How to determine adequate surge capacity?
The rule of thumb is to allow one gallon of storage for every square foot of surface area, although some state codes use other methods. Pools with large shallow areas (zero depth, etc. ), for example, have a higher percentage of surface area as it relates to the total volume in gallons, so obviously the one gallon per square foot of surface area requirement would be far higher than for a standard six lane pool of the same volume, which doesn’t make much sense. Surge weirs allow the pool to function as its own surge tank by allowing the water to be skimmed below the rim when the pool is empty; when swimmers enter, the water level rises, the weirs close automatically, and surge is carried over the rim into the gutter channel. In general, using surge weirs will allow the most pools to get close to the surge capacity requirement without adding a surge tank, since the overflow channel can also be figured in to make up the difference. Paddock’s Compak vacuum sand filter also doubles as a sur
