Winterizing Your Pool Means Summer is Over: Winterize Your Pool the Correct Way
Clean it!
You should always clean your pool thoroughly before covering it up for the winter. We would vacuum the pool completely and let the filter run constantly until the pool seemed clean. There are two good reasons to do this:
1) You don’t want to have extra work cleaning your pool when next summer comes!
2) There are some bugs that live in the water and survive. Gross, I know, but if you leave your pool uncleaned all winter they are likely to find their way in and be there until next summer!
This step is pretty self explanatory. Take whatever steps to clean your pool that you would do if you were about to swim in it. You should also clean the cover with a power washer and hang it to dry before using it. This is because your cover may have gotten moldy or musty as it sat all summer long.
Drain it!
We were told never to drain the pool all the way, but we were also told not to leave it full. The more water you have in the pool, the more chemicals you’ll need to keep it clean all winter. We always drained our pool to the half way point. This also helps as the next summer we have 1/2 of fresh new water put into our pool. You’ll have to check with your pool store to see how much (if any) they suggest you drain, but I suggest 1/2 of the water should go.
Take it apart!
Now it’s time to take everything apart. This means taking off the ladder (if you have one) and taking off the filter. We put the entire filter away all winter. If you leave the filter or your ladder floating in the idle water all winter, they will likely rust quite a bit and leave you with a mess the following summer. You should also make sure there are no pool toys in the pool as they may get rusty or warped if they are left there.
Cover it!
Covering a big pool takes a lot of effort, and a group of people. We had a family of 4 always working at this together which can be hard with a round pool! Make sure you have a nice big cover that is bigger in diameter than your pool by at least a few feet. You need it to not only cover, but hang over.
You also probably need a heavy duty cover if you live in a snowy area as I do. Don’t use some thin flimsy see-through cover. Get the heavy one! Our cover also had little tabs and a rope that would go all the way around the pool so you could tighten it and hold it in place.
Some people like to throw a tire or other heavy floating object into the pool before covering it. This helps the cover stay afloat a little more so that even when leaves fall they aren’t putting too much pressure on the cover. We didn’t do this, even though our neighbors did, but mostly because we didn’t have a tire to waste.
Hold it down!
We learned early on that the cover is not going to stay on without a little help As snow and leaves piled into our cover, it would simply slip off. The tightened rope didn’t really help. Our solution? We used bottles filled with water. Throughout the year, we saved our chemical bottles. When it was time to winterize, we would fill these with water and attach strong hooks to them. Then we hung bottles around the back (hidden) part of our pool onto the rope that held the cover down. We went about 3/4 of the way around the pool with these bottles because we wanted to avoid seeing them in the front. This worked out great every year and we never again had a cover slip off!
Clean the Cover!
You’ll find that as fall and winter progress, it’s best to keep your cover clean as possible. If our cover filled with leaves, we used a net to pull as many out as we could. If it filled with water, we put a drain in to take out as much as possible. You can’t do much about snow – until it turns to water of course! We found that by doing this consistently our cover didn’t drop into the pool so much. It also made the cover last longer as some of our covers simply became too weak and stretched out from the pressure of the leaves and water.
Unwinterize it!
When summer comes you’ll likely want to just rip off the cover and get to swimming. You can’t do this! You have to follow the steps to “winterize” in backwards order. First clean your cover, the cleaner the cover the less likely stuff will fall into the pool as you take it off. Then take off all the bottles and ropes. Remove the cover by folding it a little at a time, this way anything that may still be on the cover will be folded into it and not fall in the pool. Put everything together, put the ladder and the filter back in. Fill up the pool with fresh water and fresh chemicals. Clean your pool again before swimming in it. Lay your cover out on the grass and (using a power washer) clean it as best you can. Finally, hang it to dry and put it away til next fall!
Conclusion
It’s easy to just throw a cover on the pool and be done with it, but you are less likely to have anything go wrong if you take the time to do it right. Would you rather spend the time putting on the cover the right way? or worry about cleaning up the mess that happens because you did it wrong? Hire a few family members as this is not something you can do alone. Get the kids involved! It’s their pool anyway, isn’t it? Making the kids help with this process will really make them appreciate the pool more when next summer comes. So get to work covering your pool the right way this coming winter.
