Winter Pool Maintenence

Let’s be honest whether or not you live in the south, swimming is or has already come to an end. If you own a pool it’s about to lie completely dormant during the fall and winter months and your pool maintenance is about to become a chore with no tangible pay-off for the next couple of months. You can’t just stop maintaining your pool altogether… I mean you could try that, but it’s not a particularly good idea, so what are you going to do?

The first step is to Winterize your pool. This means doing one final thorough cleaning of your pool, getting rid of any debris and dirt from inside or around it. Make sure your filter and pump are clean and in good condition. Check your pools chemistry, and if you have a cover, clean it off and cover up the pool.  

After this point your maintenance schedule changes a bit. It lessens significantly, so there is that. Still clean the area and check on the pump at least once a month to keep your pool clean and the mechanisms in good working order. The next change in your maintenance is to check your water chemistry once every other week. Stagnant, standing water is a breeding ground for bacteria, mold, algae, and mosquitoes so run the pump for a couple of hours, once a week to keep things from growing.

Use an enzyme product to help break down non-living contamination and prevent a waterline ring from forming. Adding this product will save you from having to scrub your pool tile or finish when opening your pool in the spring.

Upkeeping pool maintenance during the winter may seem tedious and pointless, especially since it’s not currently being used. However, it’ll save you a lot of money and a whole lot of trouble in the long run. Leaving a pool unchecked over the winter months is a good way to let structural damage and filth build up without notice, causing a giant headache come spring when you feel like taking a dip in the lovely pool you paid for that is anything but lovely now. Keep up with your maintenance over the winter, I promise it’ll be worth it.

Pool maintenece

Summer is coming quickly to a close for those of us who live in the south. It’s too late for most of y'all who
live any further north than North Carolina, but it’s still 70 degrees in Georgia! Which means we have one
last chance to enjoy summer activities. Yes, it’s time to take our final trips out to the pool. However, after
a long season swimming and frolicking in our respective pools, it’s far past time to wonder, what kind of
shape are they in?

I’m hoping that you’ve been maintaining a fairly regular pool maintenance schedule. If not… ew, but it’s
not too late to start. Pools actually don’t require a lot of care, if you have been keeping a schedule. If not
well… it’s a royal pain in the butt and most of your equipment is probably in tatters and needs to be
replaced. So, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to write out a schedule for you and you can decide
if or when you’re going to follow it or not. Making you do maintenance for your pool isn’t my job, but
I can eliminate the planning step for you.

Every to Every other Day

Spot clean: Get your weird fish butterfly net thing with the long handle and remove the random junk from
your pool. I suggest doing a quick sweep every day to keep it from building up or every other day if your
yard and pool doesn’t collect much debris.

Check Water Level: Your pool is outside and it contains water. Water evaporates and it rains. Just do a
quick check to make sure that the water level isn’t too low or too high for your equipment to run properly.

Clean out the basket. The basket is like a filter it doesn’t necessarily need to be changed but it does need
to be cleaned. This can also be done a little less than every other day as well depending on how much debris
regularly ends up in your yard or pool. So, if you don’t have any trees you may be lucky (if you’re not
bothered by the lack of shade).

Weekly: If you already have a regular once a week cleaning day then just add these to your list of chores.

Clean the perimeter:  All the dirt collecting outside your pool will eventually migrate into your pool.
Again, ew. Do you know how much of that water ends up in your mouth? Let’s just avoid as much of that
as possible.

Vacuum the pool bottom. Get all the stuff you weren’t fast enough to get during the week and has now
ended up in the depths of your pool. Pay special attention to the corners to collect all the build-up, ‘cause
ew. Then collect all the stragglers at the bottom and your done.

Shock the pool. Your pool is standing water, think about that. Standing water readily collects and grows all
sorts of thing like algae, mold, bacteria, etc. Raise the chlorine level to 5 or 10 ppm just to kill off anything
nasty multiplying in your water and on the water’s surface.  A DPD test kit can help detect levels of
combined chlorine, you can break it up by shocking the water to a level 10 times the tested level when
combined chlorine exceeds 0.3 ppm.

Check pool chemistries. There’s a lot going on in your pool on a mineral and chemical level. At least once
a week you need to go out and test the chemistries in your pool. You can even leave the tests to do their thing
as you get other chores done. Just once a week, make sure your pH, total chlorine, alkalinity, calcium,
cyanuric acid, and saturation index are on point.

Clean your filter/Check the Pressure. Check your pressure gauge. I say to do this weekly because the times
you may actually need to clean the filter could fluctuate. Just check the pressure and if it’s between 5 to 10 psi
higher than normal, it’s time to actually clean the filter

Monthly:

Look for tears in the liner. A torn liner means leaking water and unstable water levels and other various
problems. If you don’t get it fixed fast enough the problem can exacerbate itself. When you commit to a vinyl
liner you commit to patching up any holes it may collect in it.

Clean the pump room. Yeah, do that. Dust off the mechanics and their surrounding areas and keep
everything running properly.  

Clean your skimmer. Using a scrubbing sponge and soap, clean the scum and dirt out of the skimmer’s throat
and well.

Check all pump seals and safety equipment. You actively need all of these things to be working for safety reasons. Tighten all the bolts and such. Just a once around to make sure everything is in working order.