
Swimming Pool Water Delivery
This method is popular with a lot of my dad’s customers but it doesn’t always come cheap. Especially if you live in a State that deals with water shortages and droughts
Some water delivery companies will simply be getting municipality water from a fire hydrant that they will deliver to your home. If you read what I wrote above about hydrants this makes me very hesitant about using this method if that is the water they will deliver.
Other companies will have potable water that will still need to be balanced of course which will take some time, but you’ll see a reduction in the number of minerals and sediment.
The sexiest option out there is to order pre-chlorinated water. This could make your pool ready to dive into in no time flat. Although this option is rare and more expensive, it does sound so great to have water that is ready to go delivered right into your pool.
Of course, you’ll still need to balance it out after a test but you are not looking at the time and effort compared to any other method of quickly filling your pool.
I love the idea of getting a pool filled quickly. Especially if the water is chlorinated but the cost is the downside here.
You are looking at an average of $40-$60 per 1000 gallons across the US for municipal water delivered by a water truck.
Filling your Pool overnight with a Hose
Well, this is the slowest option but she is my old reliable and most common. Most of my dad’s customers can’t justify the cost of water delivery and have no interest in the potential problems from filling with a hydrant and fire hose.
The water coming from your house or well is safe for your pool but you will need to shock and balance your pool which can take up to a few days depending on your water quality. You can also attach a filter to the hose to reduce the mineral content that you’ll have to balance out later.
Hooking up your hose to the spigot or well, drop your hose in and let the fill begin. It is perfectly fine and recommendable for you to fill overnight unless your fill is close enough to reach the halfway mark on your skimmer before you wake up.
Using a splitter and two hoses we have cut down the fill time for our pool by a few hours so that is an option to save some time if you want to make the small investment. If you have the water pressure, you’ll want to use as short of a hose as possible and a thick ⅝’ diameter hose to get the most water flow possible.
Hopefully, I’ve helped give you a bit more information on the quickest way to fill your pool. In our opinion, I would just use the hose and save yourself some money if your water is good enough.