Despite what Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys may tell
you, the summer is not endless and sometimes you'll have to close up your pool
for the cold weather months.
If you live in a warmer climate with an extremely low
frequency of below freezing temperatures, you don't need to be quite so
aggressive when winterizing your pool.
But in colder climates--anywhere with more than two weeks of days with
below freezing weather, on average--you need to be aggressive indeed to make sure
that your pool's entire underground pipe system is completely cleaned out of
water. If water freezes underground
during the winter, it'll crack your pipes, allowing water to leak into the
earth surrounding your pool. If that
happens, expect to pay plenty in repairs, and expect to have a useless hole in
the ground while you wait for everything to be fixed.
The steps to winterizing your pool are as follows:
- Backwash
your pool filter thoroughly. Drain
out any filter tanks, disconnect any cartridge filters, and shop vac any
filter connections in order to ensure that all of the water is gone.
- Disconnect
your pool pump and filter. Make
sure, again, that there's no water remaining in the pump.
- Loosen
all pipe fittings in your filtration system to make sure that no water
collects, expands, and cracks the pipes.
- Remove
the skimmer baskets entirely and store them in a safe place.
- Hook
up a shop vac to the pipe fittings in the filtration system (again, make
sure that the pump and filter are out of the picture at this point, or
face futility.) Blow out all of the
water from the return pipe system first: when you see air bubbles start to
form in the pool water, you'll know that the pipe is cleared out. Plug the water returns tightly on the
side of the pool.
- Do
the same for the skimmer baskets and the vacuum port. "Gizzmos" are fittings
specially designed for winterizing skimmer baskets, and should be used to
plug the skimmer basket drains.
- Blow
all of the water out of the main drains.
Since it's impossible to conveniently plug the main drains in the
pool itself, quickly plug the main drain pipes in your filter area. This should create an air-tight seal
which will prevent most water from breaking into the underground main
drain pipes over the winter.
- Wait
a minute, you've been saying through the last three points. I don't have a shop vac. Okay.
It's not as good of an option since you're not getting rid of all
of the underground water, but you can avoid having to blow out any pipes
by simply draining water from your pool until the water is below the
skimmer basket level. This can
cause stress on your pool basin and leaves you vulnerable to some types of
ice damage, so if you can blow the water out of your pipes, do it. But if you can't and you feel like
taking risks, go for this option.
- Once
all of the drains are closed up, add winterizing chemicals (available at a
pool supply store) to the pool water.
Make sure you add a shock treatment as well, since in order to keep
the pool safe over the winter, you'll need to keep the chlorine content of
the water extremely high (ideally around 3 ppm, or triple the normal level
of combined chlorine.)
- Place
a winter cover over the pool. If
your pool cover has ripped during the summer, don't take chances: replace
it!
- Keep
an eye on your pool cover over the winter.
If water collects on the top of it after a rainfall or for any
other reason, make sure to clean the water out. The pool cover will start to corrode due
to the standing water and can buckle at the edges, making it impossible to
keep the water in the pool as warm as it needs to be over the cold winter
months.
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