Time To Think About Winterizing Your Swimming Pool Already?

25 Aug Time To Think About Winterizing Your Swimming Pool Already?

Winterizing Revisited

From Aqua

It seems crazy to think about, but the swimming season is nearly over for a good portion of the country.  The Northern and Midwestern regions of the United States really only have 3-4 months for swimming, and then the harsh winters take over and the pool sits dormant for the remainder of the year.  What people that live in the sunbelt don’t understand is that swimming pools are treated differently in these colder regions; not only in terms of construction methods but in terms of summerizing and winterizing the swimming pools, processes of which are unnecessary in the sunbelt.  This post from Aqua magazine revisits the means and methods for winterizing pools.

Here is an excerpt from the post:

Among pool-loving homeowners in the North, instead of the traditional four seasons, there are only two. When the kids are splashing around in backyard, and the sunsets last forever, that’s pool season. And then someone from the service company comes and works for a while in the backyard, heralding the second season, in which the pool is closed.

It’s that simple for the homeowner. For them, the pool has been put on a shelf for six to eight months, after which it will be brought down, dusted off and brought to life again sometime before Memorial Day.

But the service person knows that a pool in winter is not a souvenir of good times that sits on a shelf, inert, until you reach for it again.

If winter conditions were consistent, if the temperature would simply drop to 20 degrees and stay there, that approach might work — but there are late winters, light winters, downright warm winters and winters that send temperatures fluctuating by more than 50 degrees in a continuous freeze-thaw cycle. So the best approach is to assume nothing and adjust to the manifest conditions.

The typical winterizing procedure includes chemical balance — pH between 7.2 and 7.6; total alkalinity between 80 to 120 ppm, calcium hardness 175 to 250 ppm — and either superchlorination or a good dose of chlorine-free shock. After chlorine levels come down (if a chlorine shock was used), a winterizing algaecide is added. A partial drain down may be included, along with a plumbing line blow-out to keep those pipes from freezing and cracking, a plug in the holes, a dose of pool-grade antifreeze and a cover over the pool surface.

Click here to read the entire post