As summer winds down and temperatures are consistently below 65 degrees, you know the time to close your pool has arrived. While heating your pool and keeping it open might seem easier, it’s not necessarily a good idea in states like West Virginia. We go over the importance of closing your pool properly below and how to winterize your pool from start to finish in just 10 easy steps.
Why Close Your Pool for Winter?
When winter temps get frigid, it puts your pool water at risk of freezing. While this might not sound like an issue at first, it quickly becomes one when you consider that water will expand in its frozen state. If there’s not enough room in between the water and your pool cover to comfortably allow multiple freeze-thaw cycles throughout the season, your pool could become damaged.
Correctly closing your pool before the water freezes is key to preventing premature problems and saving money on cleaning supplies, pool chemicals, and utility expenses to keep your pool clean and warm. Plus, with your pool closed during the winter, you can enjoy months without having to deal with the hassle of cleaning and maintenance.
10 Simple Steps to Winterizing Your Pool
1. Remove pool toys and accessories.
The first step to closing your pool for the season is removing pool toys, floats, ladders, and other objects from the water. It’s a good idea to clean them with a mild soap to remove dirt and chlorine before storing them, but you can just rinse them off with your hose if you’re in a pinch. You should also check these items for damage and make a note to throw out and replace busted equipment, cleaning tools, and accessories.
2. Lower Your Water Levels
Next, you should drain some of the water out of your pool to make space for the rest of it to freeze. You can do this as a last step if you prefer, but lowering your water levels now means there will be less to clean and you won’t need as many chemicals to prepare your pool for the winter.
If you plan on using a mesh pool cover, you’ll usually need to use a pump to reduce the water by 12 to 18 inches below the skimmer basket. For solid pool covers, the water should be no more than 3 to 6 inches below your pool tile. However, it’s important to check the instructions on your pool cover to make sure you’re following the manufacturer’s instructions correctly.
3. Remove debris
Before adding any chemicals to your water, use your pool net to remove leaves, twigs, insects, and other large debris from the surface of the water just like you would normally do when opening your pool or after a storm. You don’t want these objects floating around and getting in the way while you’re trying to clean the rest of the pool.
4. Scrub algae away.
If there’s any algae in the water, you’ll want to take a large brush and scrub it away from the sides and bottom of your pool. This will turn your water green, but don’t worry. You can add floc to the water to make the algae sink and settle at the bottom, where you can easily vacuum it up. Closing a clean pool for the winter helps reduce the growth of more algae and other harmful organisms over the season and makes it easier to open back up in the spring.
5. Check Your Water Chemistry
The next step is to check your water chemistry the same way you would if you were preparing your pool for swimming. Making sure your pool water is the correct pH and has the proper amount of calcium helps it maintain this balance over the winter, which means you’ll need to make fewer adjustments next season.
Ideally, your pool’s pH should sit between 7.2 and 7.8 with an alkalinity of between 80 and 120 parts per million (ppm) and a calcium hardness of 180 to 220 ppm. Baking soda, which is naturally alkaline, can be added to help improve the stability of your water and make it less acidic. If your pool has too much alkalinity, you can add hydrochloric acid. Finally, calcium chloride can be added in its granular form to manage hardness levels.
6. Do a shock treatment.
Chlorine shock treatment is just as essential for preventing the growth of bacteria and mold over the winter as it is for preparing your pool in the summer. Since you don’t have to worry about the water being safe enough for swimming afterwards though, you can use a more powerful shock that temporarily brings your chlorine levels to 10 to 12 ppm.
As the water circulates and unwanted organisms are eliminated, these levels will return to a normal 1.5 to 3.5 ppm, and your pool will be clean, clear, and free of bacteria.
7. Treat with Algaecide
You may have scrubbed away existing algae and shocked the bacteria away, but neither of these things do much to prevent new algae from forming. To do this, you’ll need to treat your pool with a separate algaecide before closing it down. Make sure your chlorine levels are low enough, though, since you don’t want to add algaecide at the same time as the shock.
8. Use Scale and Stain Prevention
This is also a good time to add scale and stain prevention to your water. Scale buildup occurs when your water chemistry levels are out of balance and causes a white, chalky substance to accumulate at your pool’s waterline. In addition to making sure your water has the correct pH, calcium, and alkalinity levels, adding scale prevention helps keep your pool cleaner during the winter and reduces the amount of work it takes to open.
9. Winterize Pool Equipment
Taking steps to winterize your pool plumbing and equipment, like your skimmer lines, can help keep them from bursting when temperatures drop below freezing. To do this, you’ll need a wet/dry shop vacuum that you can use to blow or vacuum stagnant water out of the lines. Then, you can seal them with expansion plugs to prevent water from getting back in.
10. Cover Your Pool
The final step to closing your pool is to cover it with a durable, UV-resistant, and childproof cover. It should fit well and be difficult to stretch or lift up to access the water below. Make a habit of checking the cover every month and after storms to be sure it’s still tight.
Considerations to Make for Above Ground Pools
For the most part, you’ll follow the same steps to close your pool, whether it’s above or below ground. With above-ground pools, however, you’ll need to put an air pillow underneath the cover in the middle of your pool. This helps create additional space for ice expansion and absorbs the weight of snow accumulation after winter storms.
Don’t close your pool for the season without having a plan for how you’ll open it back up. Contact us at Taylor Farms LLC in Inwood, WV to learn more about filling your pool fast or to schedule your spring pool water delivery in advance.
